The Beautiful Widow

‘He adores his sister though.’ Joy spent a few moments explaining how Steel had brought Annie up, finishing with, ‘You know she was in danger of losing her baby recently?’

‘Uh-huh. How are things?’

‘OK. Annie’s confined to bed from here on.’

They talked some more and Toni found herself wishing Joy weren’t leaving at the end of the summer. She felt the two of them could have become good friends. Joy had already started advertising for her replacement; Steel wanted his new secretary in place long before Joy left so when the time came everything ran as smoothly as he expected.

‘Patience is not one of Steel’s virtues,’ Joy had murmured earlier that morning, eyebrows raised meaningfully, and Toni had nodded that she understood. It wasn’t exactly reassuring on her first day when she felt she knew nothing about anything.

Steel had gone out to lunch with a business colleague and the two women were deep in their respective work when he returned. The interconnecting door opened and he put his head round long enough to say, ‘Five minutes and we’re leaving for the new site, Toni. Bring the plans and anything else you need.’

She must have looked somewhat alarmed because when the door shut again, Joy said, a touch of laughter in her voice, ‘His bark is worse than his bite. He’s quite human really.’

Toni smiled weakly and began to collect her things together. She was ready and waiting when Steel buzzed Joy to say he was leaving, and as she joined him in the outside corridor and they walked towards the lift he reached out and took the plans and other data from her, tucking them under his arm. ‘Settled in?’ he asked briefly, his voice deep and slightly husky in the quiet surroundings as the lift doors glided silently open.

Toni’s stomach muscles tightened. Once in the carpeted mirrored box he seemed very close, even though there were a good few inches between them. ‘Yes, thank you. Joy’s been very kind. She’s shown me around and introduced me to everyone.’

‘She’s a damn good secretary. I’ll be sorry to lose her.’

Toni nodded to this, even as she thought, Joy has worked for you for years. Won’t you be sorry to lose her, as a person, and not just a secretarial machine? And then she answered herself immediately. Of course he wouldn’t. The smooth running of his precious office was all that mattered; the man was barely human. Perhaps he was really a futuristic robot, a creature from a sci-fi film with the appearance of a flesh and blood man? It would fit in with Joy’s warning that he was capable of carrying out a complex series of thoughts and actions simultaneously.

As they exited the lift and walked towards the huge glass doors that led into the street, Toni felt she knew what it was like to be in the presence of royalty. Everyone seemed to stop what they were doing and smile and murmur a ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ as they passed, and the burly security man in the foyer practically saluted.

‘Philip has brought your car round, Mr Landry. He said you didn’t want him to chaffeur you this afternoon? I hope that’s right?’ he added, jumping forward to open the outer doors.

Steel nodded. ‘Quite right, Bill. How’s the wife? Over that last hospital spell, I hope?’

‘She’s doing all right, Mr Landry, and still going on about the holiday you sent us on. That week in the sun did her the world of good. Set her up, it did.’

‘Good. Glad to hear it.’

They exited the building into the street. A smart young man was standing by a black Aston Martin parked at the kerb, which had the passenger door open. As they walked towards the car Steel murmured, ‘Bill’s wife’s fighting a particularly nasty form of cancer and it’s been touch and go a few times. He worships the ground she walks on and they’ve never had kids, so it’s just the two of them. It’s hit him hard.’

Toni didn’t have a chance to reply before they reached the car. The young man helped her into the leather-clad interior while Steel walked round the gleaming bonnet to the driver’s side.

It was just as well she had a few moments to collect herself; his kindness to the security man had thrown her completely. She wouldn’t have put Steel Landry down as a philanthropist in any way, shape or form. First mistake, then, and probably not her last.

The man was an enigma, she told herself crossly. He wouldn’t stay in the box she’d parcelled him up in in her mind. Which was unsettling. And then she was even more unsettled when he slid into the low sleek car, so close the faint, delicious smell of him swamped her senses. He reached round and threw the plans and other documents into the back seat, his shoulder brushing hers and causing a chain reaction right down to her toes.

‘OK?’ He gave her a brief smile, clearly not requiring an answer before he started the car and pulled out almost immediately into the London traffic.

She wouldn’t have said OK, no, Toni thought wryly. Taking a deep breath, she composed herself and tried to concentrate on anything rather than the hard male body at the side of her. It wasn’t easy. In fact it was impossible and as closing her eyes wasn’t an option she did the next best thing and stared determinedly out of the side window until she had control of her breathing.

They had only travelled a couple of miles when the car’s Bluetooth phone system cut into the tense—at least Toni felt it was tense—silence. It was a business call, and Steel had barely finished speaking before the phone rang again. It set the tone for the journey.

Did he ever stop working? Toni asked herself as Steel manoeuvred the powerful car in and out of the heavy London traffic while discussing facts and figures as decisively as though he were sitting at his desk with the relevant papers in front of him. But then she knew the answer to that; Joy had told her he played as hard as he worked.

She closed her mind to that particular avenue of thought before it took hold. Over the last few nights she’d had one or two particularly erotic dreams, which had been embarrassing to recall in the light of day. And they’d all featured Steel. Thank goodness he’d never know. A little frisson of horror at the notion he might suspect she’d fantasised about him—albeit subconsciously, which was hardly her fault—slivered down her spine. This was so unlike her, it really was.

A good few miles—and a good few phone calls—later, Steel pulled into a parking space in front of a huge, somewhat grim-looking factory building, which still had ‘E. C. Maine & Son, Quality Furnishings’ over the massive arched front doors. ‘I think the most you can say about the exterior is that it looks solid,’ Steel murmured wryly. ‘I doubt we can do much there.’

‘Oh, I don’t know …’ Toni gazed up at the seemingly hundreds of small windows. ‘We’ve already got permission to join some of the windows together to make large, more attractive ones and they’d look great with outside shutters to break up the brickwork. And look at the detail above the windows; the Victorians did that sort of thing so well. If we follow that through with the alterations and pick out some of the brick patterns with gold and black paint, just above the windows and nowhere else, I think it might look quite charming.’

Steel nodded. ‘I see what you mean.’

‘And the yard at the back which is going to become the communal garden could be enclosed with ornamental iron railings augmented with the same design to tie in with the building.’

‘I like that.’