wasn't used to such treatment! `Or, failing that, I'm free this afternoon; I could come in to see him,' she offered magnanimously. Since Yancie knew she was going to lie her head off, she would by far prefer to do it over the phone-if he was so busy, why waste his time seeing her personally?
'I'm afraid Mr Wakefield's time is fully booked today. If you'd like to hold on for a moment.' Yancie held on and a minute or so later the PA was back, and it soon transpired she had been to see the man himself when she said, `If you'd care to look in tomorrow, say around midday, Mr Wakefield will try and slot you into his busy schedule.'
'I should be prepared to wait?' Should I bring sandwiches?
'Mr Wakefield is an exceptionally busy man,' Veronica Taylor answered pleasantly.
So why didn't he just pick up his phone now? It was ridiculous that she should have to go and sit there and, remembering the last time, wait and wait. He was in his office so why didn't he just pick up his perishing phone and let her get her lies said, done and over with now? But, Yancie reminded herself, she wanted her job back; she truly, truly did. And if this was what she had to do to get it, so be it. 'I'll be in tomorrow-around midday, as you suggest,' she said nicely, adding a polite goodbye-and realised that yet again, without even having spoken with him, Thomson Wakefield had managed to disturb her equilibrium.
When she had calmed down from her niggle of annoyance, Yancie started to feel quite excited about her interview tomorrow. So much depended on its outcome. And truly she was a good driver. She'd made a mistake, but she'd learned from it, and if only Thomson Wakefield would give her another chance… Now, what should she wear?
She had a wardrobe or two full of really wonderful clothes. Somehow, when she had never felt the need of a confidence boost before, Yancie now experienced the oddest desire to want to look her very, very best when she saw Thomson Wakefield tomorrow.
Which, she scoffed a minute or so later, was just so much nonsense-no man had the right to tilt hey confidence a little, or even the merest fraction. She went and checked out a fresh uniform.
At eleven fifty-five the following morning Yancie, suited in her newly dry-cleaned uniform and crisp beige shirt, presented herself at Veronica Taylor's office. Yancie had debated whether or not to wear her name tag, but thought, since Thomson Wakefield knew perfectly well who she was, that she wouldn't bother. She had, in fact, been halfway out the door of the apartment when it had dawned on her that for someone desperate to be reinstated she was risking it.
So now, duly labelled, she sat in Veronica Taylor's office while the PA rang through to the next-door office to inform her boss-their boss, with any luck-that Yancie Dawkins was there.
Anticipating that the great man would squeeze her into his busy schedule about two minutes before he went for his lunch around one, Yancie had barely read five pages of her book before he buzzed through to say he would see her now.
Yancie, wishing she'd spent her waiting time re-rehearsing the tale she was about to tell, quickly put her paperback in her shoulder bag and, feeling oddly nervous-which was totally absurd, she told herself-she went to the other door in the room, knocked briefly, and went in.
Thomson Wakefield was just as she remembered him. Today he wore a dark suit, striped shirt and, as he rose from his chair to indicate she should take the seat she had used a week ago, she saw he was as tall, and as nearly good-looking, as ever.
'Good morning,' she broke the silence that emanated from the non-talkative brute. Br, afternoon,' she corrected, crossing to the chairnot a glimmer of a smile! Here we go-it was like treading through sticky treacle. `Thank you for seeing me at such short notice,' she heard herself say-creepy or what?
Yancie clamped her lips shut, and took the seat he offered; only the ever present knowledge of how much she wanted this job-nay, needed this job-prevented her from getting up and marching out again.
She looked at him. His glance flicked over her. If he observed her name tag neatly in place-and from the little she knew of him she suspected he missed little-he did not comment. In fact he said nothing at all for a good few seconds, but unsmilingly took in her neatly brushed shoulder-length ash-blonde hair and complexion-once rated by some male as exquisite. Wakefield was totally unaffected.
When he did speak, it was to remind her, `You wished to see me?'
So he was throwing the ball into her court. She took a deep breath-bother the man for making her nervous. `I want my job back,' she said bluntly-oh, grief, she hadn't rehearsed it this way. She saw a trace of ice chill his eyes, and guessed she wasn't going the right way to get it. `Please,' she added, as an afterthought.
Last Friday, in this room, she had thought very briefly-that the man opposite had marginally cracked his face a touch, as if she'd amused him. His mouth tweaked again, but it was so fleeting, she was again certain she was mistaken. In any case, she didn't care to be laughed at.
'So?' he enquired curtly.
So? She stared at him from puzzled and deeply blue eyes. `Oh!' It suddenly clicked.
Though before she could get her wits together and rush into her story Thomson Wakefield, as if thinking her particularly dense, enlightened her. `So why should I give you your job back?'
Yancie didn't care to be thought dense either. `Because I need it,' she answered, which she realised was not the answer he wanted. Therefore, before she started to lie her head off, she managed to find a smile, which had much the same effect on him as any of her other smiles-precisely none-and bucked her ideas up. `Obviously you want to know what I was doing driving where I shouldn't have been a week ago last Thursday,' she said prettily.
He was unimpressed, but his glance to his watch, as if to say if she didn't soon spit it out he'd be making that suspension permanent, prodded her to get on with it. `It might be an idea,' he suggested, and Yancie was certain she heard sarcasm there.
It was the annoyance she felt with him, his sarcasm, and his barely concealed impatience that he could look at his watch, which gave her the kick start she needed. `I really can't think why I didn't tell you the truth before,' she lied. `Other than, of course, I knew I was in the wrong, and…' she tried another smilezilch! '…nobody likes to be in the wrong.' Silence. `But, the plain truth of the matter is, I went to see my sister.'
'Your sister?'
She might well have said `cousin' since she did have those, but had no sister. But Yancie was ever conscious of her connection with her board member half-cousin, Greville, and, fearing she might trip herself up if she started talking `cousins', she'd thought it better to invent a sister. In her view if she was going to have to tell a lie anyway she might as well make it a good one.
'My sister had been to stay with me for a few days, with her toddler daughterer Miranda. Anyhow,' Yancie rushed on, suddenly starting to feel extremely uncomfortable at lying-though still feeling unable to tell the truth and bring Wilf into it. `Anyhow, my nniece has this soft toy, a lion, called Leo. She's devoted to Leo, but no sooner had they arrived back at their home, early, very early on Thursday morning, than my sister was ringing me to say they'd just discovered Miranda had left Leo behind, and was inconsolable without him.' Yancie, most of her lying out of the way, looked directly at Thomson Wakefield. She smiled; he didn't. `You know how children are.'
He surveyed her coolly. `I don't have any.'
'Well-er-I' in sure your wife would know…'
'Had I a wife, Miss Dawkins, I'm sure she would, but I am not married.'
'Oh!' Yancie looked at him with fresh eyes. Given that his smiles were non-existent, to anybody who didn't dislike him as much as she did, she supposed he was good-lookingin fact, quite dishy.
'Oh?' he queried when she had added nothing.
Yancie quickly got herself back together again. Dishy? Was she crazy? `Oh, anyway, the child-er-Miranda wouldn't have slept a wink that Thursday night if I hadn't been able to get Fanta-I mean Leo-to her. As I mentioned, she was already fretting dreadfully. I promised my sister I'd get the-er-lion to her that day. But- how?'
His grey eyes were cool. In fact, as he looked steadily at her, the whole of the man seemed cool; while suddenly she was boiling hot-well, who wouldn't be after trotting out that load of balderdash? But, balderdash or not, had he believed it?
Yancie waited, barely breathing, and was so relieved she didn't have a chance to feel guilty when it seemed he had, indeed, believed her, when he stated, `You decided to deliver the lion personally.'
'I know I shouldn't have, and I wouldn't do such a thing again,' she promised. `But it was an emergency, and little Cassandra's M-Miranda-she's sometimes called Cassandra…' clown, concentrate `…stopped crying the
