Bittersweet Yesterdays. Kate Proctor

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘YOU said you wouldn’t go too fast,’ complained Lucy, and was surprised when Mark instantly complied by slowing down the rate of his dictation—but only to a rate that enabled her to get down every third instead of every fifth word he uttered.

      Up until now he had simply given her the gist of his letters, leaving the actual wording up to her, and it had worked well. In fact, being Mark’s secretary hadn’t been the trauma she had worked herself up into believing it would be—but only because he had been in his office so rarely.

      ‘Just a little slower,’ she pleaded, though in her heart of hearts she knew she should be asking him to stop altogether—her shorthand was useless!

      ‘Hell, Lucy, if I go much slower I’ll lose track of what I’m saying,’ he exclaimed, scowling across the desk at her. ‘Now—where was I?’

      Lucy waited with growing despondency for him to continue.

      ‘I asked you where I’d got to,’ he stated impatiently. ‘You’d better read it back to me.’

      She gazed down at the jumble of hieroglyphics staring back at her from the pad on her knee and experienced a moment of total panic.

      ‘I...I can barely read a word of it.’

      ‘Lucy, I’m not in the mood for your juvenile humour—read the darned thing back!’

      ‘I’ve told you—I can’t!’ she protested. ‘I warned you I’d be rusty...but even I hadn’t expected it to be this bad. I’ve just about forgotten all of it.’

      ‘Then what the hell were you scribbling away at while I was dictating?’ he demanded, leaning forwards across the desk in a manner she found more than a little intimidating.

      ‘I was trying to take it down...but I’ve done it so badly I can’t read it back.’

      ‘So, might I ask what would have happened if I’d not asked you to read those few words back to me?’ he demanded grimly. ‘The first few words, I should point out, of what would have amounted to several pages. I suppose you’d have been quite content to let me carry on—while you continued scribbling down gibberish!’

      ‘I’ve really no idea what I’d have done.’ And that was the plain truth, she thought unhappily.

      ‘So—what do we do now?’

      Lucy hesitated—now was the time to tell him to stop playing around and find himself a proper secretary. ‘You could use a dictating machine,’ she heard herself say instead, as it suddenly occurred to her just how badly she had been handling the whole question.

      As usual whenever Mark arrived on the scene, her self-confidence had deserted her. But she wasn’t a halfwit, so why on earth was she confirming his low opinion of her abilities by behaving as though she were? By no means all secretaries used shorthand and there was absolutely no reason whatever why she shouldn’t perform the job well once she set her mind to it.

      ‘A dictating machine,’ he murmured, as though turning the idea over in his mind. ‘I could dictate into it for hours at a stretch...then you could erase the whole lot in as many seconds.’

      ‘Despite what you may think, Mark, I’m not a congenital idiot,’ she informed him sharply.

      ‘You’re wrong to think that’s an idea I’ve ever entertained about you, sweetheart,’ he drawled. ‘I know darned well that any such mishap certainly wouldn’t be a mistake on your part.’

      ‘OK,’ she conceded without umbrage—it was pointless denying there hadn’t been times when she wouldn’t have thought twice about such sabotage. ‘If I promise faithfully not to erase anything...will you use one?’

      ‘It doesn’t look as though I have any choice,’ he said, then promptly gave her one of those beatific smiles she had learned of old not to trust. ‘And I’m so pleased you’ve decided to stop frothing at the mouth whenever I forget and refer to you as sweetheart...it’s just one of those cosy endearments of mine that are liable to slip out from time to time.’

      Cosy endearments, my foot, thought Lucy indignantly, and as for one slipping out, she doubted if anything had ever passed his lips that hadn’t first been scrutinised thoroughly by that coldly calculating brain of his.

      ‘Of course it is,’ she murmured, a smile to equal his plastering itself across her face as she rose to her feet, ‘so don’t you give it another thought, sweetie pie.’

      His eyes widened slightly, but there was amusement lurking at the corners of his mouth.

      ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he enquired.

      ‘To find you a dictating machine.’

      ‘Well, you don’t need to look far,’ he informed her, also rising, ‘there’s one in your office—the previous two secretaries I borrowed didn’t do shorthand.’

      Lucy let out a groan of pure frustration. ‘Do you mean to tell me you put me through all that just for the heck of it?’ she demanded angrily.

      ‘Darling, I couldn’t resist it—you know how dictatorial I am. And besides, shorthand was part of that exclusive training you had.’

      ‘Exclusive, my eye!’ exploded Lucy, his not so subtle reminder of how much her unsuccessful education had cost his father affecting her like a red rag to a bull. ‘The only thing exclusive about it was the ludicrous fees they charged! The same with those ghastly crammers you kept packing me off to. All they—’

      ‘Can it, Lucy,’ he drawled, walking past her and towards her office. ‘How about you rustling me up some coffee while I dig out this machine?’

      Lucy hesitated, then followed him into her office. ‘Yes, sweetie pie,’ she murmured, chalking it up against the ‘darling’ he had slipped in earlier.

      This time there was no hint of humour in the set of his mouth as he turned and glared at her before walking over to her desk.

      Lucy busied herself with the coffee.

      ‘What’s all this?’ he demanded.

      Lucy spun round and found him frowning down at the draft specification on her desk.

      ‘One of the survey teams needs it in a bit of a rush,’ she said then, thrown by the expression on his face, added, ‘They’re used to me doing them, and, anyway, it’s not as though I’ve been worked to death since coming up here—you’re hardy ever around.’

      ‘Well, I shall be around from now on—so they’ll just have to get it done through the proper channels. And while you’re telling them, I’d be grateful if you’d refresh their minds as to what those channels are. From now on you work for me and no one else—understood?’

      Lucy looked at him in amazement. ‘I’ve finished it,