Secretary On Demand. Cathy Williams
long walk back to the kitchens, and by the time she’d told Alfredo she was resigning, said her last goodbyes to everyone and cleared her desk of what belonged to her, her usual buoyancy was back with her.
She would find something else. She wasn’t fussy. Hadn’t she ended up enjoying Alfredo’s even though initially the early start had put her off and the hours were often longer than her contract demanded? She would find something else and she would enjoy it. And if she didn’t, then couldn’t she always head back up to Dublin?
True, it felt good to be away from the claustrophobia of having all her large family around her but if she did decide to go back to Ireland, she knew that she would settle back in without any real difficulty. And after all this time, they would have at least stopped oozing sympathy about her wrecked love life and making endless remarks about adulterous men and young, impressionable girls.
Things would work out. She had a sudden, wild memory of the man with his fingers entwined with hers and felt a little shiver of regret. One face lost to her for ever. For no reason whatsoever, the thought depressed her, and she was so busy trying to analyse the foolishness of her reaction that she didn’t notice him until he was standing in front of her. Towering over her, in fact. Shannon just manage to stop before she collided with his immovable force and it was only when her eyes actually trailed upwards that she recognised him and gave a little gasp of surprise. Mostly because he seemed to have materialised from the sheer power of the thoughts in her head.
‘How did it go?’
‘What are you doing here?’ She wanted to reach out and prod him to see if he was real.
‘Waiting for you, as a matter of fact.’
‘Waiting for me? Why would you be waiting for me?’ It wasn’t yet four-thirty, but the light was already beginning to fade and there was an unholy chill in the autumn air.
‘To make sure that you were all right.’
‘Of course I’m all right.’ She stuck her hands in her pockets and stared at his shoes. She hadn’t realised how big a man he was. Not just tall, but broad-shouldered and powerfully built. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ She raised her eyes to his and made fleeting contact.
‘Because, reds, you looked pretty shaken up back there in the restaurant.’
Shannon debated whether she should tell him to stop calling her ‘reds’ and decided, perversely, that she liked the nickname.
‘Did I?’ she said airily. ‘I thought I handled myself very well, actually. I mean, losing a job isn’t the end of the world, is it?’ Bills. Rent. Food. Not the end of the world but not far off.’
‘Look, it’s cold trying to hold a conversation out here. Why don’t you hop in my car. I want to talk to you.’
‘Hop in your car? I’m very sorry but I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t know you. You could be anyone. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you’re an axe-wielding maniac, but you could be for all I know.’
‘An axe-wielding maniac?’ he asked, bemused.
‘Or a fugitive from the law. Anyway, my mother told me never to accept lifts from strangers.’
‘I’m not a stranger! You’ve been serving me breakfast every morning just about for months! Nor am I a fugitive from the law. If I were a fugitive from the law, wouldn’t I be hiding out somewhere less conspicuous than a busy Italian restaurant in the middle of crowded Notting Hill? Your imagination is obviously as vivid as your temper, reds.’
‘And stop calling me reds.’ She’d decided she didn’t care for the appellation after all. It was insulting.
‘Then accompany me, please, for a short ride in my car which is just around the corner. I want to talk to you.’
‘Talk about what?’
‘Oh, good grief,’ he groaned. ‘Let me put it this way, it’ll be worth your while.’ He turned on his heel and began walking away, expecting her to follow him, and she did, clutching her coat around her and half running to keep up.
‘I don’t even know your name!’ she panted in his wake. ‘And where are you planning on taking me for this little talk that will be worth my while?’
He stopped abruptly and she cannoned into him. Instinctively he reached out and steadied her. ‘Kane Lindley,’ he said, ‘in answer to your first question. And a little coffee-bar two blocks away in answer to your last. We could walk but my time on the meter is about to run out so it’s as easy for us to take the car and I’ll find somewhere else to park.’
She realised that he was still holding her by her arms, and he must have realised that as well because he politely dropped his hands and waited for her to respond.
‘Kane Lindley…’
‘That’s right. Have you heard of me?’
‘Why should I have heard of you?’ Shannon asked, puzzled.
He said swiftly, ‘Absolutely no reason. I’m not a celebrity but I own Lindley publications and I’m now in charge of a television network.’ He zapped open his car with his remote after a short mental tussle. Shannon hurried over to the passenger side and slipped in, slamming the door against the stiff cold.
‘I haven’t heard of Lindley publications,’ she told him as soon as he was sitting next to her.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ His voice was irritable. ‘I’m not trying to impress you. I’m merely trying to put you at ease in case you think I’m not to be trusted.’
‘Oh. Right. Well…’ She stared out of the window. ‘I’m Shannon McKee. How long were you lurking around, waiting for me to come out, anyway?’
‘I wasn’t lurking around, reds,’ he growled. ‘As a matter of fact, I went to buy some ties at a little shop tucked away around the corner and then dropped back here. Coincidentally, you were leaving.’
The coffee-bar really was only a couple of streets away and they got a parking space instantly. It felt kind of nice to be the one sitting at the table and being waited on for a change. Meals out had been few and far between since she’d moved down to London, where the cost of living had hit her for six and relaxed cups of coffee in trendy coffee-bars, as this one was, had been even more of a rarity.
He ordered a cafetière of coffee for two and a plate of pastries and then proceeded to look at her with dark-eyed speculation. ‘Now, tell me a little about yourself. I know you don’t like football, like the theatre even though you never get there, loathe all exercise except swimming and are self-conscious about your hair, but what are you doing in London?’
Shannon blushed. She never would have guessed that her passing titbits of information had been stored away. She would have assumed that he had more important things to think about than the details of a waitress’s life. ‘I am not self-conscious about my hair!’ she snapped, a little disconcerted by this regurgitation of facts.
‘Then why you do always wear it tied back?’
‘Because it’s convenient. And I’m in London because…because I wanted a change from Ireland. I lived in a little village about twenty miles outside Dublin and I guess I wanted to sample something a little different.’ Now that he had mentioned her wretched hair, she found that she couldn’t stop fiddling with it, tugging the ends of the braids. She had to force herself to fold her hands neatly on her lap.
‘I wish you’d stop looking at me,’ she said after a while. Here they were, one to one, no longer in the roles of waitress serving customer, and their sudden equality made her feel breathless. She felt as though those unreadable, considering eyes could see straight past the dross and into all the secret corners of her mind that she preferred not to share with anyone.
‘Why? Does it make you feel uncomfortable?’