Читать книгу Snowflakes at Lavender Bay: A perfectly uplifting 2018 Christmas read from bestseller Sarah Bennett! - Sarah Bennett, Sarah Bennett - Страница 14

Back in London, Owen spent most of the next week glued to his desk as he tried to get on top of everything at work. His weekends were usually spent catching up and reviewing the files and reports on all their projects, so his trip to Lavender Bay had put him behind. It didn’t help that his mind strayed to Libby the moment he let his concentration slip. He’d already promised Jack he’d be back for the kid’s beach football match, although now he wasn’t quite sure why he’d volunteered.

He didn’t know the first thing about kids, but there’d been something about the whole mess which had spoken to something deep inside him. Jack’s nephew, Noah, had been devastated when one of the other boys told him he couldn’t be a part of the fathers and sons football match because he didn’t have a dad. What had seemed to be an act of cruelty had turned out to be a misguided attempt by Michael, the other boy, to not be the only child in their class to miss out on the day. Owen knew well enough what it was like to feel excluded from games and class events. None of his foster parents had shown any interest.

Owen had also committed to meeting the bank manager with Sam, so he needed to be sure everything was in hand back here at the office to give him the freedom to not only meet those commitments, but also to spend some quality time with Libby.

By the time Alex came into his office on Friday lunchtime, Owen finally felt like he was getting somewhere. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked as his second-in-command slumped down in the chair beside his desk.

‘Yeah, just about. Bit of an emergency on the Vauxhall site. The foreman’s wife went into premature labour, so he had to head to the hospital.’

Owen set down his pen to pay full attention to what his assistant was saying. ‘Christ, I hope everything’s okay. She’s not due for another month, is she?’

‘Two weeks. Johnno wanted to work right up to the last minute.’ Alex rubbed her eyes, then dropped her head back with a sigh. ‘Bob Knox is on that job and he’s got more than enough experience to oversee the rest of the day and get the site cleaned up and secured. We already had an agency guy lined up to cover the paternity leave and they’ve juggled his scheduled to free him up for Monday.’

He might have known she’d have everything in hand. She’d come to him six years ago, frustrated after two years at a larger firm where more than a few old dinosaurs couldn’t get their head around the idea of a female quantity surveyor. He’d promised to never ask her to make a cup of tea, and she’d promised he’d never regret hiring her. There’d been other candidates for the job, some with more experience, but his gut had told him Alex would be a good fit. And so it had proven.

From implementing an electronic signing-in system for the sites to help verify submitted timesheets, to championing safety training and even a campaign specifically targeted towards men’s health they’d rolled out to all their sites, barely a month had gone by without Alex knocking at Owen’s door with a suggestion on how to improve the business. All Owen had to do was keep feeding that hunger in her to progress and both Alex and the company had gone from strength to strength. He’d sent her on every course she’d requested and been paid back many times over with her loyalty and effort.

Three years after she’d started, she’d knocked on his door and confessed to a romance with Nick, a consultant project manager they used to help run some of their bigger projects. Not wanting to lose either of them, he hadn’t been a fan of their relationship, but he’d appreciated her honesty and bitten his lip against voicing any protest. Thankfully, his worries had proven unfounded, and he’d even stood up for Nick as his best man at their wedding the previous summer.

‘I’ll give Johnno a ring later and check in with him. If he wants an extra couple of weeks’ leave, I’ll cover the cost.’

‘Thanks, Boss. I’ll give the agency the heads-up that we might want to extend the cover.’

When she continued to sit there but didn’t speak Owen swivelled his chair around to face her. ‘Something else on your mind?’

Keeping her eyes focused on the ceiling, Alex said, ‘You’re off down to the coast again this weekend.’

‘That’s right. I need to finalise the restaurant deal I told you about.’ Tilting back his seat, Owen crossed his feet at the ankles. ‘Is that a problem?’

Alex shrugged. ‘Not for me to say, is it, Boss?’