Kitabı oku: «The Baby Plan», sayfa 2

But right now she was the one with her tongue dragging on the floor and it was definitely time to haul it back in.

‘I’ll try not to keep you waiting again,’ she said briskly, and walked into the hotel without a backward glance.

Daniel watched Mandy Fleming walk away from him. It wasn’t exactly a hardship. Those long legs moved her body along in the way a woman should be moved, slow and sexy. A woman’s walk said a lot about her. Mandy Fleming’s said confidence, style. But that straight back told him something else. She was feeling decidedly put out that he hadn’t asked her to go to the theatre with him. She’d have said no, but she’d expected to be asked. And he smiled to himself. How did that old saying go? Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait? He didn’t have much time for men who made women cry, but the other two … His smile broadened as he drove towards the gates of the hotel. Like riding a bicycle.

The morning dragged, endlessly. The afternoon was, if anything, worse, and Amanda had a hard time keeping herself focused as she gave her own presentation on the benefits of employing temporary staff. Just the slightest lapse in concentration and her mind was wandering off to dwell on smoky blue eyes and broad shoulders, good hands and a sexy smile, all carried on two well-muscled legs.

Two well-muscled, married legs.

CHAPTER TWO

DANIEL headed for the airport, picked up his passenger, delivered him to his hotel in Piccadilly and drove back to the garage. The traffic was a nightmare but he was working on automatic, his head full of Mandy Fleming.

How long had it been since a woman had stayed in his head for more than five minutes? How long had it been since he couldn’t wait to renew the acquaintance? But then Miss Fleming was one stylish lady. Those legs. That mouth.

His brows drew together as his thoughts strayed to the way she dressed. She had expensive tastes for a secretary. Even a top-of-the-range, seriously expensive Garland Agency secretary who merited a chauffeur-driven car.

Yet there had been something in her voice, something in her smile that had made his skin prickle with excitment. And the air had positively crackled with electricity when she’d put her hand on his for that briefest of touches. Oh, she’d been cool, her back ramrod-straight, but he knew she’d felt it too. The care with which she had removed her fingers from his had been too studied for anything else.

Then he pulled a face. Mandy Fleming wasn’t the kind of woman to be interested in a chauffeur. Well-educated, lovely to look at, she was the kind of secretary who would have her eyes firmly fixed on the boss rather than one of the bit-players. The thought brought an ironic smile to his lips, a smile that quickly faded.

Things had been so straightforward when he had been struggling to make a living with a one-car business. If a girl had smiled at him then he’d been sure that it wasn’t his money she was smiling at. All that had changed the day he’d bought a second car and taken on his first employee.

He pulled into the valeting area. ‘Any news from the hospital, Bob?’

‘It’s a girl, boss. Mother and baby doing well.’ There was nothing wrong with the words, just something about the way Bob said them that alerted him to trouble.

‘So what’s the problem?’ he asked.

Bob didn’t lift his gaze from the coach-built body-work he was stroking to an eye-dazzling shine; he simply jerked his grey head in the direction of the office. ‘Sadie arrived about half an hour ago. She’s in the office.’

Dan said something short and scatological.

‘It’s not half-term is it?’

‘No.’

The older man straightened, wadded his duster, squinted along the gleaming bonnet. ‘Thought not.’

No one was eager to meet his eye as he strode through the yard and into the office. As he set eyes on his daughter, he could see why.

She was sitting in his chair with her knee-high Doc Martens propped defiantly upon his desk. Her clothes, black to a stitch, could only have come from some charity shop, and her hair, shoulder-length and gleaming chestnut the last time he had seen her, had been cropped and dyed the kind of black from which no light escaped. Her face, in contrast, was dead white, her eyes rimmed with heavy black lines, her nails painted to match. She looked as if she was auditioning for the role of Morticia Addams but had forgotten the glamour, and it was all he could do to prevent himself from flinching. Since that was undoubtedly the effect she was striving to achieve, he made the effort.

He’d hoped that this was simply a day-trip, an excursion, a little French leave from the boarding school that charged a queen’s ransom to turn the daughters of those who could afford the fees into the very best they could be, academically and socially—and, in his daughter’s case, were fighting a losing battle. One look was all it had taken to quell any such notion.

‘Mercedes,’ he murmured, acknowledging her presence as he helped himself to coffee from the machine his secretary kept permanently on the go. Sadie hated being called that. She knew as well as he did that her name had been Vickie’s idea of a joke, a constant reminder that he’d had to cancel the Mercedes he’d had on order when he’d discovered that he was about to become a father. But right now he wasn’t in the mood to indulge his daughter with pet names. ‘I didn’t realise you had a holiday.’ He lifted her boot-clad feet from his desk and dropped them to the floor before turning his diary round to check the entries against the date. ‘No, you’re not here. It’s not like Karen to make a mistake—’

‘I didn’t think I had to make an appointment to see my own father.’ Sadie pushed the chair back and stood up. Dear God, she seemed to grow six inches each time he saw her. Guilt suggested that was because he didn’t see her often enough. But that was her choice. Apart from a grudging week at the cottage, she’d spent the entire summer with school-friends.

‘You don’t. Just lately it’s been the other way around.’

‘Yes, well, that’s all about to change. I’ve been suspended from school,’ she declared defiantly. ‘And you might as well know, I’ve no intention of going back.’ He made no comment. ‘You can’t make me.’

He was well aware of that fact. She was sixteen, and if she refused to go back to school there was precious little he could do about it except point out the pitfalls of cutting short her education.

‘You’ve re-sits in November,’ he reminded her calmly. The expletive that told him what he could with his re-sits would have earned him boxed ears from his mother at that age. But then Sadie didn’t have a mother, at least not one who cared to be reminded that she had a daughter rapidly approaching womanhood, so he ignored the bad language, as he had ignored her appearance. She was doing her level best to shock him, make him angry. He was both, but he knew better than to show it. ‘You won’t be able to do anything without English and maths.’

‘You didn’t bother about exams—’

‘Nobody cared what I did, Sadie. Does Mrs Warburton know where you are?’ He mentioned her headmistress before she could point out that her mother didn’t care much about her own firstborn, either.

‘No. I was sent to my room to wait until someone could spare the time to bring me home. They probably think I’m still there.’ She threw back her head and laughed. ‘They’ll be running around like headless chickens when they realise I’ve gone.’

He pressed the intercom. ‘Karen, call Mrs Warburton at Dower House and let her know that Sadie is with me.’

‘Yes, Dan.’

‘Then will you organise some flowers and fruit for Brian’s wife—’

‘I’ve already taken care of it. And Ned Gresham’s agreed to come in and cover for him.’ Karen might not have the glamour of a Garland Girl, but she was their equal in every other way. Dan recalled Mandy’s smile, slightly parted lips, the way her fingers had felt as they had rested briefly on his and the way his skin had tightened at the contact. Not quite every way, which was probably just as well. A sexy secretary combined with a garage full of impressionable drivers and mechanics was nothing short of a recipe for disaster. ‘Do you want me to write him in for the five o’clock pick-up from The Beeches?’ She didn’t say, Now that Sadie’s arrived. She didn’t need to.

With just a touch of regret, he surrendered the memory, the anticipated pleasure … But not to Ned Gresham. With his public school accent and chiselled good looks, the man thought he was God’s gift to women. A lot of women thought that too. The idea of him flirting with Mandy Fleming … ‘No. Ask Bob to do it.’ He kept his finger on the button for a moment. ‘Tell him he can take Miss Fleming home rather than back to the Garland offices if she prefers.’

Karen laughed. ‘Pretty, was she?’

‘Simple public relations, Karen. Please the secretary and you’ve got the boss.’

‘And if Miss Fleming lives on the other side of London?’

‘She’ll be even more impressed and Bob will enjoy the overtime.’

‘She was that pretty?’

‘I didn’t notice.’ His lie was rewarded with the disbelieving snort it merited before he flicked the switch. Dan straightened and looked at his daughter, remembering the pretty child she had been, seeing the lovely woman she would become once she stopped trying to hurt him, hurt herself—but only because her mother wasn’t around to take the abuse in person. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘I’m not going back,’ she repeated stubbornly.

‘I heard you, Sadie. I’m not taking you back to school, but I’m not leaving you to run around London on your own. If you’re not going back to school you’re going to have to work for a living.’

‘Work?’ Sadie’s careless certainty, the belief that she was the one calling the shots, wavered. That gave Dan hope.

‘You leave school; you have three choices. If you’ve decided not to do re-sits, college is a non-starter. The alternative is work, and since you’re hardly likely to have employers lining up for the privilege of signing you up, you’ll have to work for me.’ He waited for her reaction. When none was forthcoming he added, ‘Of course you’re welcome to try the Job Centre if you think you can do better?’

‘You said three choices.’

‘You could telephone your mother and see if she’ll offer you a home.’ He had his fingers mentally crossed. The last thing he wanted for Sadie was a lotus-eating existence with her mother. ‘I don’t suppose she would expect you to work for your living.’

Her response left no room for doubt about Sadie’s feelings on the subject. Daniel hadn’t anticipated ever feeling sorry for his ex-wife, yet for a woman to have earned so much scorn from her own daughter would wring sympathy from a stone. ‘No? Well, it’s not too late to change your mind.’ His gaze rested momentarily on her hair. ‘Assuming the suspension is not as permanent as your hair colour.’

‘Read my lips, Dad.’ She pointed a black-painted fingernail at her mouth and said, very slowly and very carefully, ‘I am not going back to school.’

‘Are you going to tell me why? Or are you going to wait for Mrs Warburton’s letter to arrive? I imagine she will write to me.’

‘Yeah.’ Her voice was all careless indifference, but her gaze slid away from him as she stuffed a hand into the pocket of her black leather bomber jacket and tossed a crumpled envlope onto the desk. Not so tough as she would have him believe, his little girl, and his insides turned over; it was all he could do to stop himself from grabbing her and hugging her and telling her that it didn’t matter, that whatever she’d done it didn’t matter because he loved her.

By the time she had gathered herself sufficiently to fix him with a belligerent glare, he was looking out of the window, contemplating the yard as if he had nothing more on his mind than the price of engine oil. He ignored the letter. ‘I’d rather hear it from you.’ His tone was mild, but his heart was beating like a steam pump. ‘Was it drink?’ he prompted. ‘Boys?’ He turned to look at her, his mouth suddenly bonedry. ‘Drugs?’

‘What do you take me for?’

An average teenage girl with more money than was good for her and a desperate need to lash out, to hurt the people who loved her.

‘I’ve been suspended for a week, that’s all.’ Under the white make-up he could have sworn she blushed. ‘For dying my hair, if you must know.’

It had to be relief that made him want to laugh. ‘Just for dying your hair? Mrs Warburton isn’t usually that harsh.’ Surely living with the colour while it grew out would be punishment enough. ‘Is she?’ he demanded sharply, suddenly very sure that she wasn’t telling the whole truth.

Sadie lifted her shoulders in a couldn’t-care-less shrug. ‘Yes, well, when the Warthog had me in her office to haul me over the coals for ‘‘letting down the high standards of Dower House School’’…’ she affected a nasal twang that was a cruel caricature of Mrs Warburton’s aristocratic accent ‘… I suggested it was time she touched up her own roots because the grey was showing.’

He put down his cup, turned away, his lips curled hard against his teeth. ‘I can see how that might not have helped matters,’ he said, when he was sure he wouldn’t betray himself.

‘Hypocritical old cow.’

He was forced to cover his mouth, pretend to cough. ‘Maybe so, but that really wasn’t very kind.’

‘She shouldn’t have made such a big deal about it. Anyone would think I’d had my nose pierced, or something.’

‘That’s banned too, is it?’

‘Everything’s banned. Of course if I’m not going back, I suppose I could—’

‘Your mother had her nose pierced the last time I saw her,’ he said. ‘She was wearing a diamond stud.’

Sadie said nothing; she didn’t have to. Dan knew she wasn’t about to do anything that would make her look more like her mother than she already did. Or had done, until she’d dyed her hair. That was something to be grateful for.

‘So, when do I start this wonderful job, then?’

Her tone was as belligerent as her expression, but adolescent rebellion was something he knew all about; this wasn’t the moment to demand she apologise. Despite the ‘hard girl’ act, he was sure she didn’t need to be told what was required, whether she returned to school or not. He was also sure that she was more likely to get on with it if she wasn’t nagged.

‘No time like the present. Come on, I’ll get you an overall and then we’ll go and find Bob.’

‘I can’t wait.’ The heavy sarcasm suggested that this was going to be a long week. He just hoped, for both their sakes, that at the end of it Sadie would realise that school was a soft option compared with working for a living. And that Mrs Warburton was in a forgiving mood.

Should he have tried harder to persuade her to go back? What would her mother have done? Not much. Vickie was in the Bahamas with her latest lover and a new baby to drool over. He doubted if she would welcome a phone call reminding her that she had a daughter approaching an age at which she would become competition. Instinct suggested that his best bet was to set Sadie to work and hope that a week of mind-numbing drudgery would do the job for him.

‘What am I going to have to do?’

‘The options are limited since you can’t drive—’

‘I can drive,’ she declared fiercely. ‘Better than most people.’

That was true. He’d taught her to drive in the field behind the cottage he had bought a couple of years back, and she could handle a motorbike or a car with all the panache of a professional. ‘You can’t drive a car on the road until you’re seventeen, Sadie. You can’t even move one across the yard until you have your licence because you wouldn’t be insured.’ She didn’t answer, but it was obvious that calling her bluff was not going to have any immediate effect. ‘Perhaps you should try a bit of everything. Make yourself useful about the place.’

‘Be a dogsbody, you mean?’ She was not impressed. ‘Great.’

‘If you plan on running this outfit one day you might as well find out how everything works.’

‘Who said I was?’ she demanded.

‘If you don’t go to college you won’t have much choice. You can start in the garage with Bob. He’ll show you the ropes.’

‘Cleaning cars.’ Only an adolescent could endow two such inoffensive words with quite that level of scorn. ‘You didn’t start this business by cleaning cars.’

‘I started with one car, Sadie, and I promise you, it didn’t clean itself.’

‘Very funny.’

‘You think you’re such a catch? Come back when you’ve seen what the Job Centre has to offer and we’ll talk again.’

‘But you’re my father; you can’t expect me to skivvy for you …’ Something in his expression must have warned her that she was doing herself no favours, because she stopped. ‘Okay, okay, whatever you say.’

If only. ‘And one other thing, Sadie. During working hours you’re no different from anyone else around here, you’re an employee with the same privileges and the same responsibilities. That means you arrive on time—’

‘That won’t be difficult. Just give me a call five minutes before you leave.’

‘I don’t provide a wake-up service for my staff, Sadie. And I don’t give them a lift to work, either. The only place I’m prepared to drive you to is Dower House, next Monday morning.’

‘Don’t bother. I’m sure there’s a bus.’

‘There is.’ He was looking out of the window, contemplating the business that he had built from scratch. It had been hard. Twenty-four hours a day work, and worry that had left him with too little time to invest in his marriage, too distracted by his own big ideas to notice when his wife had gone looking for company elsewhere. Or perhaps he’d needed the big ideas and the twenty-four-hour work schedule to distract him from his marriage. He turned to his errant daughter. ‘And while you’re here,’ he instructed, ‘you’ll do anything Bob asks of you. In return you get as much tea and coffee as you can drink, a cooked lunch in the café next door and clean overalls every morning. I’m afraid you have to be eighteen before you can join the pension scheme.’

‘My dad, the comedian.’

‘Your boss, the comedian. At least while you’re at the garage.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’ He didn’t bother to reply. ‘Okay … boss. How much do I get paid for doing the dirty work around here?’

‘The going rate for the job. After deductions for tax and national insurance you might earn almost as much as your allowance.’

‘Do I still get the allowance?’

‘What do you think?’

Amanda couldn’t wait for five o’clock. She had been looking forward to attending this seminar, but it had proved mind-numbingly dull. Or maybe it was just that her mind had other things to occupy it. A pair of capable hands. A quiff of sun-bleached hair with a will of its own. A dangerously attractive smile that still made her feel warm inside. Ridiculous.

Well, she was being ridiculous all round today. Common sense suggested it would have been wiser to call Capitol and cancel that five o’clock car. Her mother lived only a few miles away; she could have got a taxi there, stayed the night. Stayed the weekend, even. Except that she wasn’t quite ready to share her plans.

And now she’d left it too late.

She emerged from the hotel and glanced around, looking for Daniel, expecting to see him leaning against the bulk of his car. He wasn’t. Maybe he’d expected her to be late again, because the big dark blue Mercedes was on the far side of the car park and he was sitting inside it. Oh, well. She pinned a bright, careless smile in place and crossed the gravel. In the event, it was unnecessary, because the man who looked up from the driver’s seat was not Daniel Redford.

The plunging sense of disappointment certainly put that careless smile in its place. She definitely cared. Which was pretty stupid since she had only met the man once. Apparently that didn’t matter as much as she’d thought it did.

‘Yes, miss?’ The man had made no move to get out and open the car door for her, and for a moment she floundered before finding her voice.

‘You are from Capitol Cars, aren’t you? I didn’t realise I’d have a different driver.’

‘You haven’t got a different driver.’ She swung around at the sound of Daniel’s voice. ‘You have a different car, which is probably why you didn’t see me.’

How could she have missed him? He must have seen her confusion because he was smiling as he took her arm. ‘I’m parked over there.’ Her eyes widened as she took in the opulent lines of a classic wine-red Jaguar parked on the far side of the hotel entrance. She’d been so intent on looking for a Mercedes, for Daniel, that she hadn’t even noticed it. Amanda smiled apologetically at the driver of the Mercedes and walked with Daniel across to his car. ‘Well, this is different,’ she said.

‘Someone rear-ended the Mercedes this afternoon.’

Concern brought her to a halt and she looked up at him anxiously. ‘Were you hurt?’

‘Hurt?’ Then he shook his head. ‘Oh, no. I wasn’t driving it when it happened.’ They reached the car. ‘I hope you don’t mind this old jalopy.’

‘Mind?’ She glanced at him. ‘Why should I mind? She’s absolutely beautiful. A real classic.’ Whether the Jaguar merited quite that amount of breathy admiration was a moot point. But Amanda needed some excuse for her breathlessness.

‘Well, I’m glad you like her because there is a bit of a problem.’ Then he did that thing with the smile that made simple breathlessness seem like a piece of cake. ‘Because she’s rather mature, there are no seat belts in the rear, so you’ll have to sit up front with me.’

‘That’s not a problem. That’s a pleasure.’ She surrendered her laptop and document case to Daniel, and as he opened the door for her she stepped into the leather-scented interior. ‘My father had a car like this,’ she said, when he joined her. ‘It was dark green.’

‘The height of luxury in its time.’

‘It’s still luxury. A real treat after a dull day.’

‘I wish I’d had a dull day.’ There was a world of feeling in his voice as he started the car.

‘A baby and a rear-ending. Yes, I can see how that might complicate your life.’

‘They were the easy problems. After all, the baby isn’t mine and someone else’s insurance company will be paying for the damage to the car.’

‘There’s more?’

‘They say things happen in threes. My daughter chose today to drop out of school.’

His daughter. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. And she meant it. In more ways than one. The happy haze evaporated as quickly as it had formed at the sound of his voice. He had a daughter. Well, what was the big surprise in that? She’d asked about his wife and he’d been evasive. She should have remembered that before she’d made an utter fool of herself with her stupid That’s a pleasure …

Well, that would teach her to let her mind go awandering. He had a wife, and a wife almost inevitably meant children. But the inevitability of it didn’t stop her heart from sinking like a soggy sponge.

‘Was there any special reason?’ she asked. Well, she had to say something. ‘For the dropping out?’

‘She flunked her GCSEs last summer. I’m hoping she’s just a bit fed up because all her friends have moved on to the sixth form while she’s stuck with re-sits.’ Daniel pulled out of the parking bay and headed for the gates.

‘Hoping?’

‘I suspect it may be a symptom of something worse.’ There was what seemed like an endless pause as he reached the gates, waited for the traffic, then pulled out into the lane.

She couldn’t ask. Could she? ‘A symptom?’ Amanda prompted, once they were cruising.

Daniel Redford glanced at her briefly. Then, as if coming to a decision, he said, ‘Her mother abandoned her when she was eight years old. The divorce was a long time ago, but I have the feeling that it’s finally caught up with her.’

‘Oh, I am sorry.’ And she was. She might be glad that Daniel was unattached. The soggy sponge might be making a miraculous recovery. But she couldn’t be happy that a little girl had been abandoned by her mother. ‘That’s a terrible thing to happen to any child. What’ll you do?’

‘With Sadie?’ He glanced across at her and quite unexpectedly grinned. Sadie might have taken her mother’s abandonment hard, but she didn’t get the feeling that Daniel Redford was too bothered. ‘I’ve put her to work cleaning cars at the garage. I’m hoping a week of that might help to change her mind.’

‘It would certainly send me scurrying back to my books. But shouldn’t you be at home with her now, helping her sort out her life, instead of chauffeuring me about the place?’

‘I should. In fact you were rescheduled for another driver, but what with the shunt and a baggage handlers’ strike delaying a couple of airport jobs, it all got a bit complicated. Don’t worry about it. I’ve no doubt she’s very grateful for the opportunity to avoid me for another hour or two.’

Amanda was grateful too. So grateful that she sent a silent thank you to the striking airport baggage handlers, wherever they were.

‘Well, you’ve got all weekend to talk. Maybe it’ll seem clearer after a good night’s sleep.’

‘Maybe. And, since the urge to dropout was precipitated by a week’s suspension from school, there’s no rush.’

‘You certainly seem to have your hands full.’ Well, they were big, capable hands and she was rather hoping to fill them herself. The thought came from nowhere, and Amanda made a determined effort to drag her subconscious back onto the straight and narrow. ‘What’s she been suspended for?’

‘Oh, nothing too dreadful. She dyed her hair.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Not quite.’

Amanda found it disgracefully hard not to laugh when he told her what Sadie had done. The fact that Daniel’s mouth was betraying his own amusement didn’t help, and her repressed giggle erupted without warning.

‘Horrible child,’ she said, when she had recovered her breath.

He grinned. ‘Do you know, I have the feeling that is exactly what the formidable Miss Garland would have said if she were here?’

‘Is that what you think?’ She laughed at that, too. In fact she was laughing rather a lot, she noticed. The seminar might have been dull but in every other way the day was turning out very well indeed. ‘I can see I shall have to be very careful, or I’ll become just like her.’

‘Sure,’ he said. They were stopped at traffic lights and he turned on the full force of that killer smile. ‘When shrimps learn to whistle.’

‘Er, excuse me? Was that supposed to be compliment?’

‘Well, you know Miss Garland. What would you say?’

Any number of things, Amanda thought, none of them what he expected. But why risk spoiling things? ‘I’d say, I’ve had a boring day and you’ve had a fretful one. Why don’t we stop somewhere and I’ll treat us both to a cup of coffee and a sticky bun as a treat?’

Daniel didn’t answer, and for a moment she thought perhaps she’d gone too far. Then he signalled a left turn and pulled onto the forecourt of one of those bright, cheerful little restaurants that provide coffee and comfort food twenty-four hours a day for busy travellers. Only then did he turn to her. ‘Was this what you had in mind?’

‘What do you do for an encore?’

‘Sorry?’

‘After the mind-reading trick.’

‘If I could read minds I’d know what to do about Sadie,’ he said as he opened the door for her.

If you could read minds, Amanda thought, I’d be in big trouble.

She picked up a tray, but Daniel took it from her. ‘I dare say you’ve been running about with cups of tea for spoilt executives all day. Go and sit down. I’ll get the coffee.’

‘Garland Girls don’t make coffee,’ she said, surrendering the tray but following him along the counter. Then added, straight-faced, ‘Well, not unless it’s Jamaica Blue Mountain.’

He stopped by the self-service capuccino. ‘You’re sure you want to risk this?’

She put a mug beneath the spout and pressed the button. ‘This is fine. It just needs a good slosh of chocolate powder.’ She repeated the process. ‘And now we need a truly sticky bun,’ she said crisply. ‘What about those?’

He looked at an array of Danish pastries. ‘Was your day that bad?’

Her day had been something of a roller-coaster ride. At the moment she was on top, but she was well aware that the next half an hour could take it either way. Or maybe she was just kidding herself. ‘Actually, on second thoughts, nothing could be that bad. But you go ahead.’

‘The coffee will do just fine.’ He insisted on paying for it and carried the tray to a table.

They sat opposite one another, and for a moment neither of them said anything. Amanda realised she had started something she didn’t know quite how to finish.

Daniel stirred his coffee. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, after a moment. ‘About those tickets—’

From somewhere near her feet, Amanda’s mobile phone began to ring. She ignored it. ‘Tickets?’ she prompted.

The phone continued to trill urgently. ‘Hadn’t you better answer that?’

Amanda sent a silent message to whatever gremlin was in charge of messing up the communication networks. He was out. And the phone kept on ringing. She retrieved it from her bag. ‘Yes?’

‘Amanda, where are you? you’ve got to come back to the office!’ Beth sounded like an over-excited puppy.

She was horribly conscious of Daniel, watching her. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I been talking to Guy Dymoke!’

Guy Dymoke? ‘Do you mean Guy Dymoke the actor?’

‘Actor?’ Beth’s voice rose several octaves. ‘I’ve never noticed whether he can act. The man is sex on legs—’

‘And?’ Amanda interrupted before the woman passed out from excitment.

‘And he’s shooting a new movie in London. He needs a secretary, sweetie, and he wants one of our girls.’

Amanda glanced at Daniel, who was trying not to look too interested. ‘Can’t you handle it?’