‘After you’ve answered my question. Who was the “little paragon” Mr Fox was referring to—the one you said had called in sick?’
There wasn’t much doubt in her mind. She knew that her boss liked to boast about his ‘perfect’ secretary. She should have been flattered that the chairman claimed to believe her a model of excellence, but this morning the prissiness of the label annoyed her. Paragons had no character. She didn’t want to be some unflawed piece of boring office furniture; she wanted to be alive and vital and gloriously, fallibly human. And being called ‘little’ diminished her sense of self-importance even further. Five feet five wasn’t little, she thought aggressively; it was average.
Her boss cleared his throat authoritatively. ‘Look, Harry, we have a great deal to get through this morning. You being late has thrown everything out of kilter—’
Harriet snorted. She was not going to be deflected from her purpose by misplaced guilt.
‘My proper name is Harriet; please use it,’ she said, suddenly realising how much the masculine contraction of her name grated. Brian Jessop had coined it soon after she’d come to work for him—although in deference to her dignity he only used it when they were alone—and she had been too polite to protest. Now, however, it was wildly inappropriate to her new, sexy self-image. ‘If you won’t tell me what that call was about, I suppose I’ll just have to ring Miss Broadbent and ask if she knows,’ she continued calmly.
Very much a working chairman, Mr Fox had a penthouse office suite which was the hub of his business empire. When he travelled, which was a great deal, he was accompanied by a personal staff of three, but he also maintained a full quota of office staff and when he was in residence he worked extremely long hours. Harriet had been co-opted numerous times to help ease the workload on Clare Broadbent, his home-office secretary. She was an iron-haired, iron-plated lady approaching her retirement years, something of an institution at Trident, having worked for Gerald Jerome up until his death. Harriet got on extremely well with her, to the extent that it had been hinted that if she didn’t blot her copybook Clare might consider recommending her as a suitable successor.
A muscle began to twitch in Brian Jessop’s cheek as he recognised the subtle threat. ‘Now, Harry—er— Harriet, don’t overreact…’
She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’m not the one overreacting. That call was about me, wasn’t it? And you lied. You actually lied to the chairman of the board!’
Impaled on her accusing stare, Brian Jessop winced, rallied and began to bluster. ‘What else could I do? He rang down first thing this morning and asked if he could borrow you for some urgent personal project. Wanted to know if I could manage with just Barbara and a junior for a few weeks. Of course I said yes…I didn’t know you were going to walk in this morning looking like…like—’ He foundered, momentarily lost for words.
‘What has the way I look got to do with anything?’ Harriet demanded haughtily.
‘Dammit, it has everything to do with it.’ He began to pace up and down behind his desk. ‘You know how punctilious Marcus is, what a stickler he is for doing things properly. For goodness’ sake, he’s even more conservative than you are…were…are!’ The recorrection was forcefully stressed.
‘W
hy do you think you’re his first choice whenever he needs an extra secretary? I’ll tell you why: because he knows you’re going to slot in with his team without being obstructive or distracting.’ He continued ticking her assets off on his fingers. ‘You’re loyal, punctual, polite and conscientious. You never panic in a crisis or quibble about doing overtime or whine for appreciation for simply doing what you’re paid to do.’
Harriet scowled. His paean of supposed flattery confirmed her worst suspicions about herself. Had she really been that nondescript, self-effacing and submissive? That much of a goody-two-shoes?
Yes! came the resounding answer from the depths of her being.
And look at where it had got her—in a rut so deep that the walls had begun collapsing in on her, threatening to smother her alive. In the past year she had suffered blow after blow and doggedly soldiered on, fending off the pain by keeping herself busy, relying increasingly on her work to provide her with a sense of stability amid the catastrophic upheavals in her private life.
Latterly, though, even that source of security had been threatened as Harriet had begun to wake each morning with a crippling sense of dread, a deep reluctance to get out of bed and face the new day.
Friday evening had changed all that. The last, shattering blow had jolted Harriet out of her state of drifting depression into one of pure rage. The cleansing anger had swept away the enervating sense of helplessness which had pervaded her being for the past few months. She was tired of being a victim of capricious fate. From now on she was going to stop worrying about what the future might hold and concentrate on enjoying the pleasures of the moment.
Ever since she had made the momentous decision to change her life she had shimmered with fierce energy. She had wrenched herself back into the sunlight through sheer force of will and she had no intention of letting herself sink back into that ditch of melancholy stagnation. Ever.
‘What are you going to say when Mr Fox discovers I’m not off sick at all?’ she probed. ‘You can’t expect him not to find out I’m still around the office.’
Brian Jessop rubbed his jaw anxiously. ‘Yes, but by then maybe you’ll be back to normal…’
His suggestion that the radical change in her appearance was just some temporary aberration on her part was infuriating, if understandable. No doubt he expected Harriet to come to her senses and revert to the boring, mousy creature whose most admired qualities were her loyalty and uncomplaining devotion to duty. Only time would prove him wrong.
Harriet tossed her head defiantly, revelling in the soft flurry of hair which caressed her cheeks. She looked good, she felt good and nobody was going to be permitted to undermine her intention to live life rather than merely endure it!
‘This is normal, Brian. This is me, the way that I am. Mr Fox may as well get used to it now as later. So why don’t I just go on up and see what he wants?’
Brian Jessop looked alarmed. ‘God, no; just stay out of the way and let me think of the best way to handle it,’ he said hurriedly, his frustration getting the better of him as he added, ‘Why in the hell couldn’t you have decided to be a redhead? I happen to know that Marcus has an extreme aversion to blonde bimbos; the last thing he’s going to want is one swanning around his executive suite—’
‘Blonde bimbos!’ Harriet flushed with angry mortification. She had been very careful not to go overboard and turn herself into the caricature of a woman. She wanted to be looked at, not laughed at, and her instinctive good taste had prevented her desire for flash-and-dash from getting out of hand. Hadn’t it? She felt her confidence waver and fiercely attacked to defend it.
‘Are you telling me that just because I change the colour of my hair and wear more trendy clothes my employer is entitled to assume I’ve suddenly become brainless as well?’ she demanded. ‘Because if that’s what you’re saying it’s the grossest piece of discrimination I’ve ever encountered!’ Her blue eyes glowed with contempt for his reasoning as she added with repressive certainty, ‘Anyway, you can’t tell me that Mr Fox would use a cheap, derogatory word like “bimbo” to describe a woman. He’s too much of a gentleman…’
A gleam of humour leavened the worry in Brian Jessop’s brown eyes at this naïve expression of faith. ‘I assure you it’s exactly the word he would use. Believe me, when men talk to other men over a few drinks they frequently use words they edit out when they talk to women. Even gentlemen…perhaps most especially gentlemen…Let’s just say that to date Marcus has been negatively impressed by the fair-haired women in his life.’
Harriet’s blue eyes regarded him stonily and he sighed.
‘Look—he mentioned that this project is personal and rather delicate, right? That was the exact word he used—delicate—so I think we can safely interpret him to mean low-profile. He wants someone who won’t draw undue attention to what’s going on. Forgive me, Harry—et, but at the moment there’s no way you’re going to be able to work around here without attracting a good deal of attention!’