Page 1 of His Secretary's Nine-Month Notice
CHAPTER ONE
VIOLET’SFINGERHOVEREDover thesendbutton on her work email. She could already feel the emptiness of loss sinking its teeth into her and she breathed in deeply, banking down the rising panic at the thought of the unknown opening up at her feet like a gaping, bottomless hole. She wasn’t a kid any more. She was a twenty-six-year-old adult. And being afraid of what lay around the corner was no longer appropriate. She could deal with this.
She clicked the button, closed her eyes and blanked out all the background noises of life happening outside her little mews house at seven thirty on a lovely summer Sunday evening in London.
She knew exactly how her boss was going to react to the email that would pop up on his laptop.
For starters—thank God—he wouldn’t actually read it until the following morning, when he would breeze into the office at the usual ridiculously early time of six thirty. He would make himself a cup of strong black coffee, sit at his desk—which was always littered with papers, notes scribbled on sticky notes, reports and an impressive array of stationery, most of which he never used—and then he would start his day.
Top of the list would be reading his emails, and hers would be there, and he would open it, and he would...hit the roof.
She stood up and stretched, easing her aching joints. There was only so much she could focus on at any one point, she decided, and focusing on her boss and how he was going to react to her resignation would have to be put on hold. She would be facing him soon enough when she went into work the following day, later than usual at the far safer hour of nine thirty, when the place would be buzzing with people and there might just be less chance of him erupting in front of interested spectators.
Not that Matt Falconer ever seemed to give a hoot about what other people thought. He was a law unto himself. In the two-and-a-half years that she had worked for him, she had seen him storm out of high-level meetings because a lawyer, a CEO or a director had rubbed him the wrong way or, more often than not, failed to follow his outspoken and always brilliant logic. She had restrained him from slamming down incorrectly typed reports on the desk of whichever poor employee had submitted them. She had worked alongside him into the early hours of the morning to complete a deal becauseitjustcan’t wait.She had tactfully made herself scarce when he had gone into a funk, staring at the four walls of his office, feet on his desk, hands folded behind his head, because inspiration had temporarily deserted him.
She had prepared herself a salad earlier, but her heart wasn’t in it as she dug her fork into lettuce leaves, beetroot and all the other good stuff that invariably tasted like sawdust after five seconds.
Her head was too full.
In the space of just a week, her life had been turned on its head, and she was still reeling.
Violet didn’t like change. She didn’t care for surprises. She liked order, stability and...routine. She loved all the things other girls her age generally despised.
She didn’t want adventure. She certainly would never have contemplated jacking in her job although, deep down, she knew that she would have had to sooner or later, because...over time, her feelings for her brilliant, temperamental, utterly unpredictable boss had become just a little too uncomfortable. But to be forced into giving it up...!
She pushed away her plate and stared around her, taking in her surroundings. She felt as though she was seeing them for the first time, but of course that made no sense, because she had been living here, in this beautiful little town house, since she had turned twenty. However, the prospect of renting it to a perfect stranger made her take stock of what she had. Years of perfectly positioned memorabilia...the bookcase heavy with the weight of her tomes of musical works, the manuscripts with so many notations made over the years, the pictures and ornaments and posters...
Tears threatened. Again.
She swallowed them back and turned her attention to tidying up the kitchen while the radio played in the background. Classical music, of course. Her favourite.
She only became aware of someone at the door by the banging, relentless and unnecessary, because whoever it was hadn’t even had the common decency to give her time to get to the door.
She hurried out to pull it open before the neighbours started complaining...and there he was.
Matt Falconer. Her boss and the last person she’d expected to see standing on her doorstep. How on earth did the man even know where she lived?
She’d certainly never told him! She’d turned reticence about her private life into an art form.
Violet felt a guilty wash of colour flood her face. Caught on the back foot like this, without any time at all to brace herself for the impact he had on her, she could only stare at him, drinking in the stunningly beautiful lines of his lean face.
Two-and-a-half years and he still never failed to have this effect on her. He was so tall, so beautifully built, with wide shoulders, a tapered waist and long, muscular legs. His hair was just a little too long and his navy-blue eyes were fringed with the darkest, lushest of lashes. And, of course, there was his exotically bronze colouring; there had been Spanish blood on his mother’s side somewhere along the line. Alongside him, other mere mortals always ended up looking wan, anaemic and pasty.
‘What...? Er, s-sir, what are you doing here?’ Violet stammered, tucking some straight, mousy-brown strands of hair behind her ear.
‘Sir?Sir?Since when have I been knighted? Stand back. I want to come in!’
He straightened, and she automatically fell back, but her hand remained on the doorknob. The door was open a crack. One gentle push and she wouldn’t stand a chance of keeping him out. And, from the thunderous look on his face, he wasn’t going to think too hard about forcing an entry.
‘It’s Sunday,’ Violet said, using her calm voice, the voice she saved for work, and specifically for her wildly temperamental boss. ‘I expect you’ve come about my...er...letter... Well, email...’
‘Letter?Letter?’ Matt roared. ‘Alettersomehow implies that the contents are going to bepolite!’
‘You’re going to disturb the neighbours,’ Violet snapped.
‘Then let me bloody come in and they won’t be disturbed!’
‘It was a very polite letter of resignation.’
