At the Boss's Command

by Darcy Maguire

  She was rambling. She knew she was. Jemima bit her lip and made a conscious decision to stop. Miles wouldn’t be interested.

  ‘Is he going to deal with the roof?’

  Jemima turned back to look at him, her eyes wide with surprise. ‘Of course not. It’s my responsibility now.’

  No one had ever asked anything like that before. It made such a change for someone not to be impressed at how ‘great’ Russell was being about everything. She was just a little tired of being grateful to the man who had torn her family apart for no other reason than that he’d felt bored.

  ‘How far have you got with everything else?’ Miles asked, his shoes loud on the tiled floor.

  Jemima pulled a face and switched on the light further down the hall. ‘See for yourself.’

  Miles said nothing. He didn’t need to. Jemima was acutely aware of how much still needed to be done. There was still painted woodchip paper in the hallway and even gloss paint over what she was sure would be original tiles in the fireplace in the sitting room.

  ‘It’s coming on,’ she said bravely. ‘The kitchen is basically finished and I’ve just had a new bathroom fitted in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Maybe I’ll think about re-roofing the house next.’

  If she won the lottery, she added silently. Or accepted yet more help from her family.

  This was embarrassing. Why the blazes had she asked him in for coffee? Jemima caught sight of herself in the hall mirror and ran a despairing hand through her red curls. She looked a mess too. Like some kind of Muppet.

  They walked through to the kitchen, with its sleek maple units and dark worktops. Her eyes instinctively turned to the one thing that was different—the small puddle on the central island. Her eyes moved upwards to take in the damp stain on the papered ceiling and she watched a single drip fall down. ‘Oh—’

  ‘Damn,’ Miles finished for her.

  ‘Something like that,’ she agreed, dropping her handbag. For a moment Jemima couldn’t decide what to do and then she hurried into the redundant bathroom and returned with a red plastic bucket. Perfect. Just perfect. First the car, now this. ‘Why does this always happen to me? I ricochet from one disaster to another.’

  ‘It happens to everyone,’ Miles replied with infuriating calmness. He slipped off his jacket and threw it carelessly across one of the high bar stools. ‘It’s one of the joys of owning property, but it’s usually better than it looks.’

  Jemima plonked the bucket on top of the worktop and then searched for some kitchen towel to wipe up the water already there. ‘In my experience, it’s almost always worse,’ she muttered.

  He didn’t seem to be listening. His eyes were fixed on the stain on the ceiling. ‘Have you got something sharp to make a hole? I reckon you ought to let the water out and contain the damage.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘It looks like it’s collecting up there. Water always finds a level,’ he explained patiently. ‘It’ll spread and become more of a problem if you leave it until you can get hold of a plumber.’

  Spread. Just great. Of course, she knew water always found its own level—it was just she hadn’t connected that fact with a leaking ceiling. Jemima went back out to the old bathroom and rummaged through her tool box. She picked out a bradawl. It probably had a very specific use in the hands of an expert, but it also looked like the kind of thing that would be excellent for making a hole in a papered ceiling.

  ‘Do you want me to do it?’ Miles asked as she returned.

  ‘No.’ Jemima slipped off her shoes and climbed on to the central island. ‘If there’s got to be a hole in my ceiling, I’ll do it.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  His voice was so bland that she looked down at him. ‘I know your mother would be proud,’ she said.

  Miles laughed.

  ‘This isn’t funny.’

  ‘It’s not bad from where I’m standing.’

  Jemima ignored him, shut her eyes and pushed hard. It took a fairly stiff twist before she managed to make a hole. Almost immediately, water started to trickle down into the bucket below. With gritted teeth, she used the bradawl to make the hole bigger.

  ‘That’ll do it.’

  ‘It’s wrecked the ceiling paper,’ Jemima observed as she looked at her handiwork, feeling a sudden unexpected desire to cry. She really didn’t want to do that in front of Miles. It would be the final indignity and he must already think she was a walking disaster area.

  ‘That’s cheap to sort.’

  She climbed down and drew an irritated hand across her eyes. What was the matter with her? She didn’t usually allow the house to get her down. She only felt like crying because she was so tired. In the morning this would all look so much better…

  ‘It’s slowing down.’

  ‘Is it?’ Jemima asked doubtfully, looking back up at the damp mess of her ceiling.

  ‘I know it looks like a lot of water at the moment, but I’m fairly sure it’s not going to be a major problem. How long ago did you have your bathroom fitted?’

  ‘The plumber finished a couple of days ago.’ She couldn’t believe it! Two days. Damn it! It just wasn’t fair…

  ‘Then it’s probably no more serious than he dislodged something while he was doing the job. Give him a ring on Monday.’

  ‘And you’re the expert?’ Jemima said, finally irritated by his…smug calmness. Everybody was always so good at making light of problems that weren’t their own.

  ‘Not specifically in plumbing, but in renovating houses.’ His blue eyes glinted as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. ‘I’m on my sixth.’

  ‘Sixth?’

  ‘House,’ he said with a smile. ‘In ten years. Do you want to check upstairs? I doubt there’ll be anything to see, but you ought to look.’

  She hated that he was right. She should have thought of that for herself. Jemima put the bradawl down on the worktop and padded barefoot across the kitchen and up the stairs. The bathroom looked as chaotic as she’d left it. The welkin blue footprints were still on the vinyl floor waiting to be cleared up, but there was no sign of any leak.

  She took a deep breath and returned to the kitchen.

  Miles looked up as she walked in. ‘Well?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She glanced up at the ceiling. ‘You wouldn’t know anything had happened.’

  He smiled, the blue eyes crinkling at the edges. ‘That’s good. It’s unlikely to be an expensive job. So, what about that coffee?’

  Jemima found she automatically turned towards the kettle. She filled it with water and flicked the switch before asking curiously, ‘Do you really renovate houses? I mean personally?’

  His smile intensified. ‘You really don’t think a lot of me, do you, Ms Chadwick?’

  ‘Apart from the dandelion thing, I haven’t thought about you at all,’ she responded quickly. More reflex action than anything else, but as soon as the words had left her mouth she wished she hadn’t said them. The poor guy had given her a lift home, had stayed while she sorted out the latest disaster to hit her life…

  She glanced across at him to find he was laughing. ‘I’m sorry—that was rude.’

  ‘Why do you find it surprising I renovate houses? It can be very profitable.’

  She looked over her shoulder to find he’d perched comfortably on one of the high bar stools. He might be wearing jeans, but they weren’t the kind she recognised and they certainly hadn’t come from the high street. ‘Well…’ She frowned.

  ‘Go on, I can take it.’

  Jemima looked across at him and smiled in defeat. ‘You don’t exactly come across as a handyman. I can’t imagine you spending hours stripping wallpaper or tiling.’

  Miles laughed. ‘I’m not bad, but I tend to buy in these days, more than do it myself.’

  ‘Nice to have the choice.’

  ‘That’s what I think,’ he agreed with a smile and her stomach flipped. The realisation hit her that she liked being with him. So often when she was talking to
other people she felt as if she was playing tennis by herself, but with Miles every ball came back with spin. It felt a little dangerous, certainly exciting.

  Jemima turned away and put a teaspoon of coffee granules into a mug. ‘Is instant okay?’

  ‘Fine.’

  He even managed to make that sound as though he meant it. Kingsley and Bressington had beautiful coffee—expensive, rich and freshly ground. Jemima straightened her shoulders and tried not to think about it. ‘You do know black coffee stains your teeth?’

  ‘So I’m told.’

  Jemima felt her mouth curve into a smile. She almost didn’t mind about the leak. How did Miles do that? In the space of one evening he’d gone from a temporary boss she didn’t much like to someone who felt like a friend. Almost. He was too unsettling to be something as comfortable as a friend.

  She put milk in her own coffee, followed by a sweetener, before she turned round to find he was watching her. She passed him his coffee with a hand that shook slightly.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Miles made her feel self-conscious. It was something in his expression. Something she didn’t quite understand. Something that made her breath shallow and her voice sound as though it were catching on cobwebs.

  ‘I—I did wonder whether I could take that out,’ Jemima said, looking at the old chimney-breast, ‘and make a big family room in here.’

  ‘Nice idea, but it’ll be too expensive—’

  ‘Oh, not now. Later on. When I’ve got a better job than working as your temporary secretary.’ She paused to sip her coffee and watched him over the top of her mug. His eyes had started to laugh again and she felt her own mouth curve in response. It was automatic. An involuntary response. He made her feel alive and, she realised with a shock, she hadn’t felt like that in months. Perhaps years. There was always so much to do. So many responsibilities. Most of the time she just felt tired.

  But this evening…

  With Miles…

  ‘It’s a phenomenally expensive thing to do. That chimney stack goes up three floors and you’d have to take it out all the way up. You’d be better off putting a conservatory type extension out the side here.’ He stood up and walked over to the window.

  It gave Jemima a perfect view of how fantastically he filled his designer jeans. In a formal suit he looked intimidating; in more casual clothes it was far worse. You could really see how muscular his thighs were and how tight his buttocks. She swallowed.

  What was happening to her? Never in her entire life had she thought about a man the way she was thinking about this one. She’d always gone for the safe option. She wasn’t the kind of girl who’d ever have coped well with the style of casual dating Miles favoured. She thought about consequences and weighed every decision she made carefully. That was who she was. It was ingrained in her personality as though it were carved there.

  And Miles was who he was. Different from her. Shaped by his background as certainly as she’d been by her own.

  Even if Miles were to look up and notice her… Jemima smiled even at the possibility of the possibility. She’d be terrified. Totally and utterly terrified.

  Jemima sipped her coffee to hide her face. Miles seemed to have the uncanny knack of being able to read her mind and it wouldn’t do for him to get an inkling of where her thoughts were taking her now.

  He turned to look at her. ‘If you’ve got the space to push the house out sideways it would link the kitchen and breakfast room together, besides bringing in so much more light. I’ve seen it done and it looks incredible.’

  ‘You really do know about this renovation thing, don’t you?’

  His mouth pulled into a crooked smile. ‘Frustrated designer.’

  ‘Really?’ Jemima wouldn’t have thought he’d been frustrated in anything he wanted to do. He had the aura of a man who habitually succeeded in everything. It was interesting to think he might have been thwarted in something. Unbelievable, really.

  He walked back towards her. ‘I did my degree in Industrial Design.’

  ‘How come you went into public relations?’ Jemima asked, genuinely curious.

  Miles shrugged. ‘Seemed sensible at the time.’

  ‘No, really,’ she prompted. Miles didn’t easily talk about himself, it seemed. He either turned the conversation or he gave a flip answer which made everyone laugh and forget about all about the question they’d asked. Was that a conscious technique he used? Her eyes narrowed astutely. ‘I’d like to know.’

  He appeared to hesitate for a moment and then he shrugged. It was a kind of victory. ‘Oh, I gave design a chance. I set up a company out of a caravan in the Lake District with a friend from university. Dan and I came up with some fantastic ideas, but not surprisingly found it difficult to get anyone to take us seriously.’

  He still smiled, but he seemed more guarded. She sensed he wasn’t used to failure and he didn’t speak about it easily.

  ‘We were both twenty-two and very inexperienced. Not to mention that I came with an image that didn’t inspire much confidence in the design world.’ He shrugged again. ‘In the end Dan decided he needed to eat and the idea folded.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  Miles smiled. ‘I couldn’t blame him for that. I had an allowance paid into my bank account every month. Dan was on his own.’

  Miles sounded as if he really minded. It surprised her. She’d been silly to think he was invincible and impenetrable to hurt—no one was. ‘And then?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘Then I sold my soul to the devil.’ He smiled. ‘Public relations was an obvious choice for someone with my background. I’ve been dealing with the media since I was in my mother’s womb.’

  She wasn’t sure what to say. ‘You’re good at it.’

  The blue of his eyes intensified as the laughter returned. ‘Professional lying…?’

  Jemima bit her lip. ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I deserved it.’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ she said, cradling her hands around her mug. ‘I wonder what Amanda will make of us not saying anything. It would have been much simpler to own up that we’d already met.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’d never have lived it down. Alistair would never have let me forget it.’

  Miles watched as Jemima uncurled her hands from her mug. She really did have beautiful hands. They didn’t need long nails and brightly coloured varnish. She looked fresh…and real. That was it. It had been a long time, he realised with a pang, since he’d spent any time with a woman who hadn’t dressed to impress him. Or if not him specifically, men in general.

  Jemima simply didn’t care. Miles smiled, watching the way she was concentrating on the warmth her mug gave off. If anything she was reserving judgement on whether she liked him. That really did make a change.

  Normally he was the centre of attention. He knew that he had to do the barest minimum to get a woman to accept a dinner invitation—assuming she was single and heterosexual. But Jemima…

  He rather fancied he’d be whistling in the wind if he tried to get her to take him seriously. She was more concerned about her ceiling and what that might mean to her bank balance. He watched as she looked up at it and he could almost read the thoughts passing through her head.

  Then she smiled at him, quite suddenly, and he felt the air freeze around him.

  ‘It seems to be stopping. There’s no point standing about in here. It’s all a bit depressing. Let’s go into the sitting room.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, picking up his jacket.

  She led the way back into the hall and along to the main reception room. ‘Of course, it’s a bit depressing in here too. Every time I sit in here I’m reminded of how much there is to do.’

  The sitting room was exactly as he’d expected it would be. He’d seen many Victorian semis which had been ‘improved’ in just such a way during the sixties and seventies. The ceiling was covered with thick Artex, which would be both expensive and messy to remove, the walls
were painted woodchip and the carpet was predominantly brown with overblown yellow roses on it.

  Jemima followed the line of his gaze. ‘My son thinks they look like cabbages.’

  ‘It’s all cosmetic stuff. Great the fireplace surround has survived.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, curling up in one of the comfortable sofas like a kitten. ‘It’s a shame about the tiles.’

  ‘You should be able to get the paint off. It would have been a disaster if they’d been chipped off.’ Miles took the sofa opposite. He scarcely knew Jemima—didn’t know Russell at all—but he felt a spurt of anger when he thought of the situation she’d been left in. The house had enormous potential, but it was a money pit.

  It was a wonder she hadn’t cried when she came home to discover she’d taken two steps forward and one back. It must be heartbreaking. And she’d faced it all with determination and a toss of that incredible red hair. It was courage…and he admired it.

  He smiled as he thought of her, barefooted, bradawl in hand. Unconsciously sexy. It seemed he’d often thought that about her tonight. She was a woman without artifice—and he’d begun to think they didn’t exist.

  Miles sipped his coffee, watching her. Jemima had the most amazing skin. It was clear, almost translucent, with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Every other woman he knew would have covered them up with some magic concoction from Estée Lauder. But not Jemima…

  Sun-kissed. Sexy. She had no idea how much he wanted to kiss her right now. He smiled. Probably just as well.

  His eyes followed the line of the mantelpiece. There were photographs of two boys, both dark-haired. Handsome. The elder had serious green eyes, very like his mother’s. The younger was full of fun. He looked uncomplicated, as though life didn’t trouble him much.

  Jemima’s voice cut in on his thoughts. ‘The photographer said “sausages”.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  She nodded at the photographs. ‘That’s why he’s laughing. Apparently it’s very funny when you’re five.’

  ‘Which is which?’ Miles asked, turning back to look at her.