‘Huh! Listen to who’s talking. I didn’t see you hurrying back. Besides—’ the fashionable specs were pushed firmly up her retroussé nose ‘—I’m a legal secretary, not a slave—subtle difference, I know, but…’
Benedict sat down on the edge of his desk. ‘PA sounds much more dynamic.’
‘I’m not feeling too dynamic right now.’
‘You’d really prefer to lie on a tropical beach with your husband than stay here?’ he said incredulously.
‘Call me peculiar… Ah, is that you, Rachel? Come along in!’ she yelled as she heard a sound in the adjoining room. ‘Rachel French, this is Benedict Arden. You probably haven’t met; I think he was on walkabout when you started.’
Disbelief froze the polite smile on Rachel’s lips. The possibility that she’d met a doppelgänger or long-lost identical twin was speedily dismissed—it was him.
Rachel wasn’t sure how long the shock lasted or when it became full-blown fury. A wave of humiliation fanned the flames of her anger. Her thoughts all ended in a big question mark. Sick joke…? Well, whatever it had been she’d certainly been sucked in.
‘Well, I’ll leave you two to it. I’ve already shown Rachel the layout and I’ve warned her you’ll work her to a shadow of her former self, and unlike me Rachel needs all the pounds she’s got! So be nice to her.’ She glared at her employer, affection thinly concealed beneath the spiky exterior.
‘I will, Mags.’ This could work out quite beautifully—then again maybe not, he thought, meeting the frozen hostility of his new assistant’s eyes.
‘He works so hard himself he doesn’t realise the rest of us have a social life.’
Maggie hadn’t noticed anything, Rachel realised incredulously. She maintained her tight-lipped silence; if she said what she wanted to she just might lose her job! Screaming abuse at the big boss’s son had a habit of doing that. Social life? The way she’d heard it Benedict Arden, son of Sir Stuart Arden, the head of Chambers, managed a very creditable social life. The sort of social life beloved of society pages. What the grapevine hadn’t told her was that he got his kicks from humiliating those on a less elevated social plane.
Whilst her features remained immobile her scorn spilled out into the grey of her clear eyes as they flickered briefly in his direction. That suit probably cost more than two months of her salary. In her head she’d furnished his home with rising damp and peeling paintwork—when she thought of the anxiety and guilt she’d felt when she’d pictured him in those surroundings! Her hands unconsciously balled into two fists. She was only vaguely conscious above the buzzing in her ears of Maggie’s departure.
‘So you work for Albert.’
‘I do.’
‘His secretaries always do have excellent…office skills.’
He wasn’t looking at her office skills. ‘Are you implying I got my job on the merits of my legs?’ It was pretty hard to miss the fact that his eyes were on her legs, their slender length disguised by tailored fine black wool trousers.
‘Don’t get defensive. I don’t think you’re sleeping with the boss. Everyone knows Albert only ever looks; he’s a happily married man.’
‘That’s a weight off my mind; I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong end of the stick.’ That was it, after this dignified silence, she promised herself.
‘I expect you’re wondering…’
‘Not at all. Maggie has brought me up to speed. I’ve already provided translations of all the relevant documents. I don’t know if you’ve had an opportunity to read them yet…?’ she said briskly.
The heavy lids had drooped slightly over the alert dark eyes and he levered his long frame from the edge of the desk, straightening his spine. He was one of the few men she’d ever seen who could get away with long hair past their teens and he was further past his teens than she’d imagined. But why should this surprise her when nothing else she’d imagined about him had been accurate?
The newly shorn hair combined with the clean-shaven look revealed a deeply tanned, blemishless skin stretched tightly over a stunning bone structure. Fate and generous genes had arranged all those strong planes and hollows in exactly the right places, giving him a masculine beauty that was in no way soft or pretty.
‘We’ve got to work together…’
‘Maybe.’ She made it sound as though she had some choice in the matter, which they both knew wasn’t the case. ‘I’ll reserve my judgement on that. You do look the part.’ The way he looked was the way hungry young executives all over the city dreamed about looking—from his highly polished handmade shoes to his tasteful silk tie. ‘But then you’re good at that…’