CHAPTER ONE

      ‘WHEW!’ Janice collapsed down into the chair opposite Laura, her notebook dropping on to the desk in front of her. ‘I think my fingers are going to fall off!’ she groaned.

      ‘Rough, was it?’ Laura sympathised.

      ‘Rough!’ Janice leant back wearily. ‘I didn’t think so many people could all talk at the same time, and so fast too. I’ll be glad when Dorothy gets back,’ she moaned.

      Dorothy Palmer was James Courtney’s personal secretary, and Janice and Laura were her secretaries. But Dorothy had gone down with ‘flu yesterday morning and had unwillingly been sent home, her last instruction being for Janice to sit in on the board meeting today and take the notes she usually took herself.

      ‘She only went off yesterday,’ Laura pointed out.

      ‘She’ll be back tomorrow, you can depend on it. In all the time I’ve been here I’ve never known Dorothy to take more than two days off, no matter how ill she is.’ Janice bent over her notepad, grimacing. ‘Now I’ve got to get these notes typed up before Mr Courtney starts screaming for them.’

      ‘Would you like me to do it?’ Laura instantly offered.

      ‘No—thanks,’ the other girl sighed. ‘I’m going to have trouble reading it back myself—and I wrote it! I’ll tell you what you could do for me, though. Mr Courtney would like a tray of coffee taken through to his office. Could you do that for me?’

      Laura instantly stood up, smoothing down the straight skirt of her tailored black suit, a pale green blouse worn beneath the fitted jacket, her shoulder-length auburn hair secured with a tortoiseshell slide at her nape. She had taken to wearing the more mature clothing and severe hairstyle after being turned down for several jobs because of her youthful appearance. The clothes and hairstyle made her feel older than her nineteen years, giving her the confidence to try for this job at Courtneys. As her application and interview had been successful the image must have worked.

      She had only been employed at Courtneys for three weeks, and so far she had had little to do with James Courtney himself, and the prospect of taking in his afternoon coffee, tea being preferred in the morning, filled her with apprehension.

      ‘You know where to go, don’t you?’ Janice asked absently, her attention still on her hastily scribbled short-hand notes.

      ‘I—Yes, I know.’ Laura turned to go down to the executives’ restaurant.

      ‘I should call down first,’ Janice advised. ‘That way they’ll have the coffee ready for when you get down there.’

      ‘Oh yes, of course.’ She picked up the telephone and dialled the number.

      ‘Two cups,’ Janice murmured, biting the end of her pencil. ‘Mr Courtney has someone with him.’

      Laura put the order in, hearing the flurry of activity when she told the girl the coffee was for Mr Courtney and smiled to herself as she went down the two floors in the lift. James Courtney had the effect of putting most people in a state of confusion, including herself, and she had no doubt the women in the canteen were even now rushing about preparing the fresh ground coffee Mr Courtney preferred, and putting a plate of his favourite chocolate biscuits on the tray too.

      The first time she had collected his coffee tray she had been surprised by the presence of the biscuits, but she had been assured by Doreen in the canteen that Mr Courtney had a weakness for them. Laura found it difficult to think of that tall, distinguished man having any weaknesses at all; he always seemed like a very cold individual to her.

      ‘Got a visitor today, has he?’ Doreen asked conversationally as she handed over the tray.

      ‘Yes,’ Laura smiled.

      ‘Dorothy not back yet?’

      It was amazing how gossip spread about this firm. ‘No,’ she shook her head, not one who liked to gossip herself.

      ‘Like working for Mr Courtney, do you?’ Doreen probed.

      ‘I—Yes.’

      ‘Nice man,’ Doreen nodded. ‘A bit abrupt, but he knows what he wants. I like a man who knows what he wants.’

      ‘I—Yes, he seems very nice,’ Laura evaded; she found James Courtney more than ‘a bit abrupt’. He frightened the life out of her every time he barked an order at her. But she didn’t usually have a lot to do with him personally, thank goodness! If she worked directly for James Courtney she might not even have lasted the three weeks she had been here, Janice was senior, next to Dorothy, and so her own dealings with James Courtney kept to a minimum—and that