The Blind-date Proposal. Jessica Hart

or something, so I wasn’t sure if he’d be that impressed by you temping, but apart from that we told him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,’ she finished virtuously.

      ‘Oh, the truth!’ said Kate, her voice heavy with irony. ‘And what’s that, exactly?’

      ‘That you’re warm and funny and attractive and basically completely wonderful,’ Phoebe said firmly.

      Perhaps she should ask Phoebe to put in some PR for her with Finn McBride, Kate thought, and then frowned slightly as she realised that she had been unconsciously doodling in her turn as she listened to Phoebe.

      At least she didn’t go in for severe black boxes. She had done her favourite, a tropical sunset complete with leaning palm tree and a couple of wiggly lines to indicate the lagoon rippling gently against the shore. What did that indicate about her?

      Probably that she was a hopeless fantasist, in which case she could save herself the cost of a professional analysis. She already knew that she was far too romantic for her own good. People had been telling her for years that she needed to shape up, get real, wake up and smell the coffee, and do all the other things that simply didn’t come naturally to her.

      Suppressing a sigh, Kate carefully added a bunch of coconuts to the palm tree. ‘So won’t he wonder why if I’m that perfect I’m reduced to being set up on blind dates by friends? Why aren’t men falling at my feet wherever I go?’

      ‘I don’t know. Why aren’t they?’

      That was one of the things Kate liked about Phoebe. She really believed in her friends.

      Kate put down her pen and forced herself to concentrate. Perhaps all this was a sign to stop dreaming about Seb miraculously turning into a different person and to start making an effort to meet someone new. To wake up and smell the coffee, in fact.

      ‘So what’s he like, this guy?’

      ‘I’ve never met him,’ Phoebe had to admit. ‘He’s an old friend of Gib’s.’

      ‘How old, exactly?’

      ‘In his early forties, I think.’

      ‘Just coming up for his mid-life crisis then,’ said Kate with an uncharacteristic touch of cynicism.

      ‘He’s already had more than enough crises,’ said Phoebe soberly. ‘He’s a widower. His wife died when their daughter was just a toddler, and he’s been struggling to bring her up on his own ever since.’

      ‘Oh, how awful,’ said Kate, her ready sympathy roused and feeling instantly guilty for her flip comment. ‘It must have been terrible for him.’

      ‘Well, yes, I gather it was. Gib says he absolutely adored his wife, but it’s six years ago now, and he’s thinking that his little girl is getting to the stage when she really needs a woman around. He’s out of the way of dating, though, and since you were complaining about not meeting any men, Gib suggested a casual supper to introduce you. It’s no big deal, but he thought you might get on.’

      ‘I don’t know that I’m really stepmother material,’ said Kate doubtfully. ‘I don’t know anything about children.’

      ‘Nonsense!’ Phoebe wasn’t having any of that. ‘Look how good you are with animals, and children are just the same. They need someone to take them under her wing, and you know what a soft heart you’ve got for lame ducks.’

      ‘Yes, but I don’t want to go out with a lame duck,’ Kate protested. ‘I want someone sexy and exciting and glamorous.’

      Like Seb.

      The same thought was clearly in Phoebe’s mind. ‘No you don’t,’ she said firmly. ‘You want someone kind.’

      Kate sighed. ‘Why can’t I have someone who’s kind and sexy and exciting and glamorous?’

      ‘Because I married him,’ said Phoebe smugly. ‘Now listen, this guy’s had a hard time, so be nice to him.’

      ‘Oh, all right,’ grumbled Kate. ‘What’s his name, anyway—’ She broke off as Finn’s door opened. ‘Uh-oh, here comes Mr Grumpy! I’d better go—I’m not supposed to use the phone for personal calls. See you later.’ She put the phone down hastily.

      Finn looked at her with a suspicious frown. ‘Who was that?’

      Well, she wasn’t going to tell him the truth and, although she could have made up something innocuous, Kate had an irrepressibly inventive streak and as a matter of principle resisted the simple option when she could complicate matters. She embarked instead on a long, involved and utterly untrue story, inventing an accountant who had met Alison skiing but who had subsequently been on a business trip to Singapore and had only just heard about the accident and, remembering that Alison had told him where she worked, now wanted to know where to send a card.

      ‘I said it would be all right if he sent it here and we would forward it,’ she finished, having embroidered the story with so many details that she almost believed it herself.

      Finn’s expression was glazed with irritation by the time she got to the end. ‘I wish I’d never asked,’ he sighed. ‘You’ve just wasted a quarter of an hour of my life!’

      ‘It’s not as if we do brain surgery here,’ said Kate, a trifle sullenly. ‘I don’t see what difference fifteen minutes here or there makes.’

      ‘In that case, you won’t mind staying late tonight to make up for the hour you missed this morning,’ Finn said with an unpleasant look. ‘We’ve got an extremely important project coming up and I need to get this done to fax to the States before tomorrow morning.’

      ‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ she said, not sounding at all regretful. ‘I’m going out.’

      Finn frowned. ‘Can’t you ring and say you’ll be a bit late?’

      For anyone else, Kate would have offered to do just that, but something about Finn McBride rubbed her up the wrong way. It wasn’t as if he had made the slightest effort to be pleasant to her.

      ‘Oh, I don’t think my boyfriend would like that very much,’ she said instead, trying for the unconscious smugness that so often seemed to accompany the words ‘my boyfriend’.

      ‘You’ve got a boyfriend?’ Finn was unflatteringly surprised, and Kate bridled. It was bad enough putting up with his rudeness without knowing that he thought her incapable of attracting a man as well!

      ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, determined to convince him that while she might not be a perfect PA, somebody wanted her. ‘In fact,’ she went on, leaning forward confidentially, ‘he’s taking me somewhere really special tonight. I think he might be going to pop the question!’

      ‘Really?’ Finn raised a contemptuous eyebrow, not even bothering to try and hide his disbelief.

      How rude, thought Kate indignantly. He clearly didn’t think she was the kind of girl who would get a man at all, let alone one who wanted to marry her.

      Her brown eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said on her mettle. ‘Didn’t you know? That’s why I’m temping. Ever since I met—’

      She searched wildly for a name before remembering Bella’s current and very glamorous man. Your best friend’s boyfriend was normally out of bounds, but she didn’t think Bella would mind her borrowing him mentally.

      ‘—Will,’ she carried on after the tiniest beat, ‘we’ve both known that we were meant for each other. He’s a financial analyst,’ she went on breezily, deciding that she might as well take Will’s career as well, ‘so I didn’t want to commit to a permanent job when he might be posted to New York or Tokyo at any minute. Of course, he keeps saying to me, “Darling, there’s no need for you to go out to work every day,” but I feel it’s important to keep some financial independence, don’t you?’

      ‘I wouldn’t