The Bedroom Assignment

Zoe did not meet their eyes. ‘The Venice talk must be getting to him.’

‘Garbage,’ said Molly. ‘He gives talks all the time.’

‘Yes, but I don’t think he’s even started on it yet,’ Zoe said earnestly. ‘And he’s supposed to deliver it on Monday.’

‘That would do it for me,’ agreed Abby.

Molly said nothing. But she narrowed her eyes in a way that made Zoe feel guilty. She did it again when later a summons came from Jay’s blonde PA.

‘He wants to talk to you, Zoe,’ Molly said, putting the phone down. ‘Better get up there now.’

Zoe went white.

Molly picked up the pile of cuttings and prints-offs in her pending tray and slapped them into her arms. ‘He probably wants you to do a first draft of his speech,’ she said with emphasis. ‘God knows, you’ve done everything else.’

Everything else? Zoe stared at her in wild suspicion. Were her feelings for Jay Christopher written all over her face, for heaven’s sake?

‘Keep your head down and don’t say more than you have to,’ Molly advised, oblivious. ‘Good luck.’

The advice was unnecessary. As soon as Zoe came face to face with Jay across his impressive desk she was absolutely tongue-tied.

Where was Performance Zoe when you needed her? she thought in despair.

Jay seemed to be preoccupied. He waved her into a seat and concentrated on the papers in front of him for what felt like hours. It was intimidating. It occurred to her that it was meant to be intimidating, and her sense of justice reasserted itself. After all, she was not the one who had laid hands on him first.

Zoe glared at the top of his head and began to feel a bit better.

She said acidly, ‘Am I going to sit here all day, or would you like me to come back when you’ve finished the crossword puzzle?’

Jay looked up at that, though he did not meet her eyes. He said abruptly, ‘I owe you an apology.’

Zoe stared. ‘What?’

‘The last time we met I kissed you. I knew you didn’t want it and I kissed you anyway. I had no right to do that. I’m sorry.’

It was what she had been saying to herself all week. He had no right! And now that he’d come right out and apologised she felt—well, cheated.

‘Guys don’t normally apologise for kissing me.’

‘I’m not a guy; I’m your employer. It was—inappropriate.’

‘You know, you can sound so stuffy sometimes.’

He smiled faintly. ‘Stuffy, maybe. It’s still the truth. You work for me. That puts you off-limits. I shouldn’t have forgotten that.’

Zoe found her anger had evaporated. It was rather a lonely feeling. She had been talking to that anger all week.

She said sadly, ‘I suppose I was inappropriate, too. Telling you all that about—’

‘It didn’t help,’ agreed Jay. ‘Turned up the volume on intimacy, I suppose you could say.’

She shook her head. ‘It may have felt like that to you. To me, it was like spilling everything out to one of those late- night phone-in programmes on the radio.’

‘A faceless voice in the dark? Gee, thanks.’

‘Well, not faceless, maybe. But remote. And—’

‘No come-back,’ said Jay slowly. ‘I’m strictly disposable in your life, aren’t I?’

Did he sound hurt? Zoe could not believe it. Yet somehow she felt ashamed. As if she had stamped on his feelings in pursuit of her own need to unload. She bit her lip.

‘I think it was more that we had no history,’ she said honestly.

He looked at her for a long moment. The heavy-lidded eyes were quite inscrutable. Then he leaned back in his chair.

‘Explain,’ he invited.

‘You see, all my friends know me very well. If they find out I’ve been keeping this huge secret they will either not believe me or feel cheated. Maybe even both.’

‘A stranger is safe because you have nothing to lose?’ he said on a note of discovery.

‘I suppose so.’ She sounded subdued, even to her own ears. She rallied, trying to make a joke out of it. ‘I guess I wanted you to turn into a psychiatrist and tell me what to do.’

He stared at her for a long minute, unblinking. ‘I didn’t think psychiatrists were supposed to give advice.’