Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

swear every hair on my body stood up.

‘What was that for?’ I asked unsteadily.

‘Just getting into character,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I hadn’t realised the perks of promoting G &G’s family- friendly image until now. Who would have thought it would be so much fun keeping Lex happy?’

He stood back and held the door open. ‘Come on in and see where we’re having our wild affair.’

We won’t be able to keep our hands off each other. I remembered Phin answering my stupid question about how we would go about having an affair. The moment we’re through the front door I’ll start kissing you, and you’ll kiss me back. You’ll fall back against the door and pull me with you…

Now I couldn’t help glancing at the door as I passed, couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to feel the hard wood digging into my back, the weight of Phin’s body pressing me against it, his mouth on mine, his hands hot and hungry.

I swallowed hard. I had no intention of giving Phin the satisfaction of knowing how that casual kiss had affected me, but it was difficult when I still had that weird, jerky, twitchy, shocked feeling beneath my skin.

It wasn’t a very big house. Clearly it had once been a cottage, but the kitchen had been extended at the back with a beautiful glass area, and on a sunny February morning it looked bright and inviting.

‘Nice house,’ I managed, striving for a nonchalant tone that didn’t quite come off.

‘I can’t take any credit for it,’ said Phin. ‘It was like this when I bought it. I wanted somewhere that didn’t need anything doing to it. I’m not into DIY or nest-building.’

‘Or tidying, by the looks of it,’ I said as I wandered into the living room. Two smaller rooms that had been knocked into one, it ran from the front of the house to the back, where dust motes danced in the early spring sunshine that shone in through the window.

It could have been a lovely room, but there was stuff everywhere. A battered hat sat jauntily on the back of an armchair. The sofa was covered with newspapers. Books were crammed onto a low table with dirty mugs, empty beer cans and a water purification kit.

I clicked my tongue disapprovingly. ‘How on earth do you ever find anything?’

‘I’ve got a system,’ said Phin.

‘Clearly it doesn’t involve putting anything away!’

He made a face. ‘There never seems much point. As far as I’m concerned, this is just somewhere to pack and unpack between trips.’

‘What a shame.’ It seemed a terrible waste to me. ‘I’d love to live somewhere like this,’ I said wistfully. ‘This is my fantasy house, in fact.’

‘The one you’re saving up for?’

The chances of me ever being able to afford a house in Chelsea were so remote that I laughed. ‘Fantasy, I said! I’m saving for a studio at the end of a tube line, which will be all I can afford. And I’ll be lucky if I can do that with London prices the way they are. But if I won the Lottery I’d buy a house just like this,’ I said, turning slowly around and half closing my eyes as I visualised how it would be. ‘I’d paint the front door blue and have window boxes at every window.’

‘What’s wrong with red?’

‘Nothing. It’s just that when I was a kid and used to dream about living in a proper house it always had a blue door, and I always swore that if I ever had a home of my own the door would be blue. I’d open it up, and inside it would be all light and stripped floorboards and no clutter…like this room could be if there wasn’t all this mess!’

‘It’s not messy,’ Phin protested. ‘It’s comfortable.’

‘Yes, well, comfortable or not, we’re going to have to clear up before Imelda and the photographer get here.’

I started to gather up the papers scattered over the sofa, but Phin grabbed them from me. ‘Whoa-no, you don’t!’ he said firmly. ‘I’ll never find anything again if you start tidying. I thought we agreed the idea was to let readers see me at home?’

‘No, the idea is that readers have a glimpse of what their lives could be like if only they shopped at Gibson & Grieve all the time,’ I reminded him. ‘You’re a TV personality, for heaven’s sake! You know how publicity works. It’s about creating an image, not showing reality.’

Ignoring his grumbles, I collected up all the mugs I could find and carried them through to the kitchen. I was glad to have something to do to take my mind off the still buzzy aftermath of that kiss. I was desperately aware of Phin, and the intimacy of the whole situation, and at least I could try and disguise it with briskness.

‘We’ll need to offer them coffee,’ I said, dumping the dirty mugs on the draining board. ‘Have you got any fresh?’

‘Somewhere…’ Phin deposited a pile of newspapers on a chair and opened the fridge. It was like a cartoon bachelor’s fridge, stacked with beers and little else, but he found a packet of ground coffee, which he handed to me, and sniffed at a carton. ‘The milk seems OK,’ he said. ‘There should be a cafetiere around somewhere, too.’

It was in the sink, still with coffee grounds at the bottom. I dreaded to think how long it had been there. Wrinkling my nose, I got rid of the grounds in the bin and washed up the cafetiere with the mugs.

‘What sort of state is the rest of the house in?’ I asked when I had finished.

‘I haven’t quite finished unpacking from Peru,’ Phin said as he opened the door to his bedroom.

‘Quite’ seemed an understatement to me. There were clothes strewn everywhere, along with various other strange items that were presumably essential when you were hacking your way through the rainforest: a mosquito net, a machete, industrial strength insect repellent. You could barely see that it was an airy room, sparsely but stylishly furnished, and dominated by an invitingly wide bed which I carefully averted my eyes from.

Phin had no such qualms. ‘That’s where we make mad, passionate love,’ he said. ‘Most of the time,’ he added, seeing me purse my lips and unable to resist teasing. ‘Of course there’s always the shower and the sofa-and remember that time up on the kitchen table…?’

‘It sounds very unhygienic,’ I said crisply. ‘I’d never carry on like that.’

‘You would if you really wanted me.’

‘Luckily for you,’ I said, ‘I’m only interested in your mind.’

‘Don’t tell Glitz that,’ said Phin, his eyes dancing. ‘You’ll ruin my reputation.’

‘They’re not going to be interested in our sex life, anyway.’

‘Summer, what world are you living in? That’s exactly what they’ll be interested in! They’re journalists on a celebrity rag. I can tell you now this Imelda won’t give two hoots about our minds!’

I lifted my chin stubbornly. ‘The interview is supposed to be about you as a potential family man, not as some sex symbol.’

‘You know, sex is an important part of marriage,’ he said virtuously. ‘We don’t want them thinking we’re not completely compatible in every way.’

‘Yes, well, let’s concentrate on our compatibility in the living room rather than the bedroom,’ I said, closing the bedroom door. ‘We’ll just have to hope that they don’t want to come upstairs.’

Anxious to get away from the bedroom, with all its associations, I hurried back downstairs.

‘We’re going to have to do something about this room,’ I decided, surveying the living room critically. ‘It’s not just the mess. It looks too much like a single guy’s room at the moment.’

I made Phin clear away all the clutter-I think he just dumped it all in the spare room-while I ran around with a vacuum cleaner. It didn’t look too bad by the time I’d finished, although even I thought it was a bit bare.

‘It could do with some flowers, or a cushion or two,’ I said. ‘Do you think I’ve got time to nip out before they get here?’

‘Cushions?’ echoed Phin, horrified. ‘Over my dead body!’

‘Oh, don’t be such a baby. A couple of cushions wouldn’t kill you.’

‘Cushions are the beginning of the end,’ he said mulishly. ‘Next thing I know I’ll be buying scented candles and ironing my sheets!’

‘Sheets feel much nicer when they’re ironed,’ I pointed out, but he only looked at me in disbelief.

‘I might as well be married. I’ve seen it happen to friends,’ he told me. ‘They meet a fabulous girl, they’re having a great time, and then one day you go round and there’s a cushion sitting on the sofa. You know it’s the beginning of the end. You can count the days before that wedding invitation is dropping onto your mat!’

I rolled my eyes. I was feeling much better by that stage. I always find cleaning very comforting.