The Love Solution. Ashley Croft
no need for sarcasm.’
‘Of course not, Professor Baxter. I’ll be up in five minutes, Professor Baxter.’
‘Molly, can you please stop calling me Prof—’
Click. Burr. Molly winced. She’d dropped the receiver a nanosecond sooner than she’d really intended. Or maybe not. Ewan didn’t deserve an ounce of her guilt. She took a deep breath and attempted to get things into perspective. They’d both had too much to drink; it had been New Year’s Eve. Surely, you were allowed to make a pass at your boss, photocopy your arse, dress as a naughty nurse, ask him what was under his kilt? It was the Season of Misrule and anyway, it was only a kiss … followed by a moment of public humiliation that was excruciating but would pass. Eventually.
Not like Sarah had endured. Catching the bloke she adored and trusted shagging another woman; having her world turned upside down when she was at her most vulnerable. Molly should probably man up, although if “manning up” seemed to mean behaving like a cowardly louse, she’d rather stick pins in her eyes.
The blind rattled in the draught and the snow, now sleety, skittered against the pane. Molly held her finger on the file delete button and then changed her mind. Instead she pressed save and salted away the study in a file marked: “Reminder to reorder glove supplies” in a folder marked “Missellaneos”, which was deliberately spelled wrongly to remind her not to attach it to a real email.
Gathering up her notepad, she trudged down the corridor towards Ewan’s “private” office. So he wanted to discuss the abstract, did he? Well, she could tell him a few places where he could shove his “abstract”. That was one of the advantages of having a PhD in behavioural ecology.
For half an hour, they discussed the abstract while Molly simmered silently. Judging by the way he kept fiddling with his pen, Ewan was squirming as much as her. Finally, the discussion was over.
‘OK. I think that will do it,’ he said, sounding relieved, like he’d been let off a life sentence.
Molly got to her feet, clutching her notebook to her chest. ‘Right, I’ll get back to work. I’m so busy in the lab.’
Ewan stared at her from his deep espresso eyes. Molly suddenly decided a stain on the tiles was intensely interesting.
‘Before you go, I think it would be a good idea if we discussed the elephant in the room.’
Molly couldn’t help herself. ‘What elephant’s that, then, Ewan? Are we moving on from primate research to pachyderms?’
‘There’s no need for sarcasm. I’m trying to be mature about this.’
‘Really? And it was mature to snog me and pull a party popper out of my top and then get cold feet?’
‘First, that party popper could have gone off at any moment and second, I didn’t get cold feet.’
Molly snorted.
‘I didn’t get cold feet,’ Ewan said. ‘Believe me I wanted to …’ His voice tailed off.
‘Wanted to what?’
‘You know …’
Molly put her notebook back on the desk and raised an eyebrow. ‘Not really. Could you be more precise, please, Professor Baxter.’
‘I wanted to take you to bed!’ Ewan burst out then threw up his hands and groaned. He lowered his voice. ‘Please don’t make this any harder for me.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of making anything hard for you. Not after the other night.’
Ewan covered his face with his hand. Molly hated him and herself for the shivery tingle in her limbs when he’d said, “take you to bed”. It was pathetic.
‘If you wanted to do it, why didn’t you?’ she said. ‘Are you that worried about what those idiots in the lab think?’
‘No, of course not!’ He tapped his pen on the table. ‘No, that’s a lie. Yes. Yes I am but not because I’m put off by a few stupid comments. It’s what those comments have made me realise.’
‘And that is?’
‘I don’t have to spell it out, do I? It would be unprofessional of me. If I sleep with you, start seeing you, how can I supervise you and work with you after that? What if I need to promote you or interview you for a job? What if I have to …’
‘Discipline me?’ she cut in.
‘For God’s sake. Can you please not say things like that?’
‘Why not?’
His pen clattered onto the desk top. ‘You know perfectly well why not and there’ll be no need for discipline, because you – and I – are going to behave with utmost discretion and professionalism. We are going to focus one hundred and ten per cent on our work.’
‘I don’t think that’s actually possible, Professor Baxter, or did you fail statistics?’
He glared at her. Molly fancied him more than ever, if it was possible. ‘We are going to focus totally on our research, making this project a success and publishing our results. There will be gossip and speculation, naturally, for a few days but it will pass. People will soon realise that there is nothing between us beyond a professional relationship.’
‘Of course not, Professor,’ Molly said coolly.
‘Please stop calling me Professor. You’ll thank me for this one day. One day very soon. There is nothing worse, believe me, than a relationship failing, and that’s when the two people have to see each other every day at work. If you want to know what it’s like to hate the sight of someone you once cared for, then let’s go ahead and shag each other’s brains out for a few weeks but then it will all go wrong. Office romances are a recipe for disaster. Trust me.’
She was momentarily stunned into silence by this outburst.
‘So you care about your career more than being happy?’ she said, eventually.
‘No, I care about yours.’
His phone rang. He mouthed “fuck” before snatching up the handset. ‘What is it? I’m in a bloody meeting … Oh, yes, Dame Eleanor. I’m so sorry. Yes, I was working late last night and went to the party on New Year’s Eve. You’re right, I should probably get more sleep but you know how busy we are … Come to your office now? No … no … I’m almost done here. I’ll be up in five minutes … Yes, coffee would be a great idea.’
She sat, arms folded, enjoying him squirming as he spoke to their eminent head of faculty.
Eventually, he put the phone down. ‘And, that,’ he said quietly, ‘is exactly what I meant about bringing relationships into the workplace. Now, as you heard, I have a meeting with Dame Eleanor. I expect you to go back to the lab and get on with the abstract for that paper. I want to get into a decent journal with the two of us as co-authors, which can only be good for your career. And the next time we meet, I also expect things to be back on civil, professional terms. Am I making myself clear?’ he said coldly.
There was something in his tone that told Molly not to argue. He was, after all, her boss and she’d pushed him further than she ever thought she’d dare. It was all hideously unfair of course, but possibly, maybe, he had a point and she really wanted her name as co-author on the paper. It would be a big thing to be associated with Ewan Baxter, in scientific terms if not in other ways.
She picked up her notebook again. ‘Perfectly clear,’ she said and walked to the door, hoping that the clogging in her throat wasn’t the start of an infection.
‘I’m sorry, Molly. It just wouldn’t work between us,’ said Ewan. ‘No matter how much I like and respect you. Let’s not spoil what is, after all, a great working relationship.’
Molly’s favoured replies included an expletive but she stopped