A Perfect Proposal. Liz Fielding

down on Mr Fluffy and say, “I’m afraid you haven’t lived up to the promise of your excellent references, Mrs Collins. I’m going to have to let you go?”’

      ‘Mrs Collins was the nanny before last.’

      ‘Oh, Mark!’ Jane’s amusement evaporated rapidly. She’d interviewed Sarah Collins herself and had been convinced she would be perfect for the job.

      ‘She left last month. Some excuse about family problems. You tried so hard that I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. The agency has been sending me temps in the meantime. It’s given Shuli plenty of opportunity to practise the art of getting rid of them. This morning she just screamed the place down until the poor woman left the house. I don’t know why; her references were excellent. She seemed perfect in every way to me.’

      ‘Things look different from knee height. It wasn’t you she was giving a bath and tucking up in bed.’ Then, grateful that he couldn’t see her quick flush, ‘Maybe you should try asking Shuli what she wants before you take on someone else. She might settle better with a live-in nanny.’

      ‘She might. I wouldn’t.’

      They’d discussed it at length before, but he was clearly uncomfortable about sharing his house with a strange woman. She wasn’t wild about the idea, either, but Shuli was more important than her own pathetic little jealousies. Getting him to acknowledge that his little girl was an individual who might have feelings of her own was an uphill battle, but someone had to try.

      ‘Has she calmed down now?’

      ‘Like any woman, Jane, she’s perfectly happy now that she’s got her own way.’ Then, somewhat belatedly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you…’

      ‘No.’ He didn’t think of her as a woman at all.

      ‘The agency is trying to find a replacement and in the meantime I’m calling everyone I can think of to have her.’

      ‘No luck?’

      ‘My mother is away at some conference and my sister moved to Strasbourg last month. They’re not your average grandmother/aunt combination,’ he said wearily. ‘It looks as if I’m going to have to work from home until I can sort something out. At least for the rest of the week. Will you bring over the files on my desk, please? And the mail.’

      ‘Are you sure? It’ll be nearly lunchtime by the time I arrive. Maybe you should just take the day off and spend it with Shuli.’ That was what the child wanted. A father who was there to give her a cuddle when she needed it. Who had time for her when she woke up eager to play; who made an effort to get home in time to read her a bedtime story. She didn’t blame Shuli for sacking a series of strangers, no matter how well qualified, who were being paid to stand in for a mother she’d never known, for a father who found her presence a painful daily reminder of everything he’d lost. ‘It’s a lovely day,’ she pointed out, trying again. ‘You could take her to the country park.’

      ‘Not today, Jane,’ he said, briskly. ‘If I don’t get the Arts Centre designs finalised this week we’ll fall behind programme.’

      Heaven forbid that should happen. ‘Of course. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

      She called the surveyors to reschedule the meeting, then sat for a moment while she gathered her own protective shell about her. Shuli wasn’t the only one who longed for Mark Hilliard to notice her. Love her.

      But she was a grown-up, twenty-four years old, and, since she was also in her right mind, flinging herself onto the floor and screaming for attention wasn’t an option.

      She was good old Jane, who could always be relied on no matter what the crisis. The perfect secretary, hiding her love for her heartbreakingly handsome boss behind her owl-like spectacles. A total cliché.

      Okay, forget the spectacles. But she might as well wear them for all the notice he took of her.

      But Mark Hilliard was irresistible. Ever since she’d sat across his desk for the first time and seen him, newly bereaved, grief in every dark shadow of his ravaged face, with his baby daughter in a carry seat beside him, she’d known it would be a mistake to stay.

      There had been an urgent phone call moments after she’d arrived for the interview. She’d picked up the noisy infant, taken her into Reception and played finger games with her while her father had dealt at length with some crisis.

      When he’d finished, he’d come looking for her. ‘You’ve got the job.’

      The heart-leap of joy had been a warning and she’d heeded it. Much as she’d wanted the job, she knew that falling in love with the boss at first sight, any sight, was always going to end in tears. Hers.

      ‘But you know nothing about me,’ she’d said.

      ‘I know that you see what needs to be done and do it. That’s good enough for me. Can you start now?’

      Shuli had been sitting on her lap, playing with the buttons on a smart new suit bought specially for the occasion. Well, it had looked smart in the shop. On her it didn’t have quite the same stylish appearance. Nothing ever did; she just wasn’t a standard size. Not tall enough. Not anything enough. And now it had dribble marks on the lapel.

      ‘Not promising material. Lacks that touch of class.’ That was what the woman at the secretarial agency had written on her application form. Jane was very good at reading upside down. Her skills were excellent but they hadn’t even taken her on as one of their temps.

      While she had been putting on her coat a call had come into Reception. Mark Hilliard, of Hilliard, Young and Lynch Architects, needed a first-class secretary urgently.

      As soon as she’d reached the pavement she’d called him on her mobile phone. She sounded better than she looked and he’d asked her to come over right away.

      He hadn’t been put off by her appearance. She might have loved him just for that. Which was why, even though every sensible bone in her body had urged her to take a job that she wanted, needed, some internal alarm system had rung loud bells, warning her to turn him down, walk away.

      There would be other jobs. Safer jobs. Jobs where her heart wouldn’t be on the line every minute of every working day. But Mark had looked so desperate. And Shuli had smiled so winningly at her.

      Which was why, for more than two and a half years, she’d seen what was needed and she’d done it, without waiting to be asked.

      All except for Shuli, she thought.

      She’d tried to engage his attention in his adorable daughter, but it was clear that he found it difficult to be near her, and for all those two and half years she’d watched helplessly as he’d done everything for the child but give himself. It just wasn’t good enough. If he couldn’t be a father to the child, he’d have to give her a mother. And, as always, having recognised the need, she would have to organise the solution.

      She gathered the files Mark had asked for and picked up her laptop, stopping in Reception to have calls redirected.

      Her reflection in a framed picture of Hilliard’s most recent project warned her that her hair was escaping from the neat chignon the hairdresser had assured her would stay in place in a force ten gale.

      She still needed to work on her presentation. Fortunately Mark wouldn’t notice even if she shortened her skirts to her knickers and piled on the make-up. He just didn’t see her that way. It was the one thing she had going for her.

      ‘Read me a story, Daddy.’

      Mark glanced irritably at his daughter, who was perfectly happy now that the nanny had gone and she’d disrupted his day.

      ‘I’m busy, Shuli.’

      She pushed the book she was holding onto the desk. It was old. Much read. ‘This story,’ she persisted.

      Recognising the futility of resistance, he picked up the book. ‘Where did this come from?’

      ‘Jane