'Aha!' he triumphantly burst out. 'You promised Cassidy what, exactly? Let me remind you, you work for us. Your first loyalty is to the paper.' Then he paused for thought and cunningly added, 'To your readers, I mean—you owe them the truth, they have a right to know—'
'Know what?' she crossly interrupted. 'The story's cold, Leo. Annette's father had a heart attack, but he's going to make it, and I did the story about Annette and her true love. We can't re-hash yesterday's news.'
'Give us an inside story about how Cassidy's taking it.'
'I wouldn't know,' she lied, and from Leo's cynical face she knew that she wasn't very convincing.
'He didn't make a pass?'
'I told you, no!' Lying to Leo wasn't really lying, because if he was told the truth he wouldn't hesitate to use it against her as well as against Cass. In pure self-protection Sian lied, and inwardly had a qualm of sympathy for all the people who had lied to her in the past when she had been trying to dig out facts about them.
'But he made you spend the night at his house!'
'To chaperone Annette!'
Leo made a gruesome face. 'Oh, well, describe the house, then, describe what happened, write anything, but give me a story, damn you!'
She escaped, having promised to do a colour piece on the Cassidy house and how Annette had taken her father's heart attack. Cass wasn't going to like it, but at least he wouldn't be reading columns of overheated prose about this invented relationship between them, she thought. He would have to be thankful about that.
She had to put up with a lot of teasing from her colleagues, but as they all went off to do the stories Leo had sent them to cover Sian was left in peace to write her copy in the office. She was rather suspicious because Leo hadn't detailed her to work on any outside stories, but for the rest of that day she was kept busy writing up agency stories Leo didn't want to put in the paper the way they had come in, usually because they were too bald and Leo wanted them angled for the paper.
It wasn't what Sian was accustomed to doing; it was a job for a sub-editor, in fact, but from the way Leo spoke she realised it was partly intended for a punishment. His other reason for keeping her hanging around the office was less obvious, but she guessed that, too.
Leo wanted her under his eye. He wanted to know if Cass contacted her, or she contacted Cass. Over the weekend, she had vanished and left him without a clue what she was up to, although other papers had reported her presence at the hospital, and with Cass, so Leo had known where she was but had been unable to get hold of her. He wasn't going to let that happen again!
He was still suspicious of her; he knew she hadn't told him the whole truth about her and Cass. He might even guess quite accurately what that truth might be, but he wasn't finding out from her and he knew that, so he was going to keep her where he could watch her. Sian wasn't getting out of his sight again.
Cass must have seen the papers, but he didn't ring and he didn't show up at the newspaper, so as the day wore on Sian became more relieved and Leo grew more morose and accusing.
In the end, he had to let her go home—he had no excuse for keeping her at the office after her shift was over, much as he would have liked to think of one.
She took the underground home. It was raining lightly when she emerged from the station, so she started to run, but hadn't gone far before she noticed the limousine crawling beside her along the kerb. Sian looked casually in that direction at first, then did a double-take as she recognised it.
'Can I give you a lift?' Cass asked, leaning over to talk out of his lowered window.
'You can get into trouble for that, you know!' she said, turning towards the car and trying not to be too pleased to see him.
'For what?' he asked, pulling up to a standstill so that she could slip into the passenger seat.
'Kerb-crawling. A policeman might think you were trying to pick up women.'
'I was—in the singular,' he said, and gave her a wicked, sidelong smile. 'And you are very singular.'
She clicked home the seat-belt, feeling oddly at home in the luxurious interior now. 'Dare I ask what you're doing here?'
'Waiting for you,' he coolly admitted. 'I thought you might like to hear the latest news of Annette's father.'
'How is he?' she asked, sobering.
'The hospital are being cautiously optimistic. They say he has a fighting chance.'
'I'm glad.' She threw him a swift glance, then looked away, her heart light. 'How kind of you to go to so much trouble to let me know.'
'Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,' he said, his mouth twisting upwards, and she laughed. 'I did have another motive for meeting you from work,' Cass added.
'What was that?' she asked blandly.