Читать книгу The Blind-date Proposal - Jessica Hart - Страница 8

AS IF aware of her gaze, Finn glanced up. ‘Feeling any better?’ he asked, although not with any noticeable degree of sympathy.

‘A bit,’ croaked Kate.

‘Good.’ Closing the file, he dropped it onto her desk with a loud slap that made her wince, and he sighed. ‘Why on earth do you drink so much if you feel this bad the next day?’

‘I don’t usually,’ she said a little sullenly. ‘Last night I was trying to have a good time, since you obviously weren’t going to! Why did you come if you weren’t going to make an effort?’

‘I went because Gib asked me,’ said Finn curtly. ‘He said Phoebe had a friend he thought I might like to meet. I was expecting someone gentle and motherly, not a goer with a plunging cleavage, ridiculous shoes and a determination to drink everyone else under the table!’

Aha, so he had noticed her cleavage, Kate noted with a perverse sense of satisfaction.

‘They’ve obviously got no idea,’ she agreed sweetly, but with an acid undertone. ‘They told me that you were really nice. How wrong can you be? I don’t think I’ll be letting them fix up any more blind dates for me!’

A muscle worked in Finn’s jaw. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more.’

‘Well, there’s a first!’ Kate muttered.

Finn got to his feet. ‘If you’re well enough to argue, you’re well enough to do some work,’ he said callously. ‘I think we can both agree that last night was extremely awkward for both of us. Frankly, I’d rather not know about your personal life, and I don’t believe in mixing mine with business. However, as I said last night—although of course you won’t remember this!—I can’t afford the time to explain everything to someone new at this stage, so I suggest that we pretend that last night never happened and carry on as before. Although it would help if you would turn up on time and in a fit state to work occasionally,’ he added nastily. ‘That could be different!’

Kate held her aching head with her hand. She just wished she was in a position to tell Finn exactly what he could do with his job. She had a hazy recollection of telling everyone last night that she was planning a major career change, which had seemed like a good idea at the time, and still did, frankly.

One of these days she would have to do something about it but, in the meantime, she had to live, and this crummy job was her best hope of paying her bills for the next few weeks. She had never been big on saving, and she had bailed Seb out too many times to have anything left to fall back on. It looked as if she was going to have to stick with Finn for now.

‘Alison should be back in a few weeks,’ he said as if reassuring himself.

‘Meaning you won’t have to put up with me for too long?’ In spite of her own reluctance, Kate was obscurely hurt to realise that Finn couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

‘I was under the impression that the feeling was mutual,’ he said coldly.

‘It is.’

‘Are you trying to tell me you want to leave now?’

‘No,’ said Kate, forced into a corner. ‘No, I want to stay. I haven’t got any choice.’

‘Then we’re both in the same boat,’ said Finn. He turned for his office. ‘And if you do want to carry on working here, I suggest you go and freshen up, and come back ready to start work!’

Three hours later, Kate was reeling after a barrage of complicated instructions and tasks which Finn rapped out, making no allowances for her hangover, before going out to an expensive lunch with a client.

‘Have that draft report on my desk by the time I get back,’ was his parting shot.

Kate pulled a face at his receding back and dumped the armful of files and papers onto her desk. Did she really want to hang onto this job that badly?

Finn’s expression had been as grimly unreadable as ever, but she could have sworn that beneath it all he was enjoying the sight of her struggling to cope with a hangover and an avalanche of work. She was prepared to bet that a lot of this stuff could easily have waited and that he had only pulled it out to punish her. It was hard to believe that for a peculiar moment or two last night she had actually found him attractive!

Running her fingers wearily through her hair, Kate sighed as she contemplated the scattered piles of paper on her desk. She needed another coffee before she could tackle that lot!

In spite of everything Finn had to say about his staff not going in for gossip, Kate had noticed that the coffee machine was a favoured meeting place. Of course it was possible that the two older women from the finance department were talking about work, but somehow she doubted it. They stopped as she approached and moved aside politely to let her through to the machine.

‘Thanks,’ said Kate with a smile. ‘I’m desperate!’

‘Feeling rough?’

‘Awful,’ she admitted, searching her memory for their names. ‘I am never, ever, going to drink again!’

Elaine and Sue, that was it. They had been polite if rather cool with Kate in her few brief dealings with them, but she noticed they thawed slightly at her frank admission of a hangover.

‘So, how are you getting on?’ the older one—Sue?—asked.

‘I don’t think I’m ever going to live up to Alison’s standards,’ Kate sighed as the machine spat out coffee into her cup. ‘What’s she like? Is she as perfect as Finn makes out?’

Sue and Elaine considered. ‘She’s certainly very efficient,’ said Elaine, but she didn’t sound overly enthusiastic. ‘Finn relies on her a lot.’

Kate sipped her coffee, still disgruntled by the amount of work Finn had thrown at her. ‘She must be an absolute saint to put up with him!’

Wrong thing to say! The two women bridled at the implied criticism of Finn. ‘He’s lovely when you get to know him,’ Elaine insisted, and Sue nodded.

‘He’s the best boss I’ve ever had. You want to count how many people have been here years and years. We don’t get the same kind of turnover as in other companies. That’s because everyone here feels involved. Finn expects you to work hard, but he always notices and comments on what you’ve been doing, and that makes all the difference.’

‘He treats you like a human being,’ Elaine added her bit.

It was news to Kate, thinking about that morning.

‘Of course, Alison’s absolutely devoted to Finn,’ Sue said. She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘Between you and me, I think she might be hoping to become more than a PA one day.’

‘Oh?’ Kate was conscious of a sudden tightening of her muscles. ‘Do you think that’s likely?’

‘No.’ Elaine shook her head definitely. ‘He’s never got over losing his wife, and I don’t think he ever will.’

‘Isabel was a lovely person,’ Sue agreed. ‘She used to come in to the office sometimes, and we all loved her. She was so beautiful and sweet and interested in what everyone did. There was just something about her. She made you feel special somehow, didn’t she, Elaine?’

Elaine nodded sadly. ‘Finn was different then. He absolutely adored her, and she was the same. She used to light up whenever he came into the room. Oh, it was such a tragedy when she died!’

‘What happened?’ asked Kate, hoping she didn’t sound too ghoulish.

‘Someone got into a car having had too much to drink, and poor Isabel was coming the other way…’ They shook their heads at the memory of it. ‘She never came out of the coma. Finn had to make the decision to switch off her life-support machine.’

Sue sighed. ‘You can only imagine what it was like for him. He had Alex to worry about too. She was in the car as well, so she was in hospital too, although not so seriously hurt.’

‘She wasn’t much more than a baby,’ Elaine added. ‘Just old enough to cry for her mummy.’

Kate’s hand had crept to her mouth as she listened to their story. ‘That’s…terrible,’ she said, feeling hopelessly inadequate.

‘Terrible,’ Elaine agreed. ‘Finn’s never been the same since. He closed in on himself after Isabel died. Alex is his life now, and he won’t let anyone else close. He kept the company going, but I’ve always felt that was more for all the staff here than for his own sake.’

‘We all hope he’ll remarry one day,’ Sue said. ‘He deserves to be happy again and Alex needs a mum. Maybe he’ll miss Alison while she’s away,’ she added hopefully. ‘I know she can be a bit cool, but that’s just her manner, and she’s very attractive, isn’t she?’ she demanded of Elaine, who nodded a bit reluctantly.

‘She’s always beautifully groomed.’

‘And she must know him pretty well after working for him for so long. I think she’d be a good wife for him.’

It didn’t sound to Kate as if Alison was at all the right kind of wife for Finn. He was quite cool and efficient enough by himself. What he needed was warmth and tenderness and laughter, not practicality and good grooming.

Not that it was anything to do with her, of course.

Still, she couldn’t get Finn’s tragic story out of her mind all afternoon. She kept imagining him by his wife’s side, with the life-support machines beeping in the background, willing her to open her eyes, or trying to explain to his baby daughter why her mother couldn’t come.

‘No wonder he didn’t approve of me drinking last night,’ she said to Bella that evening, having told her about the disaster of her blind date and what she had learnt from Elaine and Sue. ‘I feel terrible now. I’ve been so nasty about him, and all the time he’s had to cope with all of that.’

‘Don’t do it,’ said Bella, handing Kate a drink.

‘Don’t do what?’

‘Don’t get involved.’

‘I’m not involved,’ said Kate a little defensively. ‘I just feel desperately sorry for him.’

Bella sighed as she contemplated her friend. ‘You know what you’re like, Kate,’ she warned. ‘One tiny tug at your heartstrings, and you’re turning your world upside down to try and make things better, and sometimes you just can’t. You were desperately sorry for Seb, too, and look where that got you!’

‘This is entirely different,’ Kate protested. ‘Finn’s not trying to get anything from me. He hasn’t even told me about Isabel himself. I’m not sure he’d even want me to know.’

‘I just don’t want you jumping from feeling sorry for him to wanting to help him to falling in love with him,’ said Bella with a warning look. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s a bit of a pattern with you, and this time you really could get hurt. It would be much worse than Seb. You’d never be able to live up to a perfect wife like that, Kate. You’d only ever be second-best.’

‘Honestly, Bella!’ said Kate crossly. ‘Anyone would think I was planning to marry him! All I’m saying is that maybe I should be more understanding when he’s grumpy with me.’

‘Hhmmnn, well, just be careful. You didn’t like him when you thought he was happily married, and he’s exactly the same man. Being a widower isn’t really an excuse for being unpleasant to you, is it? You said it’s six years since his wife died, that’s long enough for him to be coming to terms with it. Don’t let him take advantage of your soft heart, that’s all.’

Kate didn’t say any more—ER was on, and there were more important things to do—but afterwards she thought about what Bella had said. Her friend might seem the quintessential feather-headed blonde at times, but she could be very pragmatic when it came to relationships.