The Blind-date Proposal

Kate thanked them both graciously for supper, although she had a sinking feeling that the words might have come out a bit slurred, and set off down the path, very much on her dignity. Unfortunately, the effect was spoilt by stumbling on her heels, and only Finn’s hand which shot out and gripped her arm stopped her landing smack on her bottom.

‘Careful!’ he said sharply.

‘Sorry, the path’s a bit slippy…slippery,’ Kate managed, wincing at the iron grip of his fingers. She tried to pull her arm away, but Finn kept a good hold of her as he marched her along to his car.

‘You’re the one that’s a bit slippy,’ he said acidly and opened the door with what Kate felt was unnecessarily ironic courtesy.

Tired of being treated like a child, she got in sulkily, and he shut it after her with an exasperated click.

The car was immaculate. There were no sweetie wrappers, no empty cans, no forgotten toys or scuffed seats. It was impossible to believe that a child had ever been in it, thought Kate, wondering where poor little Alex fitted into Finn’s efficiently streamlined life.

Still buoyed up by a combination of alcohol and nerves, and anticipating an uncomfortable journey, she leant forward and switched on the radio. Classical, of course. Pressing random buttons, she searched for Capital Radio, until Finn got in to the driver’s seat and switched it off with a frown.

‘Stop fiddling and do up your seatbelt.’

‘Yes, sir!’ muttered Kate.

Finn lay his arm along the back of her seat and swivelled so that that he could see to reverse the car along the narrow street to the turning place at the bottom. Kate was acutely aware of how close his hand was to her hair and she made a big deal of rummaging in her bag at her feet in case he thought that she was leaning invitingly towards him.

It was a relief when they reached the turning place and Finn took his arm away to put the car into gear. At least she could sit back.

Only it wasn’t that much easier then. Finn was a fierce, formidable presence, overwhelming in the dark confines of the car while the rain and the sleet splattered against the windscreen and made the space shrink even further. The light from the dashboard lit his face with a green glow, glancing along his cheekbones and highlighting the severe mouth.

He was concentrating on driving, and Kate watched him under her lashes, daunted more than she wanted to admit by his air of contained competence. It was evident in the calm, decisive way he drove, and when her eyes followed his left hand from the steering wheel to the gear stick, something stirred inside her and she looked quickly away.

Her wine-induced high had shrivelled, leaving her tongue-tied and agonisingly aware of him. It was ridiculous, Kate scolded herself. He was still Finn. He was a disagreeable, if thankfully temporary, boss and an ungracious guest. She didn’t like him at all, so why was she suddenly noticing the line of his mouth and the set of his jaw and the strength of his hands?

‘Where am I going?’

His brusque question broke the silence and startled her. ‘What?’

‘Gib asked me to take you home. Presumably he knows where that is, but I’m not a mind-reader.’

‘Oh…yes.’ Kate huddled in her seat, too appalled by this new awareness of him to rise to his sarcasm the way she would normally have done.

She directed him through the dark streets while the windscreen wipers thwacked rhythmically at the sleety rain and the silence in the car deepened until Kate could bear it no longer.

‘Why didn’t you tell Gib and Phoebe that you recognised me?’

Finn glanced at her. ‘Probably for the same reason that you didn’t,’ he said curtly. ‘I thought it would make the situation even more awkward than it already was.’

His tone was so uninviting, that Kate subsided back into silence. Anyone else giving her a lift home would have made some attempt at conversation, even if only to talk about the evening or the food or even, if things were desperate, the weather, but Finn was evidently in no mood for idle chit-chat. His face was set in grim lines and when he glanced in the rear-view mirror, Kate could see that he was frowning.

‘It’s just along here.’ She pointed out her street in relief. ‘There’s never anywhere to stop, so if you could drop me here, that would be fine, thanks.’

Finn ignored her, turning down the street she had indicated. ‘How far down are you?’

‘About halfway,’ admitted Kate, surrendering to force majeure. She pointed. ‘Just past that streetlight.’

As usual, the street was lined with cars bumper to bumper, so Finn had no choice but to stop in the middle of the road. Kate fumbled for the doorhandle as he put on the handbrake.

‘Thank you for the lift,’ she muttered. ‘I hope I haven’t brought you too much out of your way.’

A gust of sleet hit her full in the face as she opened the door, and instinctively she recoiled. ‘Yuck, what a horrible night!’

‘Wait there.’ Cursing under his breath, Finn reached behind him for an umbrella and got out of the car. He’d managed to get the umbrella up by the time he made it round to the passenger door. ‘I’ll see you to your door.’

‘Honestly, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to—’

‘Just hurry up and get out!’ said Finn through his teeth. It was hard to tell whether they were gritted with temper or with cold. ‘The sooner you do, the sooner I can get home!’

Reluctantly Kate scrambled out of the car and into the shelter of the umbrella. The wind was bitter and the rain ran down her neck, but she was still able to notice how intimate it felt to be standing so close to Finn. He was tall and solid and she had a bizarre impulse to put her arms round him and lean into him, to feel how hard and strong he was.

‘Right, let’s move it before we both freeze to death out here!’ said Finn, fortunately unable to read her mind. Or possibly telepathic and quick to take avoiding action. ‘Which house is it?’

He set off towards the pavement with Kate teetering on her heels in an effort to keep up with his long stride. ‘Why on earth don’t you wear something more sensible on your feet?’ he demanded, holding the umbrella impatiently above her.

‘If I’d known I’d be going on a polar expedition, I might have done!’ said Kate, her teeth chattering so loudly that she could hardly speak, but obscurely grateful to the vile weather for disguising the shakiness that might otherwise be obvious in her legs and her voice. She couldn’t believe what she had been tempted to do just then!

Finn would have had a fit if she had thrown herself at him like that. Or might he, just possibly, have pulled her towards him and kissed her under the umbrella? What would that have been like? Kate swallowed, torn between relief and disappointment that she would never know.

Still blissfully unaware of her wayward thoughts, Finn protected her with the umbrella while she fumbled for her key. Her hands were shaking in time with her teeth by that stage, and she was shivering so much that she couldn’t get the key in the lock.

Unable to bear it any longer, Finn put out his hand for the key, but his fingers brushing hers were enough to make Kate jerk back in alarm, dropping it into a puddle.

Mortified, she crouched down to retrieve it. Finn was holding out his hand with barely restrained impatience and meekly she dropped the wet and dirty key into his outstretched palm.

Without a word, Finn unlocked the door and pushed it open for her. ‘Thank you,’ said Kate awkwardly. ‘And thanks again for the lift.’

That was Finn’s cue to say that it had been a pleasure, an opening he pointedly missed.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said gruffly instead.

Fine, if that’s the way he wanted to be, she wouldn’t invite him in! Kate hugged her coat around her. ‘Are you sure you still want me to come into work?’

‘That’s generally the idea behind paying you,’ said Finn with one of his sardonic looks.

‘But I thought I was a disaster?’

‘You’re not exactly a resounding success as a secretary,’ he agreed, ‘but you’re the best I’ve got at the moment. We’ve got a big contract coming up, as you would know if you’d been paying attention, and I can’t afford to spend the time explaining everything to yet another secretary. I’m better off sticking with you.’

‘Well, thanks for that warm vote of confidence!’

‘You didn’t make many bones about how much you dislike working for me,’ Finn pointed out, ‘so I don’t see why I should dance around saving your feelings! The fact is that you can’t afford to lose this job just yet, and I can’t afford the time to replace you.’

‘You’re saying we’re stuck with each other?’ said Kate, lifting her chin.

‘Precisely, so we might as well make the best of it.’ He looked down into her face from under his umbrella. ‘I suggest you drink a litre of water before you go to bed,’ he said dispassionately as he turned to go. ‘We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, so please don’t be late!’

Groping blearily for the alarm clock, Kate forced open one eye to squint at the time, only to jerk upright with what should have been a cry but which came out more as a groan. The sudden movement was like a cleaver slicing through her aching head and she put up a shaky hand to check that it was still intact.

Unfortunately, yes. Right then death seemed preferable to the pounding in her head and the horrible taste in her mouth.

Not to mention what Finn would say if she was late again.

Kate grimaced as she looked at the clock. If she skipped the shower and was lucky with the trains, she might just make it…

Somehow she got herself out of bed and along to the tube station, but regretted it deeply when she had to stand squashed in with thousands of other commuters, all wet and steaming from the rain above ground. Kate clung to the rail with one hand, swaying nauseously as the train lurched and rattled its way along the tunnels, and tried to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach.

To make matters worse, her memory of the night before was coming back in fragments of intense clarity separated by the blurry recollection of having generally made a complete fool of herself.

The things she did remember were bad enough. The appalled look on Finn’s face when the terrible truth dawned that his date for the evening was none other than his much-despised temporary secretary. The windscreen wipers thwacking in time to the beat of her heart as she fixated inexplicably on his mouth and his hands. Huddling under the umbrella, wondering what it would be like to touch him.

She must have been completely blotto.

God, what if she’d made a pass at Finn? Kate thought in panic. Surely she would remember that?

If she had, she would have been firmly repulsed. That was one thing she did remember. Her much loved top and favourite shoes had gone down like a lead balloon with Finn. Kate had always been told that she looked really hot in that top, but he had just looked down his nose and averted his eyes from her cleavage. If any pass had been made, it certainly wouldn’t have come from him!

She got to the office with less than a minute to spare. Finn was already at his desk, of course. He looked up over his glasses as Kate held on to the doorway for support.

‘You look terrible,’ he said.

‘I feel worse,’ she croaked. ‘I’ve got the most monumental hangover.’

Finn grunted. ‘I hope you’re not expecting any sympathy from me!’

‘No, I don’t think I could cope with any miracles today,’ said Kate tartly before remembering a little too late that her job was very much on the line. Finn was obviously thinking much the same thing because his eyes narrowed slightly behind his reading glasses.

‘You’d better be in a fit state to work,’ he warned her. ‘We’ve got a lot to do today.’

‘I’ll just have some coffee and then I’ll be fine,’ Kate promised, holding her head.

‘You can have five minutes,’ said Finn and picked up the report he had been reading once more, effectively dismissing her.

Kate groped her way along to the coffee machine and ordered a double espresso, trying not to wince at the sound of ringing telephones and clattering keyboards. There was a tiny manic blacksmith at work inside her skull, banging and hammering on her nerve endings.

Perhaps Alison would have some paracetamol, she thought, sinking gratefully down at her desk. That might help.

Any normal girl would keep hangover cures handy in her top right-hand drawer, but not Alison. Having rummaged through the desk, Kate was forced to accept that Alison didn’t have hangovers. Alison probably didn’t even know what a hangover was. She probably never got nervous or drank too much or showed off in front of Finn.

The coffee was only making her feel worse. Groaning, Kate collapsed onto the desk and buried her head in her arms. That was it. She was giving up. She was just going to have to die here in Finn’s office. He would just have to decide what to do with her body although, knowing him, he’d get the next temp to deal with it. Just dispose of that corpse, he would say, and then come in and take notes at the speed of light.

‘You didn’t drink any water before you went to bed, did you?’ Finn’s voice spoke above Kate’s prostrate form.

‘No,’ she mumbled, mainly because it was easier than shaking her head.

‘You’re dehydrated.’ Somewhere to the right of her ear, she could hear the sound of a mug being set on the desk. ‘Here. I’ve brought you some sweet tea, and a couple of aspirin.’

The promise of aspirin was enough to make Kate lift her head very cautiously. ‘Thanks,’ she muttered.

She took the pills and screwed up her face at the taste of the tea, but her mouth was so dry that she sipped it anyway. After a few minutes, she even began to feel as if she might live after all.

Finn was leaning against the edge of her desk, frowning down at the file in his hands. He always seemed to be frowning, Kate thought muzzily. Was he like this with everyone, or was it just her? The thought that it might be her was oddly depressing. Granted, turning up for work late or massively hungover probably wasn’t the best way to go about getting him to smile, but still, you’d have thought there’d have been something about her he could like.

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