Jessica Steele - The Feisty Fiancée

Her blue eyes widened. `I will?"

'Weren't you advised at your job interview that, as well as the work sometimes involving erratic hours, there would occasionally be times when you'd be required to stay away from home overnight?'

Yancie stared blankly at him. She was going to have to go away with her least favourite person, and stay away overnight!

'Y-yes,' she stammered, pulling herself together.

'You do still want the job?'

Yancie started to hate him-and his threats. `Of course.' The actress awoke in her, and she smiled. `Not a problem. May I ask where we're going? I'd like to look at a road map.'

He stood up, the interview over. `Mrs Taylor will give you all the details.'

Yancie stood up too. `Do I need to… T She broke off as it came to her that he would not countenance having a PA who was anything other than par excellence. `I expect Mrs Taylor will attend to my overnight accommodation.'

He walked with her to the interconnecting door. `You catch on fast,' he said.

Very fast, she would have said. She had been going to thank him for reinstating her. But all at once she was on to realising that, as he wouldn't suffer a PA who wasn't par excellence, neither would he suffer having someone drive him who wasn't of the same quality.

And Yancie knew then-forget his magnanimity in reinstating her. What tomorrow was about was Thomson Wakefield checking at first hand the quality of her driving skills. If she didn't measure up, he would no doubt be telling her, within a very few miles, Reinstatement? Forget it; you're out.

To think she had been going to thank him! He could forget that, for a start!

YANCIE was up extra early the next morning. She was due to pick up her passenger at eight sharp. There was absolutely no way she was going to be late. Thomson Wakefield wanted to judge how good she was-she intended to show him, in all respects. She was going to be on time, smart and courteous and, above all, ensure that he would find no fault with her driving.

Fortunately, her cousins were early risers too, and Astra, scheduled to meet a client later, volunteered to give her a lift to Addison Kirk where Yancie would pick up the Jaguar prior to collecting her boss. Then she would head up the motorway with Thomson Wakefield to a conference on the other side of Leeds.

'A pity you'll miss Greville's party tonight,' Astra commented as they drove, knowing Yancie had telephoned him last night to say she wouldn't be able to make it because she was driving Thomson Wakefield north.

'You more than anyone know that work comes before pleasure,' Yancie answered. `Do you never get tired of it?"

'Not so far,' Astra grinned, and soon they were chatting away about work, finance and about Yancie's journey when Astra suddenly remembered, `Doesn't Charlie Merrett live up that way?"

'He does!' Yancie too remembered. `He liked it so much, he stayed up there when he finished university.' The three cousins and Charlie had been at nursery school together. He had been a shy, diffident boy, and between them, as young as they'd been, the three girls had started mothering him.. They still, if spasmodically, kept in touch. `Enjoy the party,' Yancie smiled as she got out of the car at Addison Kirk.

'Show him how brilliant you are,' Astra smiled back, having heard her cousin's theory that if she didn't perform well that day she knew it would be bye-bye time.

The Jaguar was a wonderful car to drive. Black in colour, sleek in its lines, little or no effort was required to have it purring along.

Thomson Wakefield lived about an hour's journey away from the office, and it had just gone seven-thirty when, as smart as new paint in her uniform, Yancie turned up the sweeping drive to his elegant rural Georgian home.

Because she was early, Yancie opted to wait in the car until just a few minutes before eight. She had only been sitting there for a short while, however, when the front door of the house opened, and a suited Thomson Wakefield came out.

Yancie left the car and had a bright, but courteous `Good morning' hovering on her lips-but it was totally not needed. `You can't sit out here in the cold for half an hour,' her employer clipped before she could say a word. 'You'd better come into the house.'

Chivalry was not dead, then! `I…' she opened her mouth to argue that, yes, she could, that the car was lovely and warm, then realised that to argue wasn't the way smart and courteous went.

'Good morning,' she said anyway, and was left, unanswered, to trail after him into his lovely home.

'Go and find my housekeeper and get her to make you a cup of coffee,' he decreed, pointing Yancie down a long and wide hall.

Yancie didn't want a cup of coffee. She opened her mouth to say as much, to refuse his invitation. Then supposed she had a lot to learn about this work environment business it wasn't an invitation, but an order.

She started down the hall; he crossed it to what she could see from the open door was a study. Another door was open further down the hall; she saw it was a drawing room, and went in. She'd wait there.

Yancie was staring out of one of the long windows-for all it was a murky wet morning, she could not help but admire the peace and tranquillity of the setting-when Thomson Wakefield, briefcase under one arm, an overnight bag in his hand, came into the room.

She turned at the small sound, and, feeling suddenly her old sunny self, but attributing it to the restfulness of his home, she gave him the benefit of her natural smile. `It's lovely here,' she said without thinking, and for a moment thought, as he stared at her, that he was about to smile back. Perish the thought.

He glanced down to the small table which wasn't littered with a coffee cup. `We'll go,' he unsmilingly announced.

Yancie's sunny side went into hiding. She went out to the car with him, enquiring politely, `Shall I take your bag for you?' when they reached the boot of the car, and found herself surplus to requirements when he opened the boot himself and dropped down his expensive-looking overnight bag next to her expensive-looking overnight bag.

Still trying to get it right, Yancie dutifully had the rear passenger door open for him when, boot lid closed, he walked round the side of the car. Without so much as a glance to her, he tossed in his briefcase and then got in. Yancie civilly closed the door, and went up front to the driver's seat.

She owned, as she drove along-carefully and solicitously to other road users-that, whereas with other executives she would very soon forget she was carrying a passenger at all, somehow, she couldn't forget about Thomson Wakefield in the back.

And why would she forget him? Didn't she have to be on her toes today where he was concerned? No way did she want this weekend's work to end with laughing-Jack back there giving her the big heave-ho.

Yancie took a glance in her mirror, not at the road behind, but at him. Their eyes met! Her tummy did the most peculiar somersault. Quickly, she looked away. 'Er-would you like the heating turned up-er-or down?' she enquired, purely from a sudden need, never before known, to say something.

'No,' he answered briefly.

Suit yourself! Yancie carried on driving, and a short while later realised Thomson Wakefield was not gripping onto the leatherwork for dear life-as she'd supposed he might-but had so far forgotten his driver, he was getting on with some work. Surely that meant he was comfortable with her driving! Yancie, while alert to the rainy road conditions, started to otherwise relax.

An hour and a half later and he was still hard at work. If he wasn't reading reports and making notes, he was making calls on the car phone, or dictating material for Veronica Taylor to type back. Did the man never rest?