felt her skin heat up by a few more degrees. After several increasingly uncomfortable seconds, Zack finally nodded and said, ‘Right.’
***
What had he done? Jesus, what was he thinking of?
As he had earlier watched her arrive, Zack now stood at the window and followed Ellie Kendall’s progress as she left the house and made her way back along Ancram Street.
He had gone against everything he’d ever lived by. He’d offered Ellie Kendall the job and she had delightedly accepted it. If Barbara were here now, she would have boxed his ears.
But he hadn’t been able to help himself, simply because of the way she’d been in his company. The reason he’d taken to hiring women like Bossy Barbara and Crimplene Christine in the first place was because his two previous PAs had developed unreciprocated crushes on him that had been an added complication he could have done without.
The difference was that this time, he appeared to be the one in danger of getting emotionally involved.
What’s more, there was a good chance that Ellie was living rent-free in a flat paid for by the actor Tony Weston, who was old enough to be her father.
Zack watched her reach the end of the street and pause for a moment, illuminated in the orange glow of the streetlamp, before turning left and disappearing from view. When he could no longer see her, it almost felt as if the light had been dimmed. Oh God, this was crazy. He shouldn’t have offered her the job. If he felt this way about her, he should hire someone else and just call her, explaining why it wouldn’t be sensible to take her on and inviting her out to dinner instead.
But he could only call up a girl and ask her out to dinner if there had first been a spark between them, signaling the existence of mutual attraction.
And this was the precise reason he wouldn’t have been able to do it. Shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, Zack turned away from the window. He couldn’t have done it because on Ellie Kendall’s side, there had been no spark of attraction. None whatsoever. Which meant that if he were to call her up and invite her out, the chances were that she would politely but firmly say no.
Which would mean he wouldn’t have any reason to see her again.
Which was just… unthinkable.
So unthinkable, evidently, that he’d had to offer her a job instead.
***
‘Guess what?’ Roo demanded two days later when Ellie met her in Café Rouge after work.
‘What?’ Did Roo seriously expect her to start guessing? But from the look on her face, the news wasn’t fantastic.
‘When a man sounds too good to be true… and looks too good to be true… the chances are that…’
‘He’s too good to be true?’ For a moment Ellie panicked; did she mean Zack McLaren? Oh God, and she’d handed in her notice at work. Had Roo discovered something about him and was about to tell her? Was he a crook, a terrorist, a convicted fraudster?’
‘Spot on. Cor-rect.’ Roo was drinking red wine and wearing white jeans, which probably wasn’t wise given her current state of agitation. ‘Then again, why am I even surprised? This is my life we’re talking about, after all.’
Roo’s life. Not her own. Ellie slowly exhaled. ‘Is it to do with work?’ She used the term loosely; Roo’s idea of work appeared to involve meeting up with fellow songwriters, singing random lines, and playing chords to each other for a couple of hours, then deciding that today wasn’t a happening kind of day, musically, and going down the pub instead.
‘No, it’s more to do with finding out that my boyfriend is married.’
‘Niall?’ Oh Lord, and she was crazy about him. Shocked, Ellie said, ‘Are you sure?’
Roo was spinning her silver bracelets round her thin wrist. ‘Pretty sure, yes. Seeing as he’s the one who told me.’
‘You mean they’re separated? Getting a divorce?’ That was OK, wasn’t it?
‘Nope.’ She shook her head. ‘They’re still together.’ Spin, spin, went the bracelets Niall had bought her only last week.
‘Oh no, what a bastard.’ Ellie’s heart went out to her. ‘That happened to Sally from work a couple of years ago, except she only found out when the wife turned up one night on her doorstep. She was devastated. It was horrible. Why do men think they can get away with it?’
‘Because they’re men.’ Roo took another hefty slug of wine.