Otherwise engaged? She hadn’t left her desk all morning, not even to go to the loo, and she knew instinctively that he was lying.
As he had been lying about the meeting in the first place.
She knew that there was no point in challenging him with it, and she suspected from the way he was watching her that he was enjoying the fact that he had put one over on her.
‘Come on… let’s go and have a drink, and you can bring me up to date with what’s happening.’
He gave her a winning smile, so plainly confident that she would agree, that he would be forgiven, so assured, so triumphant!
‘Sorry, I can’t,’ she told him quietly.
‘Boyfriend waiting at home with the dinner ready, is he?’ Ryan taunted.
‘I have to work this evening to make up the time I’ve lost preparing your report,’ she told him evenly.
Ryan shrugged dismissively. ‘That’s life,’ he told her carelessly. ‘If you can’t hack it…’
He was deliberately goading her, Deborah knew it, but why? Because he genuinely felt she wasn’t up to the job? Because he regretted choosing her?
Tiredly she made her way down to Mark’s office. They had travelled in together this morning; her old car had gone and her new one still hadn’t arrived.
When she got there his office was empty. Frowning, she turned round as the door opened, but it wasn’t Mark who came in; it was the temporary clerk.
‘Oh…’ She seemed surprised to find her there, Deborah recognised.
‘I was just looking for Mark,’ Deborah told her pleasantly.
‘Mark?’ The girl was frowning. ‘Oh, but he left ages ago. He said he was meeting a client for a game of golf.’
‘Golf… ?’ Mark had said nothing to her, and what was he doing playing golf when only this morning on the way to work he had told her that he couldn’t meet her for lunch?
‘Haven’t you heard? We aren’t supposed to eat lunch any more; at least not unless we’ve found a new potential client to pay for it for us.’
‘Oh, Mark, for heaven’s sake stop being so childish,’ she had told him irritably. ‘If things are really that bad, instead of complaining about them all the time, why don’t you do something about it… ?’
‘Such as what?’ he had demanded bitterly.
‘Such as transfer over to us,’ she had come back.
‘No, thanks,’ he had told her.
And now he was out playing golf, apparently having forgotten that he was supposed to be giving her a lift home.
* * *
She might just as well have gone with Ryan for that drink after all, Deborah reflected tiredly as she closed the file she had been studying and glanced at her watch. She had taken a cab home from the office, expecting to find Mark at the flat, but it was now nine o’clock and Mark still wasn’t home, nor had he phoned.
She got up and went to look impatiently out of the window. What had happened today with Ryan had disturbed her. She badly needed to talk it over with Mark. She had thought she was handling her new responsibilities well; she had been pleased with the progress she had been making with the liquidation, confident of her ability… but now Ryan’s changing attitude towards her was beginning to make her wonder if she had been over-confident.
It was gone ten o’clock when Mark came in.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d changed your plans?’ Deborah demanded as he walked into their living-room.
‘I tried to, but your line was engaged.’
‘You could have left a message,’ Deborah pointed out.
‘I’m surprised you even missed me,’ Mark told her, nodding towards the work on the table.