Her Impossible Boss (5 page)

‘Ah. A choice?’ Matt looked at the list. ‘You do realise that choosing to participate in these activities will curtail your free time in the evenings?’

‘That’s okay.’

‘I’ll make sure that you’re paid overtime, of course.’

‘I don’t care about the money,’ Tess muttered, looking in fascination at his downbent head as he continued to frown over the list, as though trying to work out which was the most acceptable of the options on the table.

‘But you might,’ he murmured, not looking at her, ‘regret committing to something that’s going to involve time you might otherwise spend seeing New York…going out and having fun. Isn’t that going to be a problem?’

Quite suddenly he raised his eyes to hers, and there it was again—that giddy feeling as though she was free-falling through space.

‘Why should it be a problem?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘Because,’ Matt murmured, ‘you’re young, and I’ve gathered that you came here to have fun. Since when has your definition of
fun
been spending time with your employer and his daughter, playing a game of Scrabble?’

Never, Tess thought, confused.

‘Right.’ He stood up, and she hastily followed suit. Her allotted time was over. ‘First of all, you will be reimbursed—whether you like it or not. And as for which activity takes my fancy…having done none of them for longer than I can remember…’

He grinned. A smile of genuine amusement. And
for a few heart-stopping seconds he ceased to be Matt Strickland, the man who was employing her, the man who represented just the sort of staid workaholic that she privately abhorred, and was just a man. A suffocatingly sexy man who made her head spin.

‘Your choice. I’ll be home tomorrow by six.’

‘O
KAY.
So let me get this straight. You’ve now got yourself a clothes allowance, no limits, and
you’re going on a date with my boss.’

‘It’s not a date,’ Tess said irritably, but she was only half concentrating on Claire who was lounging fully clothed in a tight green dress with high heels—also green. Claire was killing time before going out with the guy she had been seeing for the past eighteen months—an investment banker whom Tess had met several times and liked very much, despite the fact that the second he left the room she could never seem to quite remember what he looked like.

‘No? What is it, then? Cosy restaurant? Bottle of Chablis? Candlelight? No one’s ever had a clue as to what Matt Strickland does in his private life, and here you are, less than three weeks in, and
you’re on a date.’

Small and black or small and red? Tess was thinking, looking at the selection of outfits she had bought earlier that day. Five seconds of tussling with her moral conscience and she had shamelessly capitulated once inside the fashionable department store to which she had been directed—because, he had told her, he would be taking
her to dinner to get her feedback, and she would need something fairly dressy to wear. Were it not for him, she’d reasoned to herself, she wouldn’t have to spend money on clothes for restaurants she wouldn’t be going to. So if he wanted to foot the bill, then why not?

Besides, Samantha had been having fun. They had made a deal. Tess would pretend to yawn inside the toy shops and Samantha would tap the over-sized face of her newly acquired Disney watch in boredom inside the grown-up clothes shops, and then they would break for lunch at a place upon which they had both agreed, and which was based on a menu of pizzas and burgers. Good, fortifying food before they dutifully visited some place of culture in the name of education.

Tess had discovered that in New York there was a cultural destination for every day of the week for at least a year. Having always considered places of culture as unutterably boring, she was slowly discovering that they weren’t half bad—especially when being explored with someone with an equal lack of knowledge. Even if that particular someone happened to be a ten-and-nine tenths-of-a-year-old child. They would learn together along the way, and it had to be said that Samantha was as sharp as a tack. Indeed, Tess had delegated most of the guidebooks to her, and her job was to describe what they were looking at, including its history.

‘I think I’ll go red.’

‘Why do you care if it’s not a date?’ Claire smirked, easing herself off the bed and dusting herself down. ‘And please don’t tell me again that it’s not a date. For the past three weeks I’ve hardly seen you, and now you’re off to a restaurant with him. Surely you’ve said
everything there is to say over your games of Monopoly and your cinema evenings?’

‘Has it been three weeks?’ Yes. Yes, it had. Time seemed to be moving at the speed of sound. After her initial hesitation about getting involved with Matt and the tense relationship he had with his daughter, she seemed to have dived in—headlong. Games night—their first night—had been a muted success, and since then things had picked up because he had been making an effort. He was getting back to the apartment before seven without fail, and throwing himself into every activity with such enthusiasm that it was difficult not to be swept away along with him. Samantha, wary at first, was slowly beginning to thaw, beginning to really enjoy herself, and it was hard not to be caught up in the changing tide.

‘It’s a
debriefing,’
Tess concluded. ‘And I only wish I didn’t have to go. I’d much rather be living it up in Manhattan on a Friday night out with you and Tom. Okay, maybe not you and Tom, but with other people. Young, exciting people. Artists and writers and poets.’ The sort of people she thought she
should
be thrilled to hang out with, in other words. ‘I haven’t really had a chance to report back to Matt on how things are going with Samantha. This is purely about my job. I think I’ve put on weight. Have I put on weight? This dress feels a bit snug.’

‘Tess…’ Claire said hesitantly. ‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’ ‘Anything stupid? Like what?’ ‘I don’t know what Matt Strickland gets up to in his
personal life, but there’s a reason why he is where he is today. He’s tough and he’s pretty ruthless.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Don’t fall for the guy.’

‘I wouldn’t!’ Tess turned to her sister. ‘My dream guy isn’t a high-flier who wants to make money. You know that. My dream guy is down to earth and sensitive, and when I find him I’ll recognise him.’

‘That’s not how life works.’

‘I’m just doing my job, and for the first time in my life I’m actually enjoying what I’m doing. You have no idea what it’s like to see Matt and Samantha together. Okay, it’s not perfect, but it’s beginning to work, and I’d like to think that I’ve had something to do with that. It seems to me that the whole world wants me to settle down and find something I wants to stick with. I think I’ve found it. I like children and I like working with them. It’s something positive that I’m going to take away from this whole experience and please don’t confuse that with anything else!’

It was the first time she had come even close to being at odds with her sister, and she relented as soon as she saw Claire’s shocked expression.

‘I can take care of myself, so don’t worry about me. I’m not falling for Matt Strickland! I’m getting to know him. And the only reason I’m getting to know him is because I need to for the sake of his daughter.’

She could have added that Matt Strickland had become three-dimensional, and that her head was slowly becoming crowded with images of him. Matt frowning in concentration in front of a recipe book for beginners she and Samantha had bought three days ago. Matt
exultant when he managed to buy a hotel and charge exorbitant rent in a game of Monopoly. Matt teasing but tentative as his daughter brought him hesitantly into her life in Connecticut over the images of her friends on her computer.

This dinner, she knew, was purely about business. He would point out any areas of concern he had with her. He would see room for improvement. No need for nerves, and no need to be unsettled by anything Claire had said.

For the first time Tess was beginning to get a handle on just how much she had been protected through the years by her parents and by her sisters. They had allowed her to retreat from the competitive race academically. Claire and Mary had indulged her when she had turned her back on schoolwork. Had they felt sorry for her because they’d known how impossible it would be to live up to the standards they had set? Or had they enjoyed vicariously living a different kind of life through her? A life without responsibilities? And her parents had been almost as bad. No wonder Claire now thought that she was incapable of protecting herself when it came to the big, bad world! The fact was that she was finally growing up. She was taking on responsibilities. She was more equipped now that she had ever been to deal with whatever life threw at her.

Self-confidence restored, she slipped on the red dress, stuck on high, wedge-heeled sandals with delicate straps, and then stood back and examined her reflection in the mirror.

She didn’t often do this—stare critically at herself in the mirror—but doing it now, really taking time to
see how she looked, she wasn’t disappointed. She would never be tall and spindly, but she looked okay. Her hair was loose and it shone, and she was already acquiring a healthy glow from the baking summer sun. Claire and Mary both had a typically Irish complexion: dark hair, pale skin with a hint of freckles, and of course the family trademark—bright green eyes. Tess, however, was warmer in colour, and it showed. The sun had also lightened her hair. She wasn’t blonde, but lighter, with more varied shades of caramel.

With Claire loitering somewhere outside, ready to resume their conversation, Tess waited until Matt’s driver paged her on her cell phone and then hurried out of the apartment, stopping to peep into the kitchen only to announce that she was off.

After three weeks she had become accustomed to being driven around New York. She no longer felt like royalty inside the limo, and she was hardly aware of the streets slipping by until the car finally stopped outside an elegant restaurant—just the sort of restaurant that would have chucked her out had she turned up in her normal gear of jeans and a tee shirt.

Stanton, Matt’s driver, swooped round to open the car door for her.

Inside, a small foyer opened to an expanse of gleaming wooden floors and circular tables with starched white linen tablecloths and comfortable brown leather chairs. Every table seemed to be full of people chattering and, frankly, looking unashamedly glamorous. It was almost as though a Hollywood director had decided to film a movie inside a restaurant and supplied his own cast.

Two impressive wooden tables were home to the most towering vases of flowers Tess had ever seen. White lilies intricately laced around a honeycomb of twisted driftwood neatly partitioned the restaurant, so that there was at once an atmosphere of pleasant busyness that was yet strangely intimate.

Even by the impossibly high standards of opulence to which she had been exposed, this was in a league of its own, and Matt, sipping a drink and waiting for her in the most private corner of the restaurant, looked perfectly at ease in the surroundings.

Nervous tension beaded her upper lip, and suddenly, unexpectedly, her body was doing strange things. For a few seconds her breathing seemed to stop, and—perversely—her heart began beating so fast that it felt as though it would burst out of her chest. Her mind had shut down. There was not a thought in her head. Even the sound of the diners and the clatter of cutlery faded to a background blur.

He was wearing a black jacket that fitted him like a glove, and the white of his shirt threw the aristocratic harsh angles of his face into stunning prominence. He looked vibrant and drop-dead gorgeous, and she almost faltered in her high heels as she walked towards him.

In the act of lifting his glass to his lips, he seemed to still too.

Suddenly self-conscious, and embarrassed at being caught red-handed in the act of staring, Tess plastered a brilliant smile on her lips as she weaved her way towards him.

‘I didn’t realise that we would be having a meeting in such grand surroundings,’ she carolled gaily, making
sure to get the conversation onto neutral work-orientated territory as soon as possible. If nothing else, it did wonders to distract her from the glimpse of hard-muscled chest just visible where the top two buttons of his shirt were undone, and the way his fine dark hair curled alluringly around the dull silver strap of his watch.

Matt tore his eyes away from her and glanced round at the sumptuous décor which he casually took for granted. ‘The food’s good. It’s the reason I keep coming back here. French food always makes a change from steak.’

‘Not nearly as good as the spaghetti Bolognese your daughter cooked for you a few days ago, though. You have no idea how long it took us to stockpile all the ingredients. Everything had to be just right. The mushrooms. The shallots. The quality of the mince.’

Tess was babbling. Where had this sudden attack of nerves come from, she wondered. She had seen enough of Matt Strickland in the past few weeks to have killed any nerves she might have around him, surely? But her pulses were still racing and her mouth still felt dry, even after the two hefty sips of wine she’d gulped down from the crystal wine glass in front of her.

‘And let’s not go into the length of time it took us to find just the right recipe book,’ she confided. ‘I think Samantha looked at every single one at three separate bookshops. I had to stop her from trying to wheedle me into buying her a pasta machine. Can you believe it? I told her that it might be better to start simple and then move on to the complicated stuff. You…er…have an incredibly well-equipped kitchen. Everything new and shiny…’ She trailed off in the face of his unnerving silence. ‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’ she asked
awkwardly. ‘I thought you wanted me here to talk about how things were coming along with Samantha.’

‘You have a way of running away with the conversation,’ Matt murmured. ‘It’s always interesting to see where it’s going to lead.’

Tess tried and failed to take that as a compliment. The smile she directed at him was a little wobbly at the edges. ‘You make me sound like a kid,’ she said in a forced voice, and he tilted his head to one side, as though giving that observation some thought.

‘Maybe that’s why you’ve worked out so well as her nanny.’ He flashed her a veiled amused look, but for some reason Tess was finding it hard to see the funny side. ‘The other nannies the agency supplied were nothing like you. They were far more regimented. Samantha refused to be told what to do, ran circles around them, and they eventually ended up handing in their notice. The more she had, the more I gave instructions to the agency that the next one should be stricter. I can see now that it was completely the wrong ploy. I should have been trying to find someone who was more on her level.’

‘How many did she have?’

‘Five—although one only lasted three days. They did their best to discipline her. In nine times out of ten they might have had success with that approach…’

‘I discipline her,’ Tess interrupted defensively.

‘Do you? How?’

‘If you don’t like the way I do things…’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Tess. Haven’t I just told you how well I think you’re doing? You’ve achieved wonders in a matter of weeks!’

‘But I don’t want you to think that the only reason
I’ve succeeded is because I let her do exactly what she wants! You gave me permission to get her a new wardrobe of clothes. Do you remember I discussed this with you? Do you remember I told you to look around at the other kids her age in New York and see what they were wearing? When she goes to her new school she might find it easier if she shows up in the same sort of clothes as everyone else. I said all this to you and you agreed! So we went shopping and, yes, some of her things
did
come from markets, but she’d never been to a market before. She enjoyed the experience!’