Jessica Hart - A Very Personal Assistant - Oh-So-Sensible Secretary / The Santorini Marriage Bargain / Hired - Sassy Assistant

‘Redecorate? I thought the article was supposed to be showing me as I am at home?’

‘No, it’s to show you at the kind of home we want readers to associate with Gibson & Grieve,’ Jonathan corrected him. He turned to me. ‘Summer, you’d better check it out. You’ll know what needs to be done.’

‘She’ll just tidy me up,’ Phin protested.

‘Summer’s very competent,’ said Jonathan.

Competent . You know, when you dream of what the man of your dreams will say about you, you think about words like beautiful, amazing, sexy, passionate, incredible . You never long for him to tell you’re competent, do you?

‘No redecorating,’ said Phin firmly. ‘If you make it all stylish it’ll look and seem false, and that would do our image more harm than good. Summer can come and keep me on the straight and narrow in the interview, but I’m not changing the house. If you want readers to see what my home is like, we can show them. It’s not as if I live in squalor.’

My only hope was that Phin might leave us after lunch, but, no, he insisted on walking back with us. So I never had one moment alone with Jonathan. I had to say goodbye to him in the lift as Phin and I got out on the floor below.

And that was my big date that I’d looked forward to so much. A complete waste of make-up. Jonathan hadn’t even commented on my cardigan.

Phin looked nervously around the office when we got back. ‘She’s gone—phew!’ He wiped his brow in mock relief. ‘Thanks again for earlier, Summer. It’s good to know you can lie when you need to! If Jewel comes in again, I’m not here, OK?’

I was too cross about Jonathan to be tactful. I was even beginning to feel some sympathy for Jewel. At least she had the gumption to go for what she wanted. Jonathan evidently found her feistiness appealing. Perhaps I should have tried smashing a few plates.

‘If you don’t want to see her again, you should tell her yourself … tiger,’ I said sharply, and Phin winced.

‘I’ll try,’ he said. ‘But Jewel isn’t someone who listens to what she doesn’t want to hear. Still, I’m going away in a few days,’ he remembered cheerfully. ‘She’ll soon lose interest if I’m not around.’

HE LEFT for Peru a week later. ‘How long will you be away?’ I asked him.

‘We should be able to wrap it up in twelve days.’ Phin looked up from the computer screen with a grin. ‘Why? Do you think you’ll miss me after all?’

‘No,’ I said crushingly. ‘I just need to know when to arrange a date with Glitz .’

But the funny thing was that I did miss him a bit. I realised I’d got used to him being in the office, managing to seem both lazy and energetic at the same time, and without him everything seemed strangely flat.

I told myself that I enjoyed the peace and quiet, and that it was a relief to be able to get on with some work without being teased or constantly interrupted by frivolous questions or made to stop and eat doughnuts—OK, I didn’t mind that bit so much. I had a whole week without Phin juggling with my stapler and my sticky note dispenser, or messing around with the layout of my desk, which I know quite well he only did to annoy.

He was always picking things up and then putting them down in the wrong place, or at an odd angle, and he seemed to derive endless amusement from watching me straighten them. Sometimes I’d try and ignore it, but it was like trying to ignore an itch. After a while my hand would creep out to rearrange whatever it was he had dislodged, at which point Phin would shout, ‘Aha! I knew you couldn’t do it!’

I mean, what kind of boss carries on like that? It was deeply unprofessional, as I was always pointing out, but that only made Phin laugh harder.

So all in all I was looking forward to having the office to myself for a few days, but the moment he’d gone I didn’t quite know what to do with myself.

That first morning on my own I went down to the kitchen to make myself some coffee. I’d got out of the habit of buying myself a doughnut, I realised. Phin always bought them now, and I’d forgotten that I wouldn’t have anything to have with my coffee. It wouldn’t kill me, but the lack of sugar just added to my grouchiness as I carried my mug back to my desk.

Khalid from the postroom was just on his way out of my office. ‘I’ve left the mail on your desk,’ he told me. ‘You’ve got a Special Delivery, too.’

I’d ordered a scanner the day before. The supplies department must have moved quickly for once, I thought, but as I set down my mug I saw a small confectionery box sitting in front of my keyboard. ‘Summer Curtis, Monday’ was scribbled on the top. Not a scanner, then.

Puzzled, I opened it up. Inside, sitting on a paper napkin, was a doughnut.

There was a business card, too. I pulled it out. It had Phin’s name and contact details on one side. On the other he had scrawled, ‘I didn’t want to think of you without your sugar fix. P x’

My throat felt ridiculously tight. Nobody had ever done anything as thoughtful for me before.

Of course it didn’t mean anything, I was quick to remind myself. It was just part of Phin’s pathological need to make everyone like him. His charm was relentless.

But still I found myself—annoyingly—thinking about him, about where he was and what he was doing, and when I picked up the phone and heard his voice my heart gave the most ridiculous lurch.

‘Just thought I’d check in,’ said Phin. ‘I hardly know what to do with myself. I’m so used to you telling me what to do and where to be all day. I’ve got used to being organised. Are you missing me yet?’

‘No,’ I lied, because I knew he’d be disappointed if I didn’t. ‘But thank you for the doughnut. How on earth did you organise it?’

‘Oh, that was easy. I had a word with Lucia—who, by the way, smiled at me the other day, so you’re not the only favourite now—and I asked her to send you a selection, so that you get something different every day I’m away. I think we’re in a doughnut rut.’

‘I like my rut,’ I said, but I might as well have spared my breath. Phin was determined that I would try something different.

Sure enough, the next day an apricot Danish arrived at half past ten, and even though I was determined not to like it as much as a doughnut, I had to admit that it was delicious.

The next day brought an almond croissant, and the one after that an apple strudel, and then an éclair. Pastries I’d never seen before appeared on my desk, and I found myself starting to glance at the clock after ten and wondering what I’d have with my coffee that day. I’d try and guess what would be in the box—vanilla turnover? Pain au chocolat? —but I never got it right.

Inevitably word got round about my special deliveries. I wasn’t the only one who was guessing. I heard afterwards they were even taking bets on it in Finance.

‘I wish my boss would send me pastries,’ my friend Helen grumbled. ‘You’d think in Food Technology it would be a perk of the job. You are lucky. Phin’s so lovely, isn’t he?’

I heard that a lot, and although I always said that he was a nightmare to work for, the truth was that I was finding it hard to remember just how irritating he was. When he walked into the office the following Tuesday, my heart jumped into my throat and for one panicky moment I actually forgot how to breathe.

He strolled in, looking brown and fit, his eyes bluer than ever, and instantly the air was charged with a kind of electricity. Suddenly I was sharply aware of everything: of colour of my nails flickering over the keyboard—Cherry Ripe, if you’re interested—of the computer’s hum, of the feel of the glasses on my nose, the light outside the window. It was as if the whole office had snapped into high definition.