Innocent In The Boardroom. Joss Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ to be tough when the occasion demands. I’m surprised that you’re fixating on the stress of this fairly straightforward situation,’ he added with silky assurance, ‘when you brushed your last boyfriend aside because he wouldn’t do as you wanted...’

      Without giving her a chance to say anything, and with his eyes firmly pinned to her face, he summoned one of the many hovering waitresses and ordered them both a full breakfast.

      ‘You’ll need it. If we’re heading up to see Wakeley’s there’s no guarantee that lunch is going to be on the agenda. We might have to grab something on the way. Now, you were about to explain how it is that this situation is bringing you out in a cold sweat when dispatching the potential love of your life didn’t...’

      ‘I was not about to explain any such thing!’

      ‘Apologies. I had no idea that it was still such an issue for you...’

      ‘It’s not an issue for me!’ Kate felt like a swimmer, desperately trying to fight against a current. Why had he ordered breakfast for her? She was fine with fruit and a croissant! Fine with removing herself from his suffocating presence on the pretext of taking her time to choose items from the buffet table.

      ‘There’s no need to explain why you’d rather not discuss this. I was only making conversation, Kate. No need to panic.’

      ‘I am not panicking,’ she gritted tightly, and he threw her a kindly smile which implied that he didn’t believe a word she was saying.

      ‘And why,’ she pressed on, snatching at the coffee and taking a restorative mouthful, ‘do you insist on asking me loads of personal questions? Which have nothing to do with my job?’

      ‘Like I said, I was only making conversation. If I’d known that you were still sensitive on the topic of your ex-boyfriend then I would never have gone there. Trust me.’

      Kate resisted the urge to burst into manic laughter. Trust him? She would rather trust a river seething with hungry piranha.

      ‘And as to asking you “loads of personal questions”...I like knowing a bit about the people who work for me—especially those higher up the pecking order, in positions of responsibility. Which, I’m sure, is where you will be very soon, given your talents... It helps if I know whether they’re married, involved in a serious relationship, have children... That way I can tailor the needs of the job to accommodate their needs as much as is possible...’

      He had never given it any such thought before, but now that he had it sort of made sense. Not that he would be playing by those rules. Ever. Still, never let it be said that he wasn’t a man who didn’t see things from every angle.

      Kate allowed her ruffled feathers to be soothed. She had overreacted. Breaking up with her ex was not exactly state-secret fodder. Who cared? Did Alessandro Preda really give a damn whether she had called off a relationship years ago with a man who no longer featured in her life? Wasn’t he telling the truth when he said that he was just making conversation? Polite conversation? The sort of polite conversation that was made every second of every day between people who didn’t know one another all that well?

      ‘It didn’t work out,’ she told him. ‘Simple as that. And before you tell me that I’m a hypocrite, because I make such a big deal about the importance of taking relationship building seriously...’

      ‘Relationship building? What’s that?’

      Something my mother never did, was the reply that immediately sprang to mind, but she bit it back because that would be perfect proof of just how much she had been influenced by her mother’s behaviour.

      In truth, looking back on her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, she could see that it had been built on hope—hope that he might be the one because they got along and because he ticked all the boxes. Like her, he had been studying accountancy. He had been reliable, feet firmly planted on the ground, a solid, dependable sort. He had been just the type of guy who made sense.

      ‘It’s when two people take the time to really establish the building blocks of a future together.’

      ‘It sounds riveting. How do they do that?’

      Kate lowered her eyes and remained silent.

      ‘Please don’t tell me you’re going to slip back into I couldn’t possibly say because I’m just your employee mode...’

      ‘I am just your employee.’

      ‘I’m giving you permission to speak your mind. Believe it or not...’ he sat back as enough breakfast to feed a small developing country was placed in front of them ‘...I do have conversations with some of my employees that don’t revolve exclusively around work...’

      ‘I doubt you’d understand the sort of building blocks I’m talking about,’ Kate told him politely. She stared at the mound of food facing her and wondered where to begin. She speared some egg and then eyed the tempting waffles at the side. ‘Considering you’re not into building relationships.’

      ‘Fill me in. I want to see what I’ve been missing.’

      Kate looked at him with exasperation. The man was utterly impossible, even though the smile on his face was so charming that it would knock any woman for six. She hurriedly focused on her food as her heart picked up speed and started relaying all those taboo messages from her brain to her body.

      ‘I know you don’t mean a word of that,’ she retorted, glaring. ‘But if you’re really interested then I’ll tell you. Relationship building is taking time to get to know someone else—to find out all you can about them, to open up so that they can find out all about you, and to plan a future together based on love and friendship and respect.’

      ‘You’re not selling it.’

      ‘I’m not interested in whether I’m selling it or not,’ Kate snapped. ‘And I wouldn’t expect to sell it to you, anyway!’

      ‘So, having spent time on this relationship building exercise, at what point did you discover that the fun element was missing...?’

      ‘He was lots of fun.’

      He hadn’t been. He had been nice and he had been steady, and he had been all those things she had thought she wanted, but when it had come to the crunch he had also been ultra-traditional. So traditional that he had wanted her to be the little lady whose career was secondary to his, who did as he asked, who dropped everything because he came first...

      She felt a wave of self-pity as she realized that she would probably never find anyone. She would end up with a terrific career but next to no friends—and certainly no significant other doing the barbecue thing in the back garden.

      And she would never know what it was like to have fun because she had always been adamant that having fun wasn’t important—so adamant that the only important thing in life was being in control and never letting herself get swept away by emotion as her mother had.

      But right now, in the depths of Cornwall, and despite her chequered past with men and jobs, Shirley ‘Lilac’ Watson was pretty contented.

      Kate abruptly closed her knife and fork and fought against the sudden confusion rolling over her like fog.

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