In Bed with the Boss by Susan Napier

Author:Susan Napier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1999-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

SHE discovered her mistake later that afternoon when she paused at the temporarily unoccupied reception desk to answer the unattended telephone, and found an irate Stephen on the other end of the line.

‘I’ve been trying to get through to you all day but that damned receptionist keeps telling me you’re unavailable.’

Kalera bit her lip. ‘You should have left a message—’

‘I did, several times, but you never replied to any of them—I assume they were never passed on.’ Stephen’s voice rose in outrage as he continued, ‘And when I called by to pick you up for lunch Royal’s bully-boy excuse for a security man refused to send word up to you that I was there.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Kalera feebly. She had no doubt that the orders to censor Stephen’s calls and messages had been issued by Royal decree.

Nor, apparently, had Stephen. ‘It’s just petty vindictiveness. You tell Duncan you’re not going to tolerate his blatant interference in your private life.’

‘Well, I suppose he could claim he’s within his rights as an employer to place a restriction on personal phone calls during business hours…’ said Kalera, striving to be fair. Before their engagement became public Stephen had never phoned her at work and she couldn’t help thinking that it was a mite tactless of him to expect loyal Labyrinthians to instantly embrace the enemy.

Stephen’s voice chilled several degrees. ‘Are you defending him?’

‘No, no, of course not,’ she said hurriedly, seeing Kirsty Seymour trotting back to the reception desk, a cup of coffee in hand. ‘Look, I must go—I’m sorry about lunch, but I wouldn’t have been able to leave the office anyway; we were just too busy—’

‘Well, how about tonight? Mother’s invited me over for dinner but I can ring her and say you’re coming too…’

‘I’m afraid I’ll be working late tonight as well,’ she said, her tone of regret disguising a guilty twinge of relief. She and Madeline Prior politely tolerated each other for Stephen’s sake but Kalera had never felt truly comfortable in her prospective mother-in-law’s company. She knew that Madeline had doted on Terri and still maintained close contact with her son’s former wife by regularly baby-sitting little Michael. Kalera, with her unconventional upbringing and brazenly eccentric parents, was a dubious addition to Madeline’s carefully cultivated social circle. Added to which was Kalera’s uneasy suspicion that, although she had never said so out loud, the older woman secretly held her somehow responsible for Stephen’s continuing estrangement from his son.

‘What—again?’

‘It won’t be for very much longer,’ she soothed, crossing her fingers. Duncan couldn’t continue to keep her late every night, not without seriously disrupting his own social life. He would soon get bored with his game, especially if she persisted in acting unperturbed by his attempts to sabotage her evenings. ‘Once I start training my replacement I’ll make sure she takes on the overtime.’

‘So, he has settled on one, then…’

‘Actually, no, we’re still at the interviewing stage,’ Kalera confessed, and then nibbled anxiously at her lip, wondering whether even that innocent remark was revealing too much.

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