Accepting the Boss's Proposal

Alistair poured out a glass of wine. ‘Miles was just saying he’s got a temporary secretary working for him at the moment who’s also called Jemima.’

Miles felt his stomach drop. It was the same feeling as when your dinghy was about to capsize and there was absolutely nothing you could do to stop it. He was going over. It was inevitable.

‘That’s quite a coincidence. It’s not a particularly common name, is it?’ Alistair continued, sublimely oblivious to the missile he was hurling in their midst.

‘I heard.’ Jemima looked directly at Miles. Her green eyes were steady, like lasers. ‘She dresses like her mother.’

Miles’s head jerked up.

It was like receiving a swift left to his chin. So quick he hadn’t seen it coming. It hadn’t occurred to him that Jemima could have heard what he’d said about her. In his adult life there’d probably only been a handful of occasions when he’d wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. This was one of those occasions. It was up there in number one slot along with the time his mother had given a television interview explaining that he’d been conceived in a moment of ‘peace and meditation’.

Rachel reached out for her own wine. ‘Jemima’s just started temping. Perhaps she ought to work for you, Miles.’

This was getting worse. Miles’s eyes searched out Jemima’s, a desperate apology in his own.

He watched the indecision as it passed across her green eyes. Then she gave a half smile and held out her hand. ‘It’s lovely to meet you.’

His sense of relief was overwhelming. ‘And you,’ he said, stretching out his own hand. ‘Jemima…?’

‘Chadwick.’

It was fascinating to see the sudden spark of laughter light her eyes. What was it they said about still waters running deep?

‘Jemima Chadwick.’

His hand closed round hers. On the whole he thought she’d made the right choice. It was far easier to pretend they didn’t know each other. He was more than happy to go along with that. And, at the first opportunity, he’d apologise.

‘The man she’s working for sounds worse than you, Miles,’ Rachel said. ‘Apparently he sent some woman a dandelion. Or rather he got Jemima to do it.’

Miles watched a red stain appear on Jemima’s neck and gradually spread to her cheeks. It seemed that fate had struck a blow for equality. ‘Sounds fun,’ he said, releasing her hand.

The flush became a little darker. ‘I’m told it works every time,’ she shot back quickly.

‘He sounds a jerk,’ was Alistair’s observation. ‘Shall we go out to the garden? We’ve set everything out there as it’s a nice evening.’

Miles led the way outside, not sure how he was feeling any more. Honesty compelled him to admit that Jemima carried the advantage in the cringe stakes. The things he’d said about her to Alistair were completely out of order—regardless of whether she’d overheard them. His mother would have him flayed alive for comments like that. As long as Jemima did her job properly there was no reason why she should socialise or dress differently. No reason at all.

Nevertheless it was a mystery to him why someone who could look as…downright sexy as Jemima, would go to work looking like everyone’s image of the worst kind of librarian. Why do it?

Her work clothes were too safely conventional, but the difference was mainly due to her hair. How had a nondescript pony-tail become a riot of curls? She looked as if she’d stepped out of a pre-Raphaelite painting. All curves, cleavage and abandonment. Perhaps better not to allow his mind to go too far down that particular avenue. Single mums were absolutely out of bounds. Too much baggage. Far too many responsibilities.

He took the seat opposite her, the little devil on his shoulder prompting him to ask, ‘So, you’re temping?’

Jemima shot him a warning glance, but he didn’t care. With Rachel listening in, she’d have to answer him. Who knew what he might find out about her? If you were going to have an excruciatingly embarrassing evening, you might as well turn it to your advantage. Salvage whatever enjoyment you could.

‘Yes.’

‘As a secretary?’ he continued blandly.

It was worth it for the flick of those green eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Are you enjoying it?

Jemima reached out and took a breadstick. She snapped it in half. ‘No.’

‘Why’s that?’

She looked at him and shook her head as though she were warning him off.

‘It’s because it’s her first job,’ Rachel chipped in.

First job. Now that was interesting. Miles let his eyebrows raise a fraction and watched with complete enjoyment the blush that heated her face.

Alistair picked up his wine and stood up. ‘I’m sure that’s right, Jemima. It’s a huge lifestyle change for you. Your hair looks great, by the way. I’ve not seen you leave it curly for months.’

Jemima self-consciously touched her hair. Miles watched as she twisted one strand around her forefinger. She had no idea what that simple movement of one finger was doing to him. ‘I didn’t have time to straighten it. I had an argument with a paint pot and the paint pot won.’

‘It looks great,’ Alistair said as he headed back towards the kitchen.

Rachel nodded. ‘I keep telling her.’ She looked at Miles. ‘She won’t listen. She thinks it looks more sophisticated straight.’

He wasn’t about to enter that debate, but he was in no doubt which he preferred. ‘It’s a great colour,’ he said softly, willing her to look at him.

She wasn’t having any of it. ‘It’s red,’ Jemima said, picking up her wineglass. ‘And the bane of my life.’

Did she really think that? It was unbelievable. He watched as her fingers played with the stem of her wineglass. Nice fingers. Short, tidy nails with no polish on them. That was more in keeping with the Jemima Chadwick he knew.

‘So,’ he said after a short pause, ‘you’re in your first job…?’

‘After my divorce.’ She looked at him then and there was no mistaking the warning light in her green eyes. ‘It’s a shame I’m not enjoying it more, isn’t it?’

His lips twitched. ‘Why aren’t you?’

‘My boss is very…smug. Do you know the kind of man I mean? Very difficult to take seriously.’

Her green eyes were…incredible. Why hadn’t he noticed them before? Tiny flecks of topaz worked out from dark irises. Two weeks—ten days—sitting in his office and he hadn’t noticed. He was slipping.

And she thought him smug—apparently. Miles smiled. He probably deserved that. Even so…‘When you’ve had a little more experience, perhaps you ought to consider working with me. I must speak to Amanda about it.’

Her eyes narrowed and Miles waited to see what she would do next. She took her time and snapped off another piece of breadstick before saying, ‘I don’t know whether I’d be interested. What is it that you do exactly?’

‘Public relations.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘That’s a form of professional lying, isn’t it?’

‘Jemima!’ Rachel exclaimed, shocked.

Miles laughed and raised his glass in a mock toast. Round one to the lady. How surprising. He took a sip of his wine and placed the glass back on the table. ‘So, Jemima,’ he began and watched with enjoyment the way she tensed, ‘how do you know Rachel?’

‘We were at university together,’ Rachel answered for her. ‘Jemima and I met during freshers week and ended up sharing a house together in our second and third years. Do you remember the house we had first?’ she asked, turning to Jemima. ‘I swear it had mould in the corner of every room. It even smelt damp.’

‘What did you study?’ Miles asked.

Those green eyes flashed up at him, clearly resenting telling him anything. It added a little spice to the evening.

‘English and French.’

‘We both did,’ Rachel chimed in. ‘Except, of course, Jemima got a first, whereas I got a 2:1.’

Which rather begged the question—what the blazes was she doing working for little more than the minimum wage in a temporary secretarial job? It was none of his business, but his curiosity was piqued.

And, if he was honest, a little more than that. ‘So how come you’re temping? I’d have thought a first in English and French from Warwick would have led you in an entirely different direction.’

‘She meant to be an editor. But then she met Russell and…’ Rachel shrugged ‘…everything changed.’

‘So…you gave up everything for love?’

There was a toss of that incredible hair and then she met his eyes. ‘I gave up everything when I had my first son,’ she corrected him firmly. ‘Not that there was much to give up. I was only twenty-one and hadn’t had a chance to get started on anything.’

‘And now you’re picking up where you left off.’

‘Hardly,’ she shot back with a flash of those incredible eyes, her resentment shimmering across the table towards him. ‘When I left off I’d just got a job as an assistant editor with a small educational publisher. Now I’m a temporary secretary. If life’s a game of snakes and ladders I’ve just gone down that really big snake on square twenty-four.’

Alistair was wrong. Jemima Chadwick wasn’t brittle, she was angry. It seemed that life had hit her particularly hard. Alistair had described her divorce as ‘traumatic’, but then Miles had never witnessed a divorce that wasn’t.

In his circle the accepted opinion was that ex-wives were avaricious and bled their former spouses dry. This was the flip side of that, he supposed. His smile twisted. Jemima had been left with no career to speak of and two children to bring up alone. That was tough. No wonder she was angry.

Rachel topped up Jemima’s wine. ‘I still think you ought to think about—’

Alistair interrupted by carrying out a large platter of salmon. ‘Nigella Lawson swears this is the easy way to entertain. Just fork up what you want. The duck may be a disaster so I wouldn’t hold back.’

Rachel stood up and cleared away her central table decoration to make space. She looked around for somewhere to put it.

‘Put it behind me,’ Jemima suggested. ‘It won’t get knocked round here.’

Rachel handed over the stunning arrangement of white hydrangea, viburnum and tulips. ‘Thanks.’

‘You know this is gorgeous. You could do something like it for the wedding,’ Jemima suggested, deliberately steering the topic of conversation into a new direction.

In her opinion, Miles Kingsley had spent long enough enjoying himself at her expense. Even talking about weddings was preferable to the continual haemorrhaging of her private business. She pulled back her chair and placed the flowers carefully on the ground. ‘All these tea lights are very romantic too.’

Rachel sat down eagerly. ‘I was wondering about that. I think it would work really well with our theme—’ she sat back to add gravitas to her announcement ‘—which is going to be…medieval.’

Medieval. That wasn’t what Rachel had been talking about for the past four months. ‘What happened to “nineteen-forties Hollywood glamour”?’

Miles moved his chair. ‘Am I supposed to be understanding any of this?’

‘I find it better not to try,’ Alistair said, resting an arm along the back of Rachel’s chair.

His fiancée smiled at him. ‘We’ve managed to get Manningtree Castle. They’ve had a cancellation and slotted us in. It’s going to be beautiful.’

And an incredible amount of work, Jemima added silently. Manningtree Castle was probably the most romantic place on earth to get married, but it wasn’t a package deal by any stretch of the imagination. As far as she could recall from their initial research into the options, Manningtree Castle provided little more than the Norman keep itself and a grassy field with permission to erect a marquee.

‘Where’s Manningtree Castle?’ Miles asked.

Jemima glanced across at him. ‘Kent. It’s not so much a castle as a bit of one.’

‘And it’s not far from where Rachel and I bought our cottage. A couple of miles. No more than that,’ Alistair added. ‘They’re booked up a good eighteen months in advance so we were surprised when they called us to say they’d had a cancellation for the weekend we’d enquired about.’

‘Can’t you just imagine all those tea lights in the stone alcoves?’ Rachel’s eyes danced with excitement. ‘Or even big church candles. It’s going to be stunning.’

‘But your invitations—’

Rachel brushed her friend’s objection aside. ‘We’ll just have to resend them.’

Not to mention hire a marquee, find a caterer and local florist to decorate the keep, Jemima thought dryly. She sat back in her chair and made a determined effort not to let what she was feeling show. In her opinion, three months before a wedding was far too late to be changing the venue.

Jemima gave half an ear to her friend as she continued to lay out her artistic vision of a medieval wedding with a distinctly twenty-first century twist. No mention of the halter-neck dress in soft white satin she’d chosen four weeks earlier. What was happening about that?

She wanted to be excited for Rachel, she really did, but it all seemed rather pointless. So much effort for one day…

She speared a piece of salmon from the central platter. She was being selfish. Just because her marriage hadn’t been the happy ever after she’d hoped for wasn’t a good enough reason not to enter into someone else’s excitement. It was just difficult to summon up much enthusiasm for all this nonsense. That probably made her a horrible person, certainly a lousy choice of bridesmaid, but if she didn’t say it aloud, just thought it—that wasn’t so bad, was it?

Jemima glanced across at Miles and caught him watching her. She had the strangest feeling he’d been able to read her mind. That was impossible, of course, but…there was a definite look of…something in his blue eyes.

She turned back to concentrate on her salmon, feeling slightly shaken. Perhaps she’d been imagining it? On the other hand, perhaps they shared a mutual cynicism for big white weddings? She couldn’t believe he’d be particularly interested in the finer details of how Rachel intended to decorate the marquee.

Jemima risked a second look. He was listening to Rachel and, whatever his opinion of it all was, he was making a reasonable job of looking fascinated. He really was impossibly handsome. Strange how two eyes, a nose and a mouth could look so different from one person to another. He had a good chin too. Her mum would say it was strong and characterful, but what she particularly liked about it was the small indentation in the centre. It was kind of sexy.

Grief. What had made her think that? Jemima pulled herself up a little straighter. There was nothing sexy about a man who knew he was sexy. If that made any sense. Miles was too gorgeous. No woman wanted to be with a man who spent more time looking in the mirror than she did.

Actually that was unfair. Miles didn’t seem a vain man. He just was drop dead gorgeous. An accident of nature.

She really shouldn’t blame him for that. It wasn’t his fault any more than it was Verity’s that she’d inherited the enviable bone structure and the ability to survive on half a grape.

‘Jemima?’

She heard her name and looked up to find Rachel looking at her.

‘You’re off with the fairies. What are you thinking about?’

Thinking about? ‘Um—’ Jemima hunted for something to say ‘—um…’ Opposite her, Miles’s eyes were alight with laughter. Please God he didn’t know what she’d been thinking. She cast about for something likely. ‘Um…I was wondering what you were going to do about your dress? Surely it’s too late to change it now?’

Rachel smiled. ‘I was worried about that, but I rang the designer the second I heard Manningtree Castle was available. It’s not a problem. And she’s caught the vision absolutely.’ She gave a delighted laugh. ‘I’m so excited. It’s going to be perfect.’

‘As is my duck. I hope.’ Alistair began to gather together their plates.

Rachel picked up the central platter. ‘It had better be. He started soaking the apricots last night and he’ll be very sulky if it hasn’t worked.’ She followed Alistair back into the kitchen and Jemima was left alone with Miles.

‘Liar,’ he said softly.

Jemima looked up. ‘Pardon?’

Miles’s eyes glinted with wicked amusement. ‘You were not wondering about Rachel’s dress.’

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. ‘Did it show?’

‘Not to Rachel, it seems. You live to daydream another day.’ There were gales of laughter from the kitchen. Miles looked over his shoulder and then turned back to her, saying quietly, ‘Do you think she’s going to ask me to wear tights and a tunic?’

‘If she does,’ Jemima whispered back, ‘you can console yourself that it’s only marginally worse than a russet-coloured waistcoat made from the fabric of my bridesmaid dress.’

The look of complete horror that passed over his face made her laugh and she was still laughing when Alistair and Rachel returned.

‘What’s so funny?’ Rachel asked as she put a warm plate in front of each of them.

‘Nothing.’

Miles cast Rachel a baleful look that was intended to charm. ‘Are Alistair and I going to be wearing tights?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Alistair said, putting his masterpiece in the centre of the table. ‘I don’t have the calves for it. Now this…is Duck Breasts with Blackberry and Apricot Sauce.’

‘Do please notice the elegant presentation,’ his fiancée teased, looking up at him. ‘Particularly the apricot halves, watercress and blackberry garnish. It was very fiddly.’

The look of love and affection that passed between them suddenly made Jemima feel lonely. Most of the time she managed perfectly well, but just occasionally it spread through her like ink in water.

Rachel sat down. ‘You know, Alistair, I think you’ve got great calves. What about wearing tights?’

CHAPTER THREE

THE Duck Breasts with Blackberry and Apricot Sauce was a triumph, but the Poached Figs with Macaroons and Mascarpone Alistair had lovingly prepared for dessert was less successful. He was entirely philosophical about it and was threatening to invite them all back for a retry later in the month.

Jemima stirred brown sugar crystals into her coffee, surprisingly relaxed. This was so much better than staying home to decorate the bathroom, which had been her original plan for the evening. She’d almost forgotten the trail of ‘welkin blue’ footprints she’d left spread across the new vinyl floor when she’d tripped over the paint pot lid. She’d even managed to forget that Alistair thought she was ‘brittle’ and Miles had said that she dressed like her mother.

She sipped the dark liquid and let the flavours travel over her tongue. Brittle? Did she really come across as brittle? She didn’t want to be seen as brittle. She hadn’t known Alistair thought that about her. Rachel had never said.

It was probably true, though. No one knew how painful a divorce was unless they’d firsthand experience of it. It felt as if…you were being physically ripped in half. There was no other way of describing it. Her whole life, everything she’d invested in and worked for, had been shredded as though none of it had mattered. Anyone would be a little ‘brittle’ after that. Wouldn’t they?

‘Mint?’

She looked up to find Miles was holding out a plate of gold-wrapped mints. Jemima took one.

‘Rachel? Do you want one?’

‘Thank you.’

Jemima slowly unwrapped the foil-covered mint and let the conversation swirl around her. Miles Kingsley had turned out to be good company. At work he seemed…well…a complete caricature of what she’d imagined a playboy would be like.

It offended her that he seemed to select his dates with no more care than you would make a decision between a chocolate with a cream-filled centre and one with a nutty coating. Even more offensive was the way he discarded them days later, with as little thought.

It seemed the chase was what interested him. Winning. It was as though he were playing some complicated game of his own devising, and when he’d won he lost interest.

Not surprisingly, it wasn’t that simple. Miles was a much more complicated man. She’d wanted to dislike him, but she’d not been able to. Jemima spread out the foil wrapper and gently smoothed out the creases.

Maybe it was no more than that she disliked being at Kingsley and Bressington so much that it coloured her opinion of anything and everyone there. Tonight she had to admit that Miles had been fun. Kind, too. If discussing the various merits of a chocolate wedding cake over a traditional fruit one had bored her, it must surely have pushed him close to the edge.

In any case, she thought, smoothing out the final crease, his erudite endorsement of an assortment of cheeses and warm bread in favour of any cake had her vote.

Miles’s low laugh made her look up. ‘I haven’t seen anyone do that since school,’ he said, holding out his mint wrapper to her.

Jemima looked back down at the perfectly smooth gold square and back into his laughing blue eyes. A hard lump seemed stuck in her throat.

He had the most amazing eyes. So sexy. She felt like a rabbit caught in the glare of oncoming headlights. She couldn’t look away. Couldn’t speak either.

‘I used to do that,’ Rachel said, spreading her own wrapper out in front of her. ‘It always used to rip, though.’

Alistair leant back in his chair. ‘That’s because you rush it. Jemima’s got patience.’

Finally Jemima managed to find her voice, albeit a huskier one than usual. ‘Jemima’s got two boys who need amusing when they go out to Sunday lunch. I make a pretty good job of putting After Eight Mint envelopes inside each other too.’

She took Miles’s wrapper and carefully eased out the creases. She was aware of Miles’s soft laughter and Rachel’s cry of irritation when her wrapper tore. Jemima kept her eyes focused on the gold paper until the last crease disappeared and she was left with a shiny square.

‘Beautifully done,’ Miles said softly.

He made even that sound seductive. No wonder he had women falling over themselves to go out to dinner with him. Like lemmings on a cliff…

Daft. She didn’t like to think how dreadful they must feel when he didn’t phone, didn’t make any effort to contact them again.

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