The Boss and His Secretary. Jessica Steele

Taryn, after enquiring if her stepmother felt better, made her way to the kitchen.

      Sleep did not come easily to her that night. She had loved that job, was comfortable with engineering and engineering terms, had computer and typing skills and, a quick learner, tackled anything that passed by her desk with enthusiasm. What sort of career did she have now?

      Did she even want a career? She felt hurt, wounded, and had not replied to Brian’s phone calls. She relived again the way he had kissed her. As such matters went—and she knew that she was behind the times in that regard—she was not so very experienced. But she knew the difference between a kiss of friendship and even a shade or two warmer type of kiss—but those sorts of kisses had been a mile and a half away from the kind of kiss Brian had given her.

      Not that it had been so much ‘given’. It had just sort of happened. She had been standing there, she had been empathetic, and then, wham, he was on his feet, kissing her—a kiss that had been all wanting. And she had panicked and had got out of there.

      She’d been in the lift, having terminated her employment with Mellor Engineering without having to think about it, and…She suddenly remembered that man in the lift. Oh, heavens, had she been very rude to him?

      Poor man…Oddly, she could see him quite clearly in her mind’s eye. Tall and, if not concerned exactly, there had been something in his grey eyes as he’d asked—she had to think for a few seconds—‘You seem upset?’ and, ‘Is it something I can help you with?’ And she had snootily and quite snappily retorted, ‘I very much doubt it.’ Which, in the circumstance of him only wanting to help, had not been at all gracious of her.

      Taryn put the picture of the good-looking, quite obviously top executive from her mind. She didn’t know who he was, and if she ever did—which she wouldn’t, because she was never going to enter that building again—she was unsure that she would want to resurrect what had happened by apologising for her rudeness.

      She wondered what to tell her father and stepmother at breakfast the next morning. But was grateful that her father had an experiment going on in one of the workshops belonging to his property, and appeared to have forgotten the need for breakfast. Taryn thought she might take him a tray later. Her stepmother left it until after nine to descend the stairs.

      ‘You still here?’ she exclaimed, when they bumped into each other in the hall. Taryn was saved a reply when just then the telephone in the hall rang for attention and her stepmother reached for it. ‘Hello?’ she enquired. ‘Brian!’ she exclaimed, and, archly, ‘Didn’t that naughty stepdaughter of mine ring you?’ Taryn made frantic signs that she still did not want to speak to him, and saw Eva hesitate before she declared, ‘I’m sorry, Taryn’s not around at the moment. Can I take a message for you?’

      Apparently she could not. But the moment she put the phone down she wanted to know, chapter and verse, why he was ringing her stepdaughter at home when said stepdaughter was supposed to be in his offices.

      ‘There was…I’ve resigned,’ Taryn stated.

      ‘A pity you didn’t tell him that!’

      ‘I’ll drop him a note.’

      ‘You’ve walked out!’ It sounded like an accusation.

      ‘I—um—wasn’t sure I wanted to be a PA any more,’ Taryn replied, feeling her colour rise at the blatant lie. Although, since she was not sure what she wanted to do any longer, perhaps it was not so very blatant.

      She watched as her stepmother’s need to know every last minute detail rose to a peak. Then all at once it fell away as Eva Webster fitted in her stepdaughter’s lack of employment with a vacancy she had of her own. She seized the opportunity with both hands. ‘Well, isn’t that splendid? You can have Mrs Jennings’ old job!’

      ‘I’m—er—not sure I want to be housekeeper to you and Dad,’ Taryn tried to protest.

      Overruled. ‘You’re surely not thinking of sitting at home idle all day?’ questioned that lady who had made sitting idle an artform.

      Since Taryn did not want to spend the next week avoiding answering the phone—if that was how long it took for Brian to get the message that she was not going to go back, and assuming that was what his phone call had been about—Taryn that day typed out her formal resignation. She sighted unforeseen circumstances as her excuse to put on file for her departure being immediate.

      By return she received a handwritten note from him, apologising profusely for overstepping the line between employer and PA, and stating that he had no excuse to offer other than the fact that he saw her in a more friendly light than someone who just happened to work for him. That, however, did not make his behaviour any the less inexcusable. But, while he could promise that nothing of the sort would ever happen again, if he had to he would accept that she would not be coming back. If at any time she had a change of heart, there would always be a job for her at Mellor Engineering.

      Taryn had a hard time holding back tears as she read his letter. She felt she had never loved him more than just then. But she could not return. It hurt her not to see him. It hurt not to be a part of that busy environment. Being her stepmother’s housekeeper just did not compare.

      Taryn had been cooking and cleaning and generally putting up with her stepmother’s daily demands for going on two weeks when she began to feel that they would be falling out ‘big-time’ if she had to put up with much more of it.

      She was still missing going to work at Mellor Engineering every day—it was taking a little longer than the twenty-four hours her aunt had forecast it would take for it all to seem much better. But Taryn did admit to feeling more on an even keel as she searched through the ‘Situations Vacant’ column for something that might trigger a spark of interest.

      ‘What dainty sandwiches are you preparing for this afternoon?’ Eva Webster demanded on entering the room.

      ‘Sandwiches?’

      ‘My bridge party?’

      It was the first Taryn had heard that her stepmother was entertaining her bridge chums.

      ‘I thought salmon and cucumber, with a few little cakes afterwards,’ Taryn replied off the top of her head—anything for a quiet life.

      ‘White and brown bread?’ Eva Webster demanded sharply.

      ‘Naturally,’ Taryn answered, realising she would have to go to the shops. Woe betide her if the bread wasn’t fresh.

      Her stepmother looked over Taryn’s shoulder and was soon ready with her next demand. ‘Why are you reading the “Situations Vacant” column?’

      Taryn smiled. ‘I’m looking for a job.’ Eva Webster’s lips compressed; she did not like it, but by no chance was Taryn going to allow her to believe she was going to act as housekeeper permanently.

      ‘You obviously haven’t got enough to do here,’ Eva snapped, referring to the fact that Taryn, who had vacuumed and polished the morning away, was now sitting reading the paper.

      Taryn switched from ‘Situations Vacant’ to ‘Accommodation To Let” when she had gone. Perhaps this time she would not tell her stepmother her plans until, cases packed, she was on her way out of the door.

      Taryn was returning from the shops when, feeling more than a little down she played with the notion of paying a visit to her mother. Her mother and new husband did voluntary work in Africa. Would she be welcome, or would she be in the way? Her mother’s letters were always warm and loving, but…

      She had come to no decision when, her stepmother’s bridge party in full swing, the telephone rang. Taryn answered it in the kitchen, and with a warm feeling heard her aunt’s voice.

      ‘What are you doing?’ Hilary asked.

      ‘In between looking in the “Situations Vacant” and “Accommodation To Let” columns, you mean?’

      ‘As bad as that?’

      ‘Not