A Professional Marriage. Jessica Steele

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      Davenport! Surely he hadn’t left the lovely Imogen to have those few short and sharp words with his PA that had been brewing? At this hour? She didn’t believe it—though he wasn’t sounding too affable.

      ‘You’d better come up!’ she replied, equally crisply, while wondering—had she done anything that could be called grounds for dismissal? She didn’t think so, and surely Joel Davenport wouldn’t call at her home to sack her! Or would he?

      She stayed in the hall to wait the minute or so it would take him to reach her door, and mentally braced herself for whatever he had called to see her about. At his first ring she had the door open. For several seconds, like warring adversaries, they stood coldly eyeing each other. He was the first to speak.

      ‘You’re still dressed!’ he stated hostilely, his glance going over her black dress, drawn for a second to the delicate contours of her cleavage, which had never before been on view.

      Feeling very much like holding her hands protectively in front of her bosom, Chesnie instead turned from him. ‘Come in,’ she invited, and led the way into her sitting room, realising that it would have been just the same to him if she had gone to bed—he would still have rung her apartment buzzer.

      In her sitting room she turned to face him. But before she could ask him why he had called, he was telling her, ‘You knew I needed that paperwork for the morning!’ Clearly he had stopped by the office from the airport and discovered that the paperwork he’d ordered wasn’t locked away in his drawer. ‘Yet you deliberately—’ He began to sort her out. But she’d had enough before he started.

      ‘I’m glad you called,’ she cut in calmly, inwardly boiling. ‘There are one or two queries I need your help with. If you’re not too tired after your busy day, I wonder if you’d help me?’ He was looking at her with narrowed eyes, as if wondering what her game was. Oh, joy; oh, bliss. ‘Have you a moment to come to my study?’ Study? Pretentious or what? ‘I’m working on your paperwork now.’

      There was a definite glint in his eyes now, she saw. He had called looking for a fight. She had disarmed him—and he didn’t like it. Tough.

      Whether he was impressed or not that she’d had no intention of letting him down, she had no idea. But he followed her to her ‘study’, where she had already printed off some of the matter she had typed.

      Swiftly he dealt with the queries which she had been going to make a note of, but from the unsmiling look of him she suspected he didn’t care at all to have his cause for righteous anger taken away from him, and was still looking for a fight.

      ‘Naturally, I intend to have everything completed and on your desk by eight in the morning.’ She nicely rubbed it in.

      A hostile look was the thanks she received for her trouble. She was almost purring as they left her workroom and she accompanied him out to the hall. He soon put an end to any lofty feelings, however.

      Joel Davenport had his hand on the door latch when he looked down on her from his superior height, paused, and then commented shortly, ‘After our discussion yesterday, I hardly expected you to be out with Pomeroy tonight!’

      What discussion was that? Her memory of it was that Joel had enlightened her to the fact that Philip Pomeroy was head of the opposition. And she felt incensed again that Davenport, for a second time, felt he had to remind her of the confidentiality of her position!

      ‘Do you honestly believe that Philip would have telephoned me at the office and told you who he was if he was after sensitive information from me?’ she flared. And, her cool image suddenly in tatters around her, ‘Do you honestly think, when I’ve worked for you for almost two months now, that I would part with any information, confidential or otherwise?’ she erupted—and came the closest yet to setting about him when, infuriatingly, he stared at her, seemed again to enjoy seeing her lose her cool front, and then had the sheer audacity—to smile!

      ‘It seems a shame that, because of pressure of work, you sent him from your first date without even a goodnight kiss,’ he commented charmingly.

      Oh, to kick his shin! Chesnie strove hard for control. ‘It rather looks as if you’re going to bed kissless too,’ she answered sweetly—and was on the receiving end of a look that very clearly stated ‘Fat chance’. Though he made no comment with regard to whether the delectable Imogen was waiting for him somewhere.

      Instead, he opened the door, and was on his way out when he bade her silkily, ‘Don’t work too late.’

      Chesnie glared at his departing back. Pig!

      CHAPTER THREE

      OVER the month that followed Chesnie grew more and more comfortable with her job, and now found the work well within her capabilities. It was hard work, many late evenings, and once, when there had been a big boardroom pow-wow, she had worked a whole weekend. But she loved it, thrived on it, and couldn’t think of ever doing anything else. It was as though she had found her niche in life, as though working for Joel was what she was meant to be doing.

      Ever since that night when he had called at her flat and found, contrary to his expectations, that she had not fallen down on the job and that his paperwork would be ready for him for the next day, as required, they had settled down to a good, mutually respectful, harmonious working relationship.

      Since that night too, the night she had given Philip Pomeroy her home number, Philip had made frequent use of it—but had not again telephoned her at her office. She sometimes went out with him, but he knew by then—or she hoped he did—that she was only interested in being friends. True, he always kissed her cheek on parting—but friends did that sort of thing. She was seeing Philip again tomorrow evening.

      But Philip Pomeroy was far from her thoughts that Friday morning when the phone on her desk suddenly called for attention. ‘Joel Davenport’s office,’ she answered automatically.

      ‘That has to be the delightful Chesnie,’ said a mature voice she took a moment or two to place.

      ‘Magnus!’ she exclaimed, a smile in her voice. ‘I’m afraid Joel’s out for the rest of the morning, and part of this afternoon. Did you want him for anything in particular? Or is there something I can help you with?’

      ‘I haven’t had a chat to you in a long while,’ he replied.

      That was true. It must be all of five, maybe six weeks since she’d taken Joel’s father to lunch. ‘How are you?’ she asked, sensing he wanted to chat a little.

      Several seconds of silence met her enquiry, then, his voice sounding frail and elderly all of a sudden, he answered at last. ‘To tell you the truth, Chesnie, there have been days when I’ve felt better.’

      ‘You’re unwell?’ she questioned, starting to feel worried. From his earlier bright tone—clearly a front—he had gone to sound alarmingly shaky.

      ‘I’ll—be all right,’ he replied bravely.

      That wasn’t good enough. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ she asked, not feeling at all as calm as she was pretending to be.

      ‘I’ll be all right,’ he repeated, which she took to mean that he hadn’t.

      ‘Do you think you should?’

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