Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘KISS me?’ The world titled disconcertingly beneath my feet, and it took me a moment to realise that the air was leaking out of my lungs. I drew in a hissing breath, glad of the steadying effect of the oxygen. We had been through this before, I remembered. ‘What kind of plan is that?’

‘A good one,’ said Phin.

‘We agreed that you would only kiss me again if it was necessary,’ I reminded him, backing away. My voice was embarrassingly croaky, but under the circumstances-i.e. pounding heart, racing pulse, entrails squeezed with nerves or, more worryingly, anticipation-I didn’t think I did too badly.

‘I think it is necessary,’ he said.

I had ended up against the desk, the wood digging into the back of my thighs. ‘There’s no one else here,’ I pointed out bravely. ‘How can it be necessary?’

Phin kept coming until he was right in front of me. ‘That’s the whole point,’ he said.

‘I’ve been thinking about it. If we kiss before we go out every time you’ll get used to it. It’ll just seem part of the evening, like putting on your lipstick-although you might think about doing that after we kiss next time. You’ll look much more relaxed after a kiss,’ he went on. ‘Remember how well it worked before the Glitz interview?’

‘We’re not kissing like that again!’ My eyes went involuntarily to the sofas on the other side of the room. If we ended up on one of those we’d never get to the party.

‘Maybe not quite like that,’ Phin agreed. A smile hovered around his mouth. The mouth I was doing my level best not to look at. ‘Not that it wasn’t very nice, but what we want now is for you to feel more comfortable. Once kissing me feels normal, you’ll stop feeling so tense whenever I touch you.’

‘It’s not going to feel normal tonight.’

‘No, but I can tell you that if you go to the party in that dress, looking thoroughly kissed, it won’t just be Jonathan I’ll be fighting off with a stick,’ Phin promised.

Jonathan. The thought of him steadied me. Jonathan was the reason I was wearing this dress…wasn’t he?

‘Go on, admit it,’ said Phin. ‘It’s a good plan, isn’t it?’

I eyed him dubiously. I couldn’t help remembering the last time we had kissed. I had got carried away then, and I didn’t want that to happen again. On the other hand, I didn’t want to admit to Phin that I was nervous about losing control. Somehow I had to pretend that it wasn’t that big a deal.

‘It might work,’ I conceded, and he grinned.

‘Come along, then-pucker up, cream puff,’ he said. ‘The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can get to the party.’

‘Oh, very well.’ I gave in. ‘If you really think it’ll help.’

Maybe it would help, I told myself. Instead of constantly wondering what it would be like to touch him again, I would know.

So I stood very still and lifted my face for Phin’s kiss, pursing my lips and closing my eyes.

And willing myself not to respond.

Nothing happened at first, and, feeling foolish, I opened my eyes again in time to see him brush my hair gently back over my shoulders. Then very slowly, almost thoughtfully, he slid his hands up the sides of my throat to cup my face. His eyes never left mine, and I felt as if I were trapped in their blueness. My heart was slamming against my ribs.

My mouth felt dry, and I had moistened my lips before I realised what an inviting gesture it was.

Phin smiled. We were so close I could see every eyelash, every one of the tiny creases in his lips, the precise depth of the dent at the corner of his mouth, and I felt dizzy with the nearness of him.

By the time he lowered his head and touched his mouth to mine my blood was thumping with anticipation, and I couldn’t help the tiny gasp of relief that parted my lips beneath his.

I willed myself to stay still and unresponsive. All I had to do was stand there for a few seconds and it would be over. How difficult could it be?

You try it. That’s all I can say. Try not responding when a man with warm, strong hands twines his fingers in your hair and pulls you closer. When a man with warm, sure lips explores your mouth tantalisingly gently at first, then more insistently. When he smells wonderful and tastes better.

When every kiss pulls at a thread inside you, unravelling you faster and faster, until the world rocks and your bones melt and the only way to stay upright is to clutch at him and kiss him back.

‘That’s better,’ murmured Phin when he lifted his head at last.

I was flushed and trembling, but I was glad to see that his breathing wasn’t quite steady either.

‘There-it wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he added, sliding his hands reluctantly from my hair.

‘It was fine,’ I managed, hoping my legs were going to hold me up without him to hang on to. I was very glad there was a car waiting downstairs. It was going to take all I had to get to the lift, and I was in no shape to trek to the tube-even if my shoes had been up to it.

For reasons best known to the television company, the launch party for Hodge Hits was being held in the Orangery at Kew Gardens. I’d never been before, and it looked so beautiful with that row of high arched windows that I actually forgot my throbbing lips and crackling pulse as I looked around me.

The room was already crowded, but I caught a glimpse of Stephen Hodge, surrounded by groupies as always, wearing his trademark scowl. He had long hair that always looked as if it could do with a good wash, and he was very thin. There’s something unnatural about a thin chef, don’t you think? I suspected that Stephen Hodge never ate his own food and, having seen some of his more innovative recipes, I didn’t blame him.

‘Now, be nice,’ said Phin, seeing my lip curl.

‘That’s good, coming from you,’ I countered. ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right speech with you?’

He’d tried a scurrilous version on me earlier, which had been very funny but which was unlikely to go down well with either Hodge or Jonathan, who had been instrumental in setting up the sponsorship. I was hoping that he had a suitably bland alternative in his pocket somewhere, but with Phin you never knew.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got the toadying version right here,’ he said, patting his jacket. ‘Besides, you’re not in PA mode tonight. You’re my incredibly sexy girlfriend and don’t you forget it. Talking of which-’ he nudged me ‘-look who’s heading our way. Or rather don’t look. You’re supposed to be absorbed in me.’

I risked a swift glance anyway, and spotted Jonathan, pushing his way through the crowd towards us. He had Lori with him, looking tiny and delicate in a sophisticated ivory number. I immediately felt crass and garish in comparison, but it was too late to run away.

‘Remember-make him jealous,’ Phin murmured in my ear.

There was no way Jonathan would even notice me next to Lori, I thought, but I turned obediently and slid my arm around Phin’s waist, snuggling closer and smiling up at him as if I hadn’t noticed Jonathan at all.

Perhaps that kiss had worked after all. It felt oddly comfortable to be leaning against Phin’s hard, solid body-so much so, in fact, that when Jonathan’s voice spoke behind me I was genuinely startled.

‘I’m glad you’re here, Phin,’ Jonathan began. ‘I just wanted to check everything’s under control. We want to kick off with your speech, and then Stephen’s going to-’

He broke off as his gaze fell on me, and I gave him my most dazzling smile. ‘Summer!’

‘Hi, Jonathan,’ I said.

Gratifyingly, he looked pole-axed. ‘I didn’t recognise you,’ he said.

Beside him, Lori raised elegant brows. ‘Nor did I. That colour really suits you, Summer.’

‘Thank you,’ I said coolly. ‘You look great, too.’

Jonathan was still watching me with a stunned expression. Funny, I had dreamt of him looking at me just that way, but now that he was doing it I felt awkward and embarrassed.

‘You look amazing tonight,’ he said, and all I could think was that it wasn’t fair of him to be talking to me like that when Lori was standing right beside him.

‘Doesn’t she?’ Phin locked gazes with Jonathan in an unspoken challenge, and slid his hand possessively beneath my hair to rest it on the nape of my neck.

I could feel the warm weight of it-not pressing uncomfortably, but just there, a reassuring connection-and I had one of those weird out of body moments when you can look at yourself as if from the outside. I could see how easy we looked together, how right.

Jonathan and Lori had no reason not to believe that we were a real couple. They would look at us and assume that we were used to touching intimately, to understanding each other completely. To not knowing precisely where one finished and the other began, so that there was no more me, no more Phin, just an us.

The thought of an ‘us’ made the world tip a little. Abruptly I was back in my body, and desperately aware of Phin’s solid strength beneath my arm, of the tingling imprint of his palm on my neck.

There was no us, I had to remind myself. I only just stopped myself shaking my head to clear it. Everything about the party seemed so unreal, but I was bizarrely able to carry on a conversation with Jonathan and Lori while every cell in my body was straining with Phin’s closeness.

True, it wasn’t much of a conversation. Some small talk about Stephen Hodge and his vile temper. I complimented Lori on her earrings, she mentioned my shoes, but all I could really think about was the way Phin was absently stroking my neck, his thumb caressing my skin.

Every graze of his fingertips stoked the sizzle deep inside me, and I was alarmingly aware that it could crackle into life at any time. If I wasn’t careful there would be a whoosh and I would spontaneously combust. That would spoil Stephen Hodge’s party all right.

I had to move away from Phin or it would all get very messy. Straightening, I made a show of pushing my hair behind my ears. ‘Um…isn’t it time for your speech?’ I asked him with an edge of desperation.

‘I suppose I’d better throw a few scraps to the monster’s ego,’ sighed Phin. ‘He hasn’t been kow-towed to for all of thirty seconds! Where would you like me to do it, Jonathan?’

‘We’ve set up a podium,’ said Jonathan. ‘I’d better go and warn Stephen that we’re ready to go.’

‘Lead on,’ said Phin, and held out his hand to me. ‘Are you coming, CP?’

Jonathan looked puzzled. ‘CP?’

I smiled uncomfortably as I took Phin’s hand. ‘Private joke,’ I said.

After that, we had to kiss every time we got ready to go out. ‘Come here and be kissed,’ Phin would say, holding out his arms. ‘This is the best part of the day.’

I was very careful to keep reminding myself that those kisses didn’t mean a thing, but secretly I found myself looking forward to them. I always tried to make a joke of it, of course.

‘Oh, let’s get it over with, then,’ I’d say, putting my arms briskly around his neck, but there was always a moment when our determined jokiness faded into something else entirely, something warm and yearning-the moment when I succumbed to the honeyed pleasure spilling along my veins, to the tug of longing and the wicked crackle of excitement between us.

I would like to say that it was me who put an end to the kiss every time, but I’d be lying. It was almost always Phin who lifted his head before I remembered that it was only supposed to be a quick kiss and thought about pulling away.

‘We’re getting good at this now,’ Phin would say. I noticed, though, that the famous smile looked a little forced, and he was often distracted afterwards.

The theory had been that the more we kissed, the easier it would get. But it didn’t work like that. It got more and more difficult to disentangle those kisses from reality, harder and harder to remember that I wanted Jonathan, that Phin was just amusing himself.

To remember why we had to stop at a kiss.

And the worst thing was that there was a bit of me that didn’t want to.

Whenever I realised that I’d give myself a stern ticking off. This would involve a rigorous reminder of all the reasons why it would be stupid to fall for someone like Phin. He wasn’t serious. He wasn’t steady. He didn’t want to settle down. I’d end up hurt and humiliated and I’d have no one to blame but myself.

Much-much-more sensible to remember why I had loved Jonathan. Why I still loved him, I’d have to correct myself an alarming number of times.

Jonathan was everything Phin wasn’t. He was everything I needed.

I just couldn’t always remember why.

Ironically, the harder I tried to remind myself of how much I wanted Jonathan, the more often Jonathan found excuses to drop into the office.

‘You can’t tell me our plan’s not working now,’ Phin said to me one evening as we sipped champagne at some gallery opening. ‘Jonathan’s always sniffing around nowadays. I trip over him every time I come into office. I notice he was there again this afternoon.’

He sounded uncharacteristically morose, and I shot him a curious look.

‘He just came to see what I knew about the Cameroon trip,’ I said uncomfortably, although I had no idea why I felt suddenly guilty.

‘Ha!’ said Phin mirthlessly. ‘Was that all he could think of as an excuse?’

‘It wasn’t an excuse,’ I said.

I had the feeling Jonathan was looking forward to going to Africa about as much as I was. I’d tried everything I could to get out of the trip, but Phin was adamant. The flights were booked for the end of March, and I was dreading it.

It was so not my kind of travelling. I like city breaks-Paris or Rome or New York-and hotels with hairdryers and mini bars, all of which were obviously going to be in short supply on the Cameroon trip. We’d had to be vaccinated against all sorts of horrible tropical diseases, and Phin had presented us all with a kit list so that we’d know what to take with us. Hairdryers didn’t appear on it. I would be taking a rucksack instead of a pull-along case, walking boots in place of smart city shoes.

‘And don’t bother with any make-up,’ Phin had told me. ‘Sunblock is all you’ll need.’

I was taking some anyway.

I don’t suppose Jonathan was bothered about the make-up issue, but he was clearly anxious about the whole experience. Phin had presented the trip as a staff development exercise, and I suspected Jonathan didn’t want to be developed any more than I did.

‘I’m really glad you’re going to be in same group when we go to Africa,’ he had said to me, only that afternoon.

Phin was eyeing me moodily over the rim of his champagne glass. ‘Nobody could be that worried about going to Africa. He just wants to hang around and talk to you.’ He scowled at me. ‘I hope you’re not going to give in too easily. Make him work to get you back!’

‘Look, what’s the problem?’ I demanded. ‘Isn’t the whole idea that Jonathan starts to find me interesting again? Or did you want to spend the rest of your life stuck in this pretence?’

‘It just irritates me that he’s being so cautious.’ Phin hunched a shoulder. ‘If you’d been mine, and I’d realised what an idiot I’d been, I wouldn’t be dithering around talking about malaria pills, or whether to pack an extra towel, and how many pairs of socks to take. I’d be sweeping you off your feet.’

It wasn’t like Phin to be grouchy. That was my role. The worst thing was that there was a bit of me that agreed with him. But I had no intention of admitting that.

‘Yes, well, the whole point is that you’re not Jonathan,’ I said. ‘Yes, he’s being careful-but that’s only sensible. As far as he knows I’m in love with his boss. It would be madness to charge in and try and sweep me off unless he was sure how I felt.’

I lifted my chin. ‘And I wouldn’t want to be with someone that reckless,’ I went on. ‘I’d rather have someone who thought things through, who saw how the land lay, and then acted when he was sure of success. Someone like Jonathan, in fact.’

And right then I even believed it.

Or told myself I did, anyway.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but you have to remember how clear Phin always made it that he would never consider a permanent relationship. He liked teasing me, he liked kissing me, and we got on surprisingly well, but there was never any question that there might be more than that.

I’m not a fool. I knew just how easy it would be to fall in love with him. But I knew, too, how pointless it would be. I might grumble about him endlessly, but it was fun being with Phin. Much to my own surprise, I was enjoying our pretend affair.

But I wouldn’t let myself lose sight of the fact that the security I craved lay elsewhere. I was earning better money now, and could start to think about buying a flat. Lori, I’d heard, was back with her old boyfriend and, whatever I might say to Phin, I knew Jonathan was definitely showing signs of renewed interest in me. Somewhere along the line I’d lost my desperate adoration of him, but he was still attractive, still nice, still steady. I could feel safe with Jonathan, I knew.

I had never had a better chance to have everything I wanted, and I wasn’t going to throw it away-no matter how good it felt being with Phin.

I had run out of excuses. Hunched and sullen, I sat in the departure lounge at Heathrow, nursing a beaker of tea. It was five-thirty in the morning, and I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be at home, in bed, soon to begin my nice, safe routine.

I did the same thing every day. I woke up at half past six and made myself a cup of tea. Then I showered, dried my hair and put on my make-up. I took the same bus, the same tube, and stopped at Otto’s at the same time to buy a cappuccino from Lucia.

You could set your watch by the time I got to the office and sat down behind my immaculately tidy desk. Then I’d sit there and savour the feeling of everything being in its place and under control, which lasted only until Phin appeared and stirred up the air and made the whole notion of control a distant memory.

‘It’s a rut,’ Phin had said when I told him about my routine.

‘You’re missing the point. I like my rut.’

‘Trust me, you’re going to like Africa, too.’

‘I’m not,’ I said sulkily. ‘I’m going to hate every minute of it.’

And at first I did.

We had to change planes, and after what seemed like hours hanging around in airports it was dark by the time we arrived at Douala. The airport there was everything I had feared. It was hot, crowded, shambolic. There seemed to be a lot of shouting.

I shrank into Phin as we pushed our way through the press of people and outside, to where a minibus was supposed to be waiting but wasn’t. The tropical heat was suffocating, and the smell of airport fuel mingled with sweat and unfinished concrete lodged somewhere at the back of my throat.

Through it all I was very aware of Phin, steady and good-humoured, bantering in French with the customs officials who wanted to open every single one of our bags. He was wearing jungle trousers and an olive-green shirt, and amazingly managed to look cool and unfazed-while my hair was sticking to my head and I could feel the perspiration trickling down my back.

There were twelve of us in our group. Hand-picked by Phin, together we represented a cross-section of the headquarters staff, from secretaries like me to security staff, executives to cleaners. I knew most of the others by sight, and Phin had assured us we would be a close-knit team by the time we returned ten days later. I could tell we were bonding already in mutual unease at the airport.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Phin said soothingly as we all fretted about the non-appearance of the mini-bus. ‘It’ll be here in a minute.’

The minute stretched to twenty, but eventually a rickety mini-bus did indeed turn up. It took us to a strange hotel where we slept four to a room under darned mosquito nets. There were tiny translucent geckos on the walls, and a rattling air-conditioning unit kept me awake all night. Oh, yes, and I found a cockroach in the shower.

‘Tell me again why I’m supposed to love all this,’ I grumbled to Phin the next morning. I was squeezed between him and the driver in the front of a Jeep that bounced over potholes and swerved around the dogs and goats that wandered along the road with a reckless disregard for my stomach, not to mention any oncoming traffic.

‘Look at the light,’ Phin answered. To my relief we had slowed to crawl through a crowded market. ‘Look at how vibrant the colours are. Look at that girl’s smile.’ He gestured at the stalls lining the road. ‘Look at those bananas, those tomatoes, those pineapples! Nothing’s wrapped in plastic, or flown thousands of miles so that it loses its taste.’

His arm lay behind my head along the back of the seat, and he turned to look down into my face. ‘Listen to the music coming out of the shops. Doesn’t it make you want to get out and dance? How can you not love it?’

‘It just comes naturally to me,’ I muttered.

‘And you’re with me,’ he pointed out, careless of our colleagues in the back seat.

I was very aware of them-although I couldn’t imagine they would be able to hear much over the sound of the engine, the music spilling out of the shacks on either side of the road and the children running after us shouting, ‘Happy! Happy! Happy!’

‘We’re together on an adventure,’ said Phin. ‘What more could you want?’

I sighed. ‘I don’t know where to begin answering that!’

‘Oh, come on, Summer. This is fun.’

‘You sound just like my mother,’ I said sourly. ‘This reminds me of the way Mum would drag me around the country, telling me how much I should be loving it, when all I wanted was to stay at home.’

‘Maybe she knew that you had the capacity to love it all if only you’d let yourself,’ said Phin. ‘Maybe she was like me and thought you were afraid of how much love and passion was locked up inside you.’

It certainly sounded like the kind of thing my mother would think.

‘Why do you care?’ Cross, I lowered my voice and looked straight ahead, just in case anyone behind was listening or had omitted to put lip-reading skills on their CV. ‘We don’t have a real relationship, and even if we did it would only be temporary. You can’t tell me you’d be hanging around long enough to care about my capacity for anything.’

There was a pause. ‘I hate waste,’ said Phin at last.

I had thought the road from Douala was bad, but I had no idea then of what lay ahead.

After that little town, the road deteriorated until there wasn’t even an attempt at tarmac, and a downpour didn’t exactly improve matters. Our little convoy of Jeeps lurched for hours over tracks through slippery red mud. We had to stop several times to push one or other of the vehicles out of deep ruts gouged out by trucks.

‘This is what it’s like trying to get you out of your rut,’ Phin said to me with a grin, as we put our shoulders to the back of our Jeep once more. His face was splattered with mud from the spinning tyres, and I didn’t want to think about what I looked like. I could feel the sprayed mud drying on my skin like a measles rash.

‘Of course it’s harder in your case,’ he went on. ‘Not so muddy, though.’

We were all filthy by the time we reached Aduaba-a village wedged between a broad brown river and the dark green press of the rainforest. There was a cluster of huts, with mud daub walls and roofs thatched with palm leaves, or occasionally a piece of corrugated iron, and what seemed like hundreds of children splashing in the water.

My relief at getting out of the Jeep soon turned to horror when I discovered that the huts represented luxury accommodation compared to what we were getting: a few pieces of tarpaulin thrown over a makeshift frame to provide shelter.

‘I’m so far out of my comfort zone I don’t know what to say,’ I told Phin.

‘Oh, come now-it’s not that bad,’ he said, but I could tell that he was enjoying my dismay. ‘It’s not as if it’s cold, and the tarpaulin will keep you dry.’

‘But where are we going to sleep?’

‘Why do you think I made you buy a sleeping mat?’

‘We’re sleeping on the ground?’

His smile was answer enough.

I looked at him suspiciously. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ll be right here with you-and everyone else, before you get in a panic.’

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. ‘Does Lex know the conditions here?’ I demanded. I couldn’t believe he would have put his staff through this if he’d had any idea of what it would be like.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Phin cheerfully. ‘The conditions aren’t bad, Summer,’ he went on more seriously. ‘This isn’t meant to be a five star jolly. It’s meant to be challenging. It’s all about pushing you all out of your comfort zones and seeing what you’re made of. It’s about giving you a brief glimpse of another community and thinking about the ways staff and customers at Gibson & Grieve can make a connection with them.’

I set my jaw stubbornly, and he shook his head with a grin. ‘I bet,’ he said, ‘that you’ll end up enjoying this much more than going to some polo match, or having a corporate box at the races, or whatever Lex usually does to keep staff happy.’

‘A bet?’ I folded my arms. ‘How much?’

‘You want to take me on?’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘If I win, you have to…’

I tried to think about what would push Phin out of his comfort zone. I could hardly suggest he settled down and got married, but there was no reason he shouldn’t commit to something.

‘…you have to agree to get to work by nine every day for as long as we’re working together,’ I decided.

Phin whistled. ‘High stakes. And if I win?’

‘Well, I think that’s academic, but you choose.’

‘That’s very rash of you, cream puff! Now, let’s see…’He tapped his teeth, pretending to ponder a suitable stake. ‘Since I know I’m going to win, I’d be a fool not to indulge a little fantasy, wouldn’t I?’

‘What sort of fantasy?’ I asked a little warily.

‘Do you care?’ he countered. ‘I thought you were sure you weren’t going to enjoy yourself?’

I looked at the tarpaulin and remembered how thin my sleeping mat had looked. There was no way Phin would win this bet.

‘I am sure,’ I said. ‘Go on-tell me this fantasy of yours.’

‘We’re at work,’ he told me, his eyes glinting with amusement and something else. ‘You come into my office with your notebook, and you’re wearing one of those prim little suits of yours, and your hair is tied up neatly, and you’re wearing your stern glasses.’

‘It doesn’t sound much of a fantasy to me,’ I said. ‘That’s just normal.’

‘Ah, yes, but when you’ve finished taking notes you don’t do what you normally do. You take off your glasses, the way you do, but instead of going back to your desk in my fantasy you come round until you’re standing really close to me.’

His voice dropped. ‘Then you shake out your hair and you unbutton your jacket ve-r-ry slowly and you don’t take your eyes off mine the whole time.’

My heart was beating uncomfortably at the picture, but I managed a very creditable roll of my eyes.

‘It’s a bit hackneyed, isn’t it? I was expecting you to come up with something a little more exciting than that.’

The corner of Phin’s mouth twitched. ‘Well, I could make it more exciting, of course, but it wouldn’t be fair, given that you’re going to have to actually do this.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, a combative glint in my own eyes. Still, there was no point in pushing it. ‘So that’s it? Take my hair down and unbutton my jacket if-and that’s a very big if-I enjoy the next ten days?’

‘Oh, you would have to kiss me as well,’ said Phin. ‘As to what happens after the kiss…well, that would be up to you. But it might depend on how many other people were around.’

‘I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem,’ I said with a confident toss of my head. ‘So: hair, jacket, kiss for me if you win, and turning up on time for you if I do? I hope you’ve got a good alarm clock! This is one bet I’m deadly sure I’m going to win.’