Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

‘Staff development in Cameroon,’ he prompted, but his eyes had started to dance.

‘What?’

Phin tried to look severe, but a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. ‘Summer, is it possible you weren’t listening to a word I was saying?’

I squirmed. ‘I may have got distracted there for a moment or two,’ I admitted feebly.

He tutted. ‘That’s not like you, Summer. After I gave you sugar, too! I’ve just explained about my plan to take a group from Head Office to Cameroon for a couple of weeks, to help build a medical centre in one of the villages I know there. It’s a great way to start forging links between the company and a community, and everyone who goes will get so much out of it. But you don’t need to worry about it yet. You’ll have plenty of time to prepare.’

‘Hold on,’ I said, alarmed by the way this was going. ‘Me? Prepare for what?’

‘Of course you’ll be coming, too,’ said Phin, with what I was sure was malicious pleasure in my consternation. ‘We’re a team, remember? This is our scheme. It’s important that you’re really part of it. What better way than to go as part of the first group, to find out what it’s like out there?’

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU’RE not serious?’

‘I’m always serious, Summer,’ said Phin. His face was perfectly straight, but I’ve never seen anything less serious than the expression in the blue eyes right then.

I stared at him, aghast. ‘No way am I going to Africa!’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘I don’t like bugs.’

‘There’s more to the rainforest than bugs, Summer.’

‘The rainforest?’ My eyes started from my head. How much had I missed here? ‘Oh, no. No, no, no. The jungle? No way. Absolutely not.’

‘You’d like it.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ I said, still shaking my head firmly from side to side. I’d seen him leading those poor people through enough rainforests on Into the Wild to know just what it would be like. They spent their whole time struggling through rampant vegetation, or slithering down muddy slopes in stifling humidity, so that their hair was plastered to their heads and their shirts wringing with sweat.

There was almost always a shot of Phin taking off his shirt and rinsing it in the water. Anne’s favourite bit, in fact. Whenever they reached a river she’d sit up straighter and call out, ‘Shirt alert!’ and sigh gustily at the glimpse of Phin’s lean, muscled body.

I didn’t sigh, of course, but I did look, and even I had to admit-although not to Anne, of course-that it was a body worth sighing over if you were into that kind of thing.

But I certainly wasn’t prepared to trek through the rainforest myself to see it at first hand.

‘It sounds awful,’ I told Phin. ‘Hot and sweaty and crawling with insects…ugh.’

He leant forward, fixing me with that unnerving blue gaze. ‘You say hot and sweaty, Summer,’ he said, rocking his hand in an either/or gesture. ‘I say heat and passion and excitement.’

Heat. Passion. Excitement. They were so not me. But something about the words in Phin’s mouth made me shift uneasily on the sofa. ‘And what on earth makes you think I would like that?’ I asked, with what I hoped was a quelling look.

‘Your mouth.’

It was a bit like missing a step. I had the same lurch of the heart, punching the air from my lungs, the same hollowness in the stomach. My eyes were riveted to Phin’s, and all at once their blueness was so intense that I felt quite dizzy with the effort of not tumbling into it.

‘It just doesn’t go with the rest of you,’ he went on conversationally, while I was still opening and closing the mouth in question. ‘You’re all cool and crisp and buttoned up in your suit. But that mouth…’ He put his head on one side and studied it. ‘It makes me think there’s more to you than that. It makes me think that you might have a secretly sensual side…Am I right?’

‘Certainly not,’ I blustered, unable to think of a suitably crushing reply. ‘I can assure you that there isn’t a single bit of me that wants to go to the rainforest.’

Phin clicked his tongue and shook his head sadly. ‘Summer, Summer…I never thought you’d be a coward. Isn’t it time you stepped out of your comfort zone and explored a different side of yourself?’

‘I’m not into exploration,’ I said coldly. ‘That’s the thing about comfort zones. They’re comfortable. I’ve got no intention of making myself uncomfortable if I don’t have to.’

‘But I’m afraid you do have to,’ said Phin. ‘You’re on my team, and my team is going to Cameroon, whether you want to or not. So you’d better get used to the idea.’

I looked mutinously back at him. He was smiling, but there was an inflexibility to his jaw, a certain flintiness at the back of the blue eyes, that gave me pause and, like the coward Phin called me, I opted out of an argument just then.

I was sent off to liaise with Human Resources and find candidates for the first staff development trip. Phin said that he would organise everything at the Cameroonian end, but it would be my job to sort out flights, insurance, and all the other practicalities involved in taking a group of people overseas.

I didn’t mind doing that as long as I didn’t have to go myself. Still, he could hardly force me onto the plane, could he? I would be able to get out of it somehow, I reassured myself, and in the meantime I was much more excited about organising the Glitz interview. This was the chance I had dreamed about. At last I had a real reason to be in touch with Jonathan again.

Putting Africa out of my mind, I sat down to compose an e-mail to him. My heart was beating wildly at the mere thought of seeing him again, and I didn’t trust my voice on the phone.

All I had to do was suggest that we meet the next day to discuss the Glitz feature, but you wouldn’t believe how long it took me to produce a couple of lines that struck just the right balance between friendliness and cool professionalism.

I knew Jonathan would want to get involved. Glitz was stacked at every supermarket checkout in the land, and a positive piece about Phin taking up a new role at Gibson & Grieve would be fantastic publicity for us. Jonathan wouldn’t let a PR opportunity like this go past without making sure Phin’s office- i.e. me-was onboard.

Sure enough, he came back straight away.

Good idea. 12.30 tomorrow my office? J

Not a long message, but I read it as carefully as the floweriest of love letters, desperate to decipher the subtext.

Good idea…That was encouraging, wasn’t it? I mean, he could have just said OK, couldn’t he? Or fine. So I chose to see some warmth there. Also, he’d signed it with an initial. That was an intimate kind of thing to do. Not as good as if he’d added a kiss, of course, but still better than a more formal Jonathan.

But the bit that really got my heart thumping with anticipation was the time. Twelve-thirty. Was it just the only time he could fit me in, or had he chosen it deliberately so that he could suggest lunch?

Naturally I spent the entire afternoon composing a suitable reply. The resulting masterpiece ran as follows: 12.30 tomorrow fine for me. See you then. S. And, yes, my finger did hover over the x key for a while before I decided on discretion. I didn’t want to appear too pushy. Jonathan would hate that.

I discarded the idea of suggesting lunch myself for the same reason. But just in case Jonathan was thinking that we could discuss a PR strategy for Phin over an intimate lunch somewhere, I was determined to be prepared. Normally I’m very confident about putting outfits together, but I spent hours that night, dithering in front of my wardrobe, unable to decide what to wear the next day.

‘What do you think?’ I asked Anne.

I had dragged her away from yet another repeat of Into the Wild-wasn’t there anything else on television?-so she wasn’t best pleased. She sprawled grouchily on the bed.