The Boss's Bride. Emma Richmond

Remembering the conversation she had overheard earlier, she began to smile. Control freak. Perhaps she was.

      ‘Why the smile?’

      ‘I was wondering if I was a control freak.’

      He looked at her, gave a disbelieving shake of his head at her odd behaviour, and got to his feet.

      Collecting her things, she joined him. With no need to go back through the inn, they walked out through the garden. ‘Do you remember the first time we met?’ she asked him as they negotiated the uneven cobbles.

      ‘Vaguely.’

      ‘You asked if I cried easily.’

      ‘Did I? How extraordinary.’

      ‘No, it isn’t,’ she denied. ‘You made them all cry. The Sallys and the Janes…’

      ‘But not you.’

      ‘No, not me. I appear to be shout-proof.’

      ‘I don’t shout.’

      No, he just made people feel stupid.

      ‘Neither do I suffer fools. And some of them were very foolish indeed.’

      Yes, so she’d heard. Falling in love with him, trying to attract him, crying when he reproved them over some mistake. He’d had a lot of assistants over the years, both male and female, and none of them had lasted very long. She’d worked for him for six months. Sometimes it felt like for ever, as though she had always known him, known what he was like—and she suddenly had a mental image of herself still working for him when she was an old, old lady. Unmarried, efficient, his right hand. Spinster. Unfulfilled.

      ‘Keys?’

      With a little blink, she hastily fumbled for her car keys. She hadn’t even noticed that they’d reached the car. ‘Sorry—wool-gathering.’

      They drove home in silence. Silence inside the car, silence out. Theirs seemed to be the only car on the road. The warm breeze through the open windows was somehow soothing.

      Parking by the stable block, she lingered a moment to stare up at the sky. The stars were brighter here, more important, and she stretched her arms up, savoured for a moment the utter tranquillity. A fox barked nearby and she shivered.