The Other Side of Midnight

"I wanted to look around and get my bearings before I began work."

"Sit down." There was something in his tone that puzzled her. He seemed angry. Catherine took a seat. "I don't like snoops, Miss Alexander."

Catherine felt her face redden. "I--I don't understand."

"Washington's a small town. It's not even a town. It's a goddamn village. There's nothing that goes on here that everybody doesn't know about in five minutes."

"I still don't--"

"The publisher of the Post phoned me two minutes after you arrived there to ask why my secretary was doing research on me."

Catherine sat there stunned, not knowing what to say.

"Did you find out all the gossip you wanted to know?"

She felt her embarrassment swiftly changing to anger. "I wasn't snooping," Catherine said. She rose to her feet. "The only reason I wanted information on you was so that I would know what kind of man I was working for." Her voice was trembling with indignation. "I think a good secretary should adapt to her employer, and I wanted to know what to adapt to."

Fraser sat there, his expression hostile.

Catherine stared at him, hating him, on the verge of tears. "You don't have to worry about it anymore, Mr. Fraser. I quit." She turned and started toward the door.

"Sit down," Fraser said, his voice like a whiplash. Catherine turned, in shock. "I can't stand goddamn prima donnas."

She glared at him. "I'm not a..."

"OK. I'm sorry. Now, will you sit down. Please?" He picked up a pipe from his desk and lit it.

Catherine stood there not knowing what to do, filled with humiliation. "I don't think it's going to work," she began. "I..."

Fraser drew on the pipe and flicked out the match. "Of course it'll work, Catherine," he said reasonably. "You can't quit now. Look at all the trouble I'd have breaking in a new girl."

Catherine looked at him and saw the glint of amusement in his bright blue eyes. He smiled, and reluctantly her lips curved into a small smile. She sank into a chair.

"That's better. Did anyone ever tell you you're too sensitive?"

"I suppose so. I'm sorry."

Fraser leaned back in his chair. "Or maybe I'm the one who's oversensitive. It's a pain in the ass being called 'one of America's most eligible bachelors.'"

Catherine wished he would not use words like that. But what bothered her most? she wondered. Ass or bachelor?

Maybe Fraser was right. Perhaps her interest in him was not as impersonal as she thought. Perhaps subconsciously...

"...a target for every goddamned idiotic unmarried female in the world," Fraser was saying. "You wouldn't believe it if I told you how aggressive women can be."

Wouldn't she? Try our cashier. Catherine blushed as she thought of it.

"It's enough to turn a man into a fairy." Fraser sighed. "Since this seems to be National Research Week, tell me about you. Any boyfriends?"

"No," she said. "That is, no one special," she added quickly.

He looked at her quizzically. "Where do you live?"

"I share an apartment with a girl who was a classmate at college."

"Northwestern."

She looked at him in surprise, then realized he must have seen the personnel form she had filled out.