The Blind-date Proposal. Jessica Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ going to tell him the truth and, although she could have made up something innocuous, Kate had an irrepressibly inventive streak and as a matter of principle resisted the simple option when she could complicate matters. She embarked instead on a long, involved and utterly untrue story, inventing an accountant who had met Alison skiing but who had subsequently been on a business trip to Singapore and had only just heard about the accident and, remembering that Alison had told him where she worked, now wanted to know where to send a card.

      ‘I said it would be all right if he sent it here and we would forward it,’ she finished, having embroidered the story with so many details that she almost believed it herself.

      Finn’s expression was glazed with irritation by the time she got to the end. ‘I wish I’d never asked,’ he sighed. ‘You’ve just wasted a quarter of an hour of my life!’

      ‘It’s not as if we do brain surgery here,’ said Kate, a trifle sullenly. ‘I don’t see what difference fifteen minutes here or there makes.’

      ‘In that case, you won’t mind staying late tonight to make up for the hour you missed this morning,’ Finn said with an unpleasant look. ‘We’ve got an extremely important project coming up and I need to get this done to fax to the States before tomorrow morning.’

      ‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ she said, not sounding at all regretful. ‘I’m going out.’

      Finn frowned. ‘Can’t you ring and say you’ll be a bit late?’

      For anyone else, Kate would have offered to do just that, but something about Finn McBride rubbed her up the wrong way. It wasn’t as if he had made the slightest effort to be pleasant to her.

      ‘Oh, I don’t think my boyfriend would like that very much,’ she said instead, trying for the unconscious smugness that so often seemed to accompany the words ‘my boyfriend’.

      ‘You’ve got a boyfriend?’ Finn was unflatteringly surprised, and Kate bridled. It was bad enough putting up with his rudeness without knowing that he thought her incapable of attracting a man as well!

      ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, determined to convince him that while she might not be a perfect PA, somebody wanted her. ‘In fact,’ she went on, leaning forward confidentially, ‘he’s taking me somewhere really special tonight. I think he might be going to pop the question!’

      ‘Really?’ Finn raised a contemptuous eyebrow, not even bothering to try and hide his disbelief.

      How rude, thought Kate indignantly. He clearly didn’t think she was the kind of girl who would get a man at all, let alone one who wanted to marry her.

      Her brown eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said on her mettle. ‘Didn’t you know? That’s why I’m temping. Ever since I met—’

      She searched wildly for a name before remembering Bella’s current and very glamorous man. Your best friend’s boyfriend was normally out of bounds, but she didn’t think Bella would mind her borrowing him mentally.

      ‘—Will,’ she carried on after the tiniest beat, ‘we’ve both known that we were meant for each other. He’s a financial analyst,’ she went on breezily, deciding that she might as well take Will’s career as well, ‘so I didn’t want to commit to a permanent job when he might be posted to New York or Tokyo at any minute. Of course, he keeps saying to me, “Darling, there’s no need for you to go out to work every day,” but I feel it’s important to keep some financial independence, don’t you?’

      ‘I wouldn’t have thought your earnings as a temp would make much difference if you’re living with a financial analyst,’ said Finn with something not a million miles from a sneer.

      ‘It’s a matter of principle,’ said Kate airily, quite enjoying the thought of herself destined for a life of expatriate luxury.

      Finn turned back to his office. ‘Perhaps you could make it a matter of principle to turn up on time tomorrow,’ he said nastily. ‘That would make a nice change.’

      It was a pity she wasn’t as good at real life as she was at inventing it, Kate reflected glumly as the bus inched through the rush hour traffic, vibrating noisily. Wouldn’t it be nice to be going home to a real adoring man with pots of money and to be told that she never had to go and work for the likes of Finn McBride ever again?

      Kate sighed and rubbed the condensation from the window with her sleeve and peered down at the crowds hurrying along Piccadilly in the rain. They all seemed to know exactly where they were going. Why was she the only one who drifted along from one muddle to the next?

      Look at her. Thirty-two and what did she have to show for it? No career, no home of her own, no relationship. The only thing she had gained over the last few years was twenty pounds. Even the misery diet hadn’t worked for her. When their hearts got broken the weight fell off her friends, but comfort eating had been the only way Kate could deal with losing Seb and her job together before Christmas. A double whammy.

      Fortified by Bella and Phoebe and a good deal of champagne, Kate had resolved that things would change in the New Year. She was going to sharpen up her act. She would get another, better job and another, better man, she vowed. She would lose weight and start going to the gym and get her life under control.

      It was just that all those things seemed a lot easier to achieve after a bottle or two of champagne. It was February already, and her New Year resolutions were still at the talking stage.

      She ought at least to have found herself a proper job by now, but nothing was being advertised—no doubt everyone was staying put while they paid off their Christmas credit card bills—and even temping hadn’t proved to be the guaranteed fall-back position she had assumed. Nobody seemed to be getting flu this year, and Kate had been about to sign on as a waitress at the local wine bar when Alison had broken her leg.

      Tomorrow, Kate told herself. She would buy a paper and check out the appointments page, go to the gym on her way home and cook herself something healthy and non-fattening for supper.

      Tomorrow would see the start of the new Kate.

      Bella was eating toast in the kitchen with her hair in rollers when Kate let herself into the house. Since Phoebe had married and moved in with Gib, the two of them and Kate’s surly cat had had the Tooting house to themselves.

      The cat was waiting, a brooding presence by the fridge, and Kate knew better than to try and sit down until he had been fed. He was more than capable of shredding her ankles, so she fished out a packet of the over-priced cat food that was all he would accept and forked it into his bowl before she had even taken off her coat.

      ‘I thought you were going out?’ she said to Bella, eyeing the toast enviously.

      Bella could eat whatever she liked and still not put on weight. ‘Metabolism,’ she said cheerfully whenever she was challenged by her less fortunate friends. She was ridiculously pretty, a blue-eyed blonde with legs that went on forever and a sunny disposition. The worst thing about Bella, Kate and Phoebe had often agreed, was that it was impossible to hate her.

      ‘I am, but Will’s taking me to some incredibly cool restaurant where the portions are bound to be tiny. I thought I’d have something to eat now so I don’t pig out when I get there. Anyway, I’m hungry,’ Bella added simply.

      Lucky Bella, going out with the gorgeous Will while she got some poor old widower who needed someone to be СКАЧАТЬ