‘Fine. Coffee?’
She gave her head a quick shake. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Tea?’
‘No.’
‘Anything?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘How’s the job going?’
Hah. Which one? As well as being an accountant, she now worked in a bar five nights a week and dog-walked at the weekend. What little time she had left when she wasn’t visiting her sister, she dedicated to the freelance bookkeeping work she’d also started to take on. ‘Extremely well,’ she said with a beaming smile, determined not to think about how close she was to the edge or how terrifying that was. ‘I’m enjoying it very much.’
‘Good,’ he said, leaning forwards in a way that for some bizarre reason made her breath catch and her pulse skip a beat all over again. ‘So. Kate. Tell me about Belle’s Angels.’
And just like that—bang!—there went her composure. Talk about being lulled into a false sense of security, she thought, her smile fading as the churning started up again in her stomach. What did Theo Knox know about Belle’s Angels? And how? Surely he couldn’t be a member. He’d have no trouble getting a date. But had he visited the site? Had he seen her page? She had no idea why when her profile had racked up over a thousand views since she’d rashly stuck it up last night but the thought of him looking at her photos made her feel quite weak.
‘What about it?’ she said carefully, since his expression was giving absolutely nothing away.
‘You’re on it.’
Ah. Right. Busted.
Since Mr Knox—Theo—was allegedly insanely sharp, Kate didn’t see the point in trying to come up with an excuse. ‘I am,’ she said, reminding herself that she had nothing to apologise for and nothing to be embarrassed about. What did it matter if he had seen her page? The photos were good. Empowering. Or something like that. At least she’d come up with a solution to the traumatic situation that had been robbing her of what little sleep she did get, even if it had had unexpected and rather unsettling consequences.
‘You tried to access it while at work.’
Indeed she had. Earlier this afternoon. Her profile had attracted a great deal of interest, her alluded-to virginity in particular, and she’d been inundated with emails, some merely curious, some a bit odd, some downright creepy. Not having a clue what to do about any of it and wanting the deluge to stop, she’d decided to alter her account settings while she figured it out. ‘I did.’
‘Which is an infringement of company policy.’
At that Kate went very still, her heart giving a great lurch.
Oh.
Oh, dear.
That hadn’t occurred to her. But it should have done because of course it would be. Belle’s Angels, registered in Germany and possibly skirting the boundaries of legality in the UK, was just the sort of website that would be blocked by a firewall. Which was undoubtedly why it hadn’t opened. She hadn’t thought to reflect upon that. She’d just wanted to switch off the interminable stream of responses. But clearly she’d been an idiot. More than an idiot, actually. She could very well have put herself out of a job.
‘That was a mistake,’ she said as the potential ramifications raced through her head and a sweat broke out all over her skin. ‘A one-off. It won’t happen again.’
‘You’re right,’ he said flatly, his eyes dark and inscrutable. ‘It won’t.’
A ball lodged in her throat and she swallowed it down with difficulty. ‘Are you firing me?’ she asked, the rising panic making her voice tight.
She needed this job, she needed all her jobs, but if she lost this one, she’d be in even more serious trouble than she already was. Fired accountants weren’t exactly desirable potential employees and who knew how long it would be before she got another job? The bills were mounting up daily and the correspondence from the debt agency was growing increasingly threatening, not that her salary was anywhere near enough to cover the repayments or the cost of her sister’s care, but Milly depended on her and only her since there was no one else now Mike had died, and if she had to leave Fairview she’d be devastated, and, oh, she really should have thought this whole crazy plan through.
‘I’m not firing you.’
Phew.
‘Then what do you mean?’ she said as her racing heart slowed and the jumble of panicky thoughts faded.
‘I had the site shut down.’
What? The tension that had ebbed a moment ago shot straight back.