Promoted: to Wife and Mother

the other evening was down to the wine and nothing else.

Still, she found herself in the Ladies just before the meeting Valerie had arranged for two o’clock, carefully applying a fresh coat of lipstick. When she had finished, Perdita inspected her reflection carefully. With her dark eyes, bold mouth and hair that swung in a glossy bob to her jaw line, she could take bright colours and dramatic outfits, but this suit was a classic. It had a pencil skirt and a chic jacket over a neat silky top, and Perdita decided on balance that it was probably a better look than the pink jacket currently languishing in the dry cleaners. This outfit might not be as striking, but it made her look cool, businesslike and thoroughly professional.

And not as if her heart were fluttering in her throat, which was all that mattered.

Perdita picked up her file, gave her jacket a final tug into place, took a deep breath and headed along to the Chief Executive’s office.

Ed got to his feet when she went in and at the sight of him the breath promptly whooshed out of Perdita’s lungs, just as it had done when he had appeared at the bottom of the stairs in his hallway. Today, he was wearing a shirt and tie and the formal wear made him seem older and more distant than the work-stained T-shirt and faded jeans.

Perdita was conscious of a rush of quite unfamiliar shyness. At least she thought it was shyness. Whatever it was, it left her with rubbery bones and a strange, quivering feeling beneath her skin.

Ridiculous.

She was Operations Manager of a successful company, Perdita reminded herself sternly. She was an intelligent, confident, capable forty-year-old woman, and she did not do shy or fluttery.

Tilting her chin, she smiled brightly and disguised her weird reaction with a show of briskness. She might feel strange, but she had no intention of letting Ed Merrick guess that it was related to him in any way.

‘Thanks for taking the time to see me,’ she said coolly as he waved her to the comfortable chairs in the corner of his office.

‘Not at all,’ said Ed. ‘I’m glad you could fit me in.’ Was there just the slightest suspicion of sarcasm in his voice? Perdita wondered suspiciously and she fought down a faint flush.

‘It’s a busy time in Operations.’

‘So I gather,’ Ed agreed smoothly. ‘That’s why I left you to last. I’ve seen all the other managers, but I knew that you could be counted on to carry on doing a good job without any interference from me.’

‘Oh.’ Perdita realised that she was sitting nervously on the edge of her chair and tried to relax. Leaning back a little, she crossed her legs, but that made her skirt ride up, exposing rather too much of her legs, so she uncrossed them again. She wished she was wearing trousers, as she would have done with her pink jacket.

Now what was she going to with her legs? Perhaps she could try crossing her ankles like royalty? But when she tried it, that felt all wrong too.

If Ed was irritated by her fidgeting, he didn’t show it. ‘Thank you again for the wine you brought the other day,’ he said formally. ‘It was a very nice thought.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Perdita with a rather off-putting brightness. ‘It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s wine cellar!’

There was a short pause while Ed wondered how to begin. There had been an inexplicably disturbing awareness between them that night in his kitchen, and he was sure she must have felt it too. It made things a bit awkward now, though. He didn’t want to refer to it, but neither could he pretend that she had never come round.

It was the reason he had put off seeing Perdita until now, although it was also true that she ran an efficient and effective department. Ed had been hoping that either the memory of that awareness would fade-no luck there- or that seeing her at work would change things once more.

Looking at her now, he was only partly reassured. The quiet empathy he had felt sitting at the kitchen table had vanished, and Perdita was back to her peppy, punchy form. On the other hand, now that he had seen her in his home and knew that beneath the pizzazz she could be warm and sympathetic and honest, and had cares and concerns and stresses of her own, it was much harder to think of her as just another business colleague.

Although it was clear that was all she wanted to be. The more vulnerable side of Perdita was tucked firmly away behind a brisk facade of professionalism that Ed was fairly sure was designed to keep him at a distance and demonstrate that if she had been conscious of that unlikely awareness last week, she most certainly didn’t want to be reminded of it.

Which was fair enough, Ed had to admit to himself. It wasn’t likely that Perdita herself would ever be interested in a dull, middle-aged widower with three teenagers in tow.

Was it?

CHAPTER FOUR

ED CLEARED his throat. Well, no point going there. He’d better begin.

‘So, did it take you long to recover from the leadership development course?’ he asked. It felt pretty lame, but he had to start somewhere. This was the kind of meeting he could do in his sleep normally, but somehow everything felt different with Perdita.

‘It wasn’t too bad,’ she said. ‘It took me some time to catch up with things afterwards, and I got very sick of my colleagues screeching and pretending to be peacocks whenever I appeared,’ she added tartly, ‘but, apart from that, it was OK.’

He was leaning forward, resting his forearms on his knees and letting his loosely clasped hands fall easily between them as the penetrating grey eyes rested on her face. ‘What did you think of the course?’ he asked.

Realising that she was fiddling with the file on her lap, Perdita made herself stop and rest her hands on top of it.

‘Honestly? I thought all the animal stuff was a bit silly, but it’s been quite useful in trying to recognise that different members of my team have different strengths. And I learnt how to build a pontoon bridge, so it wasn’t all bad!’

He smiled in a way that did horrible things to her heartbeat. ‘You never know when that will come in handy! You weren’t that impressed by the course when you were there, as I remember, but I’m glad you got something out of it.’

He paused and his expression became more serious. ‘I do have some feedback from the facilitators for you but, before we discuss that, I’d like to know how you envisage your role at Bell Browning developing.’

‘In what respect?’ asked Perdita cautiously. She didn’t like the sound of feedback.

‘Are you happy as Operations Manager?’

‘Yes,’ she said, suspicious about where all this was going. ‘Is there a problem with my performance?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Ed, picking up a file from the seat next to him and scanning it. ‘Operations have an excellent reputation for delivering on time and under cost. Congratulations. The Board are very pleased with what you’ve done since you took over.’

‘It’s not just me,’ said Perdita quickly. ‘Everyone on the team has worked really hard-and that’s in spite of me being a peacock,’ she couldn’t resist adding.

The grey eyes glinted distractingly. ‘Clearly your leadership style works. What was it again? “I tell my staff what to do and they do it”?’ Ed’s voice was threaded with amusement.

Perdita had the grace to blush. ‘I do try and be a little more tactful than that most of the time.’

‘And your staff speak very highly of you too.’ Ed closed the file and dropped it on to the table between them. ‘The question is whether you want to stay as Operations Manager or if you’d like to develop your role further.’

‘In what way?’ Perdita’s gaze sharpened with interest and she sat up straighter.

‘I’ve been in discussion with the Board and we see the potential to expand internationally,’ he said. ‘We’d need someone with a specific responsibility for liaising with prospective clients overseas, and your languages and experience of working overseas make you the ideal candidate. This is still at the discussion stage, of course, but it would be useful to know if you would be interested in principle.’

Ed was somewhat taken aback to see Perdita light up like a candle with excitement. For a moment she seemed