Wedding in the Family
By
Susan Alexander
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WEDDING IN THE FAMILY
Ever since her sister Monica had stolen her fiancé Philip, Davina had virtually been cut off from her family. Now Monica and Philip were getting married, and Davina didn't know how she could face going to the wedding. Would it help to pretend, as he suggested, that her boss Jake Humphries was her fiancé, and take him along for moral support, or would that only lead to more trouble?
First published 1981
Australian copyright 1981
Philippine copyright 1981
This edition 1981
© Susan Alexander 1981
ISBN 0 263 73572 9
CHAPTER ONE
Davina turned out the lights and closed the office door firmly behind her. The slim gold watch on her wrist registered six-thirty, and she heaved a deep sigh of relief. After weeks of late-night working her first free evening stretched ahead, and she thought with longing of the hot bath and supper in front of the television she had promised herself.
Ignoring the open doors of the lift, she decided to walk the three flights down to her car. As her heels clicked rhythmically on the marble steps of the modern skyscraper, the weariness and depression hit her suddenly like a tidal wave. It was always the same, she thought. Everyone functioned at fever pitch to see the job through, working early and late, weekends when necessary, to meet the deadline. When suddenly it was all over came the depression, the exhaustion, the nosedive into a black vacuum, a void where even eating and sleeping became too much of an effort. They all knew it would happen, and yet they still overwound, dragging from their reserves the energy and freshness to stay in top gear in spite of desperate tiredness.
And yet it was her life and she loved it. She had been with the Foster Patterson Advertising Agency for nearly two years and Jake Humphries' personal assistant for almost half that time. Jake Humphries was not only the senior accounts director at the agency, but was heading for the post of managing director whenever Mark Foster decided to retire. All the most important accounts were handled by Jake Humphries and his team of accounts managers and executives.
That afternoon the weeks of hard effort had suddenly seemed well worthwhile when Davina checked the boardroom, ready and waiting for the presentation. The shining, polished mahogany table flanked by leather up-holstered chairs gleamed in the sunlight on the seventh floor. A copy of the campaign schedule prepared by Jake lay neatly at each place. Round the walls on baize-covered pin-boards ranged the charts, the layouts and sketches showing packaging ideas, colours, slogans and lettering examples. Mock-ups of artwork for magazine advertisements were pinned side by side with story-boards for television commercials and more sketches illustrating audience targets.
Presenting an advertising campaign for a new product was never easy. The client was well aware that the agency badly wanted the account and arrived waiting to be persuaded. The sessions had gone without a hitch. Jake was fluent and never once consulted his notes, working entirely from memory. He introduced his report, summarising, indicating how the agency would build the image for the product, calling on the media director and the creative director to enlarge on their own areas of work, and ended with his analysis of the costs involved.
Two hours later the client had gone, impressed with the quality of the work, complimenting Jake, and sending thanks to all concerned. But there had been no hint of a decision, and none was expected at this stage. Everyone was aware that other agencies were bidding for the account. Although a new teenage perfume was not a major product, it was important for Fosters to get it, to feel the client had the confidence in Jake and the agency to entrust them with a new product.
That evening there would be a discreet dinner with Mark Foster and his wife dining the chairman of the company. Jake would be there with one of his lovelies, Davina mused, grinning slightly. She wondered if it would be the beautiful, dark-haired and dark-eyed Andrea Temple. She was the current steady, and there were bets going in the agency that, because she had lasted longer than any of her predecessors, she might just get Jake Humphries to the altar.
On the ground floor Davina smiled briefly at the night porter just coming on duty in his glass cubicle. Leaving the chrome tower with its blind, tinted windows, she stepped into a warm and balmy evening, the dusk darkening round her as she made her way to the car park.
As she unlocked her black baby Fiat, her tired eyes were dazzled for a moment as the lights sprang up in the building she had just left. Floor by floor came to life as the cleaners took over the empty offices. She backed out of the car park, heading for North London and home just as the Foster Patterson Advertising came to ghostly life in large blue neon lettering above the main swing doors.
The car felt good, and she reflected again how lucky she was—a job she liked, her own flat and the car, nice clothes and even a gold watch to which she had treated herself on her last birthday. Not many girls of her age in London had it so good.
And yet she had worked for it. When she first came to London, drained and miserable, a scraggy nineteen-year-old, in a strange town and cut off from everything loved and familiar, she had nothing except a tentative booking at a youth hostel and a good reference for her typing and shorthand skills. But she had been determined not to feel sorry for herself. Early the first morning she had bought the likely-looking papers and marked up the employment agencies. By lunchtime she had a temporary job, and she continued temping for the following six weeks. Several of the firms where she worked had offered her permanent employment, but she had continued to trudge round different offices getting—as she later realised—valuable experience of business and people.
After a week she had moved to a basement bedsitter in Victoria, but found the area depressing with little green to enjoy at weekends. When she finally accepted a job in the small typing pool at Foster Patterson, working for Shirley Harris, the pool supervisor, she began to look for more permanent accommodation. This took time because she was adamant about not sharing. She valued her privacy above all things, and saved hard to put together a month's rent in advance and a deposit on a flat.
As soon as she saw the two large, light and airy rooms with balcony at the top of Mrs Blunt's house in Hampstead she had decided. The shared bathroom brought the rent just within her means and she had moved in the following week. Gradually she had added her own possessions, hunting in markets, jumble sales and secondhand shops for rugs, pictures, vases and odd glasses and bits of pottery, until she felt the flat was really hers and looked forward to coming home in the evenings. It did not take long after that to put down roots, in Hampstead where she was happy to shop and wander at weekends and at the agency where she was popular with the girls because she was not pushy and never applied for secretarial jobs when they were offered.
As she filled out and her looks improved there was no shortage of invitations from the smooth young executives in the offices. Some she accepted and others she politely declined. But she was never involved. When any of them demanded more than she was prepared to give, she would stop seeing them, and some wondered at the guarded look in her eyes even when she was laughing and gay. One or two resented this reserve, and one, David Hallam, had become serious rather quickly and had tried to delve into her past. Her last evening with him had not been pleasant. When she had refused to be drawn and retreated from him, he h
ad accused her of being frigid, a prude and, worse, a tease. Davina did not respond to the insults, but she had been upset. She had managed to control her feelings until he had driven her home when he tried more than a tentative pass in his car. Dishevelled and more than a little overwrought, she had fled up the stairs, crying heavily, and subsided only after reaching the sanctuary of her flat, where she locked herself in. Since David she had not gone out with anyone else.
And then suddenly the even tenor of her life had changed. It began one Friday morning when she came in to work and Shirley Harris had caught her.
'Oh, Davina, I'm glad you're early, dear. Don't take off your coat. You're working upstairs today for Georgina Ward. Let me see,' she consulted a file in her hand, 'that's room 501. You're to fill in for the secretary who's ill, so you might be up there for several days.'
Davina blinked nervously.
'Shirley, does it have to be me? I'd really rather stay here,' she said anxiously.
'Yes, dear, it has to be you. You're my best typist and that's what I was asked to supply. So off you go!' She looked at Davina, who still hadn't moved. 'There's no need to be nervous,' she smiled reassuringly. 'No one's going to eat you. You'll only be doing exactly what you do down here, that's all. And I believe Georgina is very nice to work for.'
The fifth floor, Davina knew, was reserved for the high-powered in the agency, and room 501 when she got to it proclaimed in large letters the words 'Jake Humphries'. She knocked and walked in when the pleasant 'Come in' sounded through the door.
There were two desks in the room, which was sunny and restfully decorated in soft brown and beige tones with fitted carpet, stylish modern coat rack, filing cabinets to tone with the walls and, in one corner, a tiny kitchenette behind louvred doors.
Georgina Ward, Davina guessed, was about thirty, tall, elegantly dressed in a smoky grey flannel suit with white silk shirt. Her short curly blonde hair was stylishly cut, and her make-up was impeccable. Blue eyes regarded Davina steadily for a moment as she stood hesitating in the doorway.
'You must be Davina Richards,' she said, unwinding long, silk-clad legs and walking towards Davina with outstretched hand. 'Do come and sit down… here, let me take your coat.' She hung up Davina's coat and gestured to a chair by her desk.
'I wish we could have a chat, but we're so frantic at the moment there's not the time. I'm hoping I can just throw you in at the deep end and let you get on with it. If you're with us a little while you'll soon pick up the gist of things, and perhaps there'll be more time to talk in a day or so.'
The bell buzzed on her desk and she flicked the intercom. A deep masculine voice sounded impatiently.
'Has that wretched girl turned up yet, Georgie?'
Davina flushed a deep crimson with embarrassment, and Georgina winked at her.
'Yes, Jake, just arrived.'
'At last!' the voice continued smoothly. 'Settle her quickly and come in, there's a good girl.' The intercom clicked off.
'Right.' Georgina picked up a file from her desk. 'This is the most urgent job. The script has to be typed and finished today. Here's the original, and I've sorted out a sample to show you how to set it out.'
Davina murmured that she had done scripts before.
'That's great, because you won't be seeing much of me today. There's paper and everything you'll need in your desk. I've emptied the bottom drawer for your personal things, and you can help yourself to coffee. Only make sure there's always fresh for the boss. If the phone rings when I'm not here, just take a message and leave it for me. Your lunch hour today you can just take when you want. Any questions?'
'No, thank you,' Davina said politely.
'Good. I'll leave you to it. I hope you enjoy your time with us,' said Georgina with a smile, and, picking up files, notebook and pencils, she disappeared through the inner door behind her desk.
Umpteen cups of coffee and weary hours later Davina looked up from the final checking of the finished script. The time on the wall clock was seven-fifteen. She heaved a sigh of relief and stacked the script carefully on Georgina's desk. There had been no one in the office since four o'clock, and she left all the messages laid out before she picked up her coat and, with a last glance round the room, switched off the lights and opened the door.
The inner office door opened suddenly, and she turned to see a man silhouetted in the doorway, the light from a desk lamp behind him, his face in darkness.
'Who the hell are you?' his irate voice demanded.
'I'm Davina Richards,' she answered quietly, 'and I've been working for Georgina today… there's no need to swear,' she finished coolly, and made to leave.
'Just a moment!' The clipped tones were a command. He came into the office and switched on the lights, and Davina had her first look at Jake Humphries.
He was big—there was no other way to describe him. He was not just tall, but broad-shouldered, deep-chested and long-legged. He had discarded his coat and tie, but even in shirt sleeves and hip-hugging smooth trousers it was obvious he was a powerful man. His face was deeply tanned with a jutting and clefted chin above which a sculpted, wide mouth now moved into a slightly mocking smile. A strong aquiline nose below dark straight eyebrows which were drawn into a slight frown and set above deep grey eyes almost the same colour as her own, Davina noted absently. Thick, jet black hair with some flecks of grey swept back from the wide forehead and curled slightly into the collar.
He was a man with endless self-confidence and totally male. And also, she judged, a man with no need whatever to prove his masculinity to anyone. It was so strongly virile, it was almost tangible, and she withdrew slightly from it.
As she was studying him she became aware of his gaze. He looked her over from the top of her auburn hair, heavily coiled into her neck, down her slender figure and long legs, his eyes returning to her face and the wide grey eyes, the tiptilted nose and creamy skin. His look lingered on the soft curve of her mouth, so that Davina coloured slightly and put her firm chin up at him.
'I apologise,' he drawled. 'I had no idea there was anyone still here. You've been very quiet. Why didn't I hear the typewriter?'
'I finished typing some time ago. For the last two hours I've been checking the script.'
'Are you from the typing pool?' he demanded suddenly.
She nodded.
'Right,' he said dismissively, I'll see you Monday.' He turned away and with a crisp 'Goodnight' he went back into his office and closed the door.
After that day events moved swiftly. Georgina's secretary never reappeared and Davina found herself working so hard she had no time to worry about returning to the typing pool. Within a month she had became a permanent member of the Humphries team. She met Mike Davies, the shy, slim accounts manager, with a shock of blond hair and a soft voice. She liked him on sight and was soon invited to his home to meet his petite dark wife, Susan, and their two small black-eyed daughters, for whom she would baby-sit to give Mike and Susan a chance to go out in the evenings. Charlie Clarke was the young trainee accounts executive of the group, wild-eyed, red-haired and a real wolf. He was witty and very bright with an assured future in advertising ahead of him and an ambition to match his talents. Then there was Georgina and her husband Larry, himself in advertising with a media consultancy. They became very special friends in those early months and took Davina about with them in the advertising world. Larry was a good deal older than his wife with an unhappy marriage and divorce behind him, and he adored and cosseted Georgina with every look and gesture.
After a time Davina invited them up for the odd scratch meal, until her dinners became a regular part of the team's social life and her cooking an endless topic for banter and chat.
And at work there was Jake Humphries himself, demanding from all of them their very best, refusing to tolerate anything less. His standards were high, and anyone who fell below them was somehow no longer on the team, finding themselves with other groups, transferred to different jobs. Members of the team were
envied and resented by many in the agency, but there were some who sighed with relief that they had more tolerant and less demanding bosses.
Davina's own initiation ceremony came about six weeks after she joined them. One morning she was told she would accompany Jake on a presentation in Georgina's stead. They went into his office for the briefing, and she was exposed to one of his famous scrutinies.
'All right,' he said briskly, 'turn around.'
She had done so, feeling exceedingly foolish.
'No, not like that!' he said sharply. 'Slowly.'
She tried again.
'Take it easy, Jake, 'Georgina pointed out, 'this is all new to Davina.'
'What?' he looked at Georgina, his mind obviously elsewhere, 'what do you mean? Oh, yes, I see.' He turned impatiently back to Davina. 'I don't really know where to start.' He came up to her, standing close. 'Your hair—' he went on slowly, and reached out to touch it with his fingers. She flinched away, but he didn't seem to notice, engrossed in his own thoughts.
'Mm, don't have it cut,' he said next, 'but try and have it done differently, not so severe and tightly back from the face.'
'Why don't I take her to Antoine?' Georgina suggested. 'He'll know what to do about it.
'What a good idea.' Jake was relieved. 'Now,' he went on with his impersonal inspection, 'it isn't any one thing. It's the way you think about yourself… the walk, the carriage.' He paused for a moment. 'You know, you're a beautiful girl,' he said in surprise, 'but you don't look as though you know it.' He stepped back. 'And you must get rid of those clothes,' he ended.
Davina's face went a bright red. 'I don't think all this is necessary just for one occasion,' she said acidly.
'Mm…?' he queried, and looked into her face, noting her heightened colour. For a moment, grey eyes met grey and Davina felt a strange electric tension crackle between them. Then his eyes were veiled, his head thrown back in a familiar posture and she looked away.
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