Isobel couldn’t hear Tyler’s response, but she also didn’t see him walk his wife out of his office either and she couldn’t help her smug smile. He always held the door open for her whenever she left. Jessica strode over to Isobel’s desk, her snooty expression making her attractive features seem somehow ugly.
“Where did you put my coat? And you had better hope that you hung it somewhere secure, because if it’s damaged in any way the cost is coming out of your wage.” She dared to wag a long skinny finger in Isobel’s face and Isobel had to grit her teeth to refrain from slapping it away and telling the woman that she was not some skivvy and she most certainly did not appreciate being pointed at like a bloody dog.
Instead she calmly stood up and without saying a word walked to the coat rack to retrieve her boss’s wife’s dead animal coat, holding it out to the woman with barely concealed disdain. “Here you are, Mrs. James.” The stuck-up bitch had the audacity to turn her back on Isobel and hold her arms back for the coat to be draped across her shoulders, but Isobel refused to play those kind of ‘Me mistress, you slave’ game. Instead she walked around to the front of Jessica and promptly thrust the coat at her. “I’ll let you put it on in case I do it wrong. I’d hate to damage your fox in any way, and my measly wage couldn’t afford to pay you for it.”
“Well really!” Mrs. James was pissed off to say the least, but Isobel stood her ground. “You can expect to be severely reprimanded for your attitude young lady. I’ll have a word with my husband and instruct him to take you to task.”
Isobel just smiled sweetly, secure in the knowledge that Tyler had already taken her to task on a few occasions, and he certainly hadn’t needed any prompting from his wife. “Have a nice day, Mrs. James. I’m sure you know your way out by now.” And with that she turned away from the blasted woman and sat back down at her desk, ignoring the affronted, ‘Well really!’ that she heard being muttered as Jessica walked away.
Still silently fuming, but secretly happy that she’d managed to not only get one up on Jessica but had also managed to piss the woman off in the process, Isobel shuffled a few papers around on her desk, put pens back in the drawer, sealed a few envelopes and then sat there trying to pluck up the courage to go in and see Tyler.
Eventually she checked the time and realized that if she didn’t go and see him now it would be too late. She shut down her computer, pushed her chair under her desk and had one last quick check to make sure that everything was in order on her desk and that all tasks had been completed. Then she walked the short distance to Tyler’s office and knocked on the door.
She hadn’t been this nervous when she scammed her way into a job here, so she couldn’t understand why her legs were shaking and her mouth was dry as she entered the room at his commanding, “Come.”
Tyler looked up from his desk with a look of irritation, but his expression swiftly changed when he saw that it was her that needed his attention. “Hey, Isobel. What can I do for you?” His grin was sexy, and Isobel had no doubt as to what was going through his mind.
She shifted nervously on her feet and cleared her throat before she could actually say anything back to him. “Can we talk, Tyler?”
His grin quickly changed to a look of concern as he stood up and walked around his desk towards her. “Of course we can. What’s wrong?” He frowned darkly. “Did my wife say something else to upset you? I’ll have a word with her and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Isobel held a hand up to reassure him that that wasn’t what she needed to talk about. “No. It’s got nothing to do with Jessica. Well, not directly anyway, although I suppose in a way it does.” She snapped her lips together to shut herself up, aware that she was rambling on.
Isobel took another breath and started again. “Do you remember earlier on when we were, um, after we, in the closet after we…” Her words trailed off as a stain of embarrassment flooded her cheeks. This was going to be more difficult than she’d thought.