To Tame a Proud Heart. Cathy Williams
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a loan from the bank,’ he replied drily, as if it had been a particularly stupid question because the answer was so self-evident.
‘And after the loan from the bank came what?’
‘A small outlet in the Midlands. Our products were good, though, and we moved in at a fortuitous point in the market. Any more questions?’
He waited politely and she clamped her teeth together. It wasn’t difficult to tell that he found her a bore. She stood up, shaking her head, and when she looked back towards him as she left his office his attention was already elsewhere, his face frowning as he skimmed through something on the computer on his desk.
She quietly closed the door behind her, feeling for almost the first time in her life that she had been politely rebuffed.
When you thought about it, she decided, it was funny—funny to have the shoe on the other foot, not to be the focus of admiring attention. Except that she didn’t much feel like laughing, even though she knew that her reactions were childish and that she would have to stop acting like a damned spoiled brat who sulked when she was not in the limelight. She had never before considered herself a spoiled brat and it was silly acting like one, she told herself, just because Oliver Kemp, a man whom she didn’t like anyway, found her uninteresting.
At ten-thirty the outer door opened and one of the managers strolled in. He was in his mid-thirties, fair-haired, and the minute he saw her his eyebrows flew up.
‘Well,’ he drawled, darting a quick eye at the connecting door and then obviously deciding that the coast was clear, ‘where have you been hiding yourself, my lovely?’
Francesca stopped what she was doing and said calmly, ‘You must be Mr Robinson. Mr Kemp is expecting you. I’ll just buzz and tell him that you’ve arrived.’
‘Brad. And no need just yet. I’m five minutes early anyway.’ He eyed the door again and adjusted his flamboyantly coloured tie.
Francesca watched him in silence as he perched familiarly on the edge of her desk and leant towards her. She knew this type, this make and model.
‘When did the wind blow you in?’ he asked.
Probably married, she thought, but still felt as though he was entitled by divine right to do just whatsoever he pleased. Probably, she decided, he felt as though it was his duty to spread himself around the female population, or at least around those remotely presentable.
‘I’ve been here since yesterday,’ Francesca answered coolly, ‘and I wasn’t blown in by the wind.’
‘No, but you look as though you should have been. Ethereal, almost, with that hair of yours.’ He reached out to touch her hair, and she saw Oliver Kemp watching them with widening eyes. How long had he been standing there? She hadn’t heard the click of his door opening.
‘Mr Kemp,’ she said, standing up, ‘I was just about to show Mr Robinson in.’
Mr Robinson had gone an embarrassed shade of red and had hopped off the desk as though suddenly discovering that it was made of burning embers.
Oliver didn’t say a word, and his dark-fringed, pale eyes were expressionless. He simply turned his back. The now very subdued manager bustled in behind him and the door was firmly shut.
Francesca released a long breath. She felt inappropriately as though she had been caught red-handed doing something unthinkable.
When an hour and a half later Brad Robinson hurried out of the office, making sure not to look in her direction, she found that she was concentrating a little too hard on what she was doing, and when Oliver Kemp moved across to her desk the colour flooded into her face.
‘I do apologise,’ she began, stammering, and he looked at her with raised eyebrows.
‘By all means. What for, though?’
She had been so sure that he had been going to say something to her, in that coldly sarcastic way of his, about not flirting with management that his question took her by surprise.
‘I didn’t invite Mr Robinson to sit on my desk…’ she began, faltering and going a deeper red. ‘He—’
‘He’s an inveterate flirt, Miss Wade,’ Oliver cut in unsmilingly. ‘I’ve caught him sitting on more desktops than I care to remember, but he’s a damned good salesman.’
‘Of course,’ she murmured with relief.
‘That’s not to say that I condone a lot of time-wasting during office hours,’ he added.
‘No.’ She paused. ‘Though I know how to handle men like Brad Robinson, anyway.’
‘I’m sure. I expect you’re quite accustomed to men who flirt the minute they clap eyes on you.’
He didn’t say that as a compliment and he was already looking at his watch.
‘I’ve got a few files here,’ he said, moving round the desk and perching next to her. Her eyes travelled along his muscular forearms to where his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and she felt a sudden twinge of uneasy awareness.
‘Yes, sir,’ she mumbled, disconcerted by her reaction.
His dark-fringed eyes slid across to hers and he said drily, ‘You can call me Oliver. I don’t believe in a hierarchical system, where my employees salute every time I walk past. Bad for the morale.’
‘You’ve studied psychology?’ Francesca asked, and he raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, flustered, ‘I…’
‘Don’t mean to be sarcastic all the time?’ He sat on the edge of the desk. ‘I suspect that that’s because you’ve never had to curb your tongue, have you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I mean, Miss Wade, is that your privileged background has opened a great many doors for you. People are often subservient to wealth, and I suspect that you’ve come to expect subservience as part and parcel of everyday life.’
‘That’s not true,’ she said in a weak voice, but there was more than an ounce of truth in what he was saying. She had not gone through life demanding special treatment, but on the other hand it had frequently been given to her.
‘This is your first job,’ he continued relentlessly, ‘and probably for the first time in your life you’re going to have to realise that no one here is going to treat you as anything other than another employee in this organisation.’ She felt his cold blue eyes skewering into her dispassionately.
‘I don’t want to be treated any differently from anyone else,’ Francesca said defensively. She looked away from the hard, sexy contours of his face, which anyway was only addling her mind still further, and stared at the stack of files on which his hand was resting.
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He slipped off the desk and turned his attention back to the files. ‘There are letters in these which need typing and I’ve highlighted a few things which I want you to sort out. You’ll have to phone the regional managers and arrange appointments for them to come and see me. As far as the Smith Holdings one is concerned, make sure that you get Jeffrey Lake to see me no later than lunchtime tomorrow.’ He looked down at her. ‘Any questions?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Francesca murmured, and a ghost of a smile crossed his face.
‘You’re very confident, aren’t you?’
‘Don’t tell me that there’s something wrong with that!’
‘Nothing at all.’
She looked up at him and their eyes met. ‘I guess you’d be able to analyse that trait in me as well? Wealth breeds self-confidence, doesn’t it? Maybe you start off from the vantage point of thinking that everyone is inferior, so it’s an easy step towards thinking that you’re capable of anything.’
‘Very good,’