In Bed With Anthology by Imogen Edwards-Jones

Author:Imogen Edwards-Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

Lindsay flung what she needed for the day into an elegant Mulberry travel case and left the flat in perfect time, as always.

Outside on the street, she hailed a cab, just as she did every weekday morning. Then, a block and a half from the office, she ordered the cab to stop. Just as she always did. She asked him to pull over in the same quiet side street every morning. And every morning, she always checked that no colleagues were near, before climbing out and walking the rest of the journey. She was only a lowly secretary after all. It wouldn’t do for her colleagues to see her traveling to work in such style. It would have been embarrassing.

At five minutes to nine precisely, Lindsay pushed through the spinning door that led into the accountancy firm’s vast marble foyer. She took a single step toward the bank of lifts at the end of the hall—and spotted Stephen. Staring at her.

Waiting for her, actually. He blushed.

She turned around and walked back through the spinning door, out onto the street again. She waited a moment, rattled, not certain what to do. Except to go back again. But when she returned a few minutes later, he was gone. She took the lift to the fourteenth floor and went straight to her desk. She was annoyed—flustered, even. It was the first time she had arrived late to work in four years.

As she walked in Tamsin and Maxine broke off from their ruminations on the state of the Jolie/Pitt union. They stared at her in amazement. Not only was she late, she was scowling. And Lindsay never scowled.

“You all right, Lindsay?۔ Maxine inquired.

“Fine.” Lindsay snapped. “Just—Stephen and his stupid crush. It’s beginning to really piss me off.”

“He’s nauseating,” Maxine replied. “But so long as he doesn’t object when we never do any work, who’s complaining?”

“He doesn’t give us any work,” muttered Lindsay. “So how the bloody hell’s he going to object if we don’t do it?”

Maxine and Tamsin glanced at each other, disconcerted. Lindsay was never like this.

“You all right, Lindsay?” Maxine asked again, this time with a bit more concern. “If he’s pissing you off, then tell him about it. Tell him to stop. He does whatever you tell him anyway!”

Lindsay just shook her head. She regretted having said anything. “So!” she said lightly, putting on a good smile. “Anyway. Never mind him. Who had sex last night? Who with? Why? Where? Wearing what? And most importantly of all, was it any fun? Dirty details, please. Who’s first?”

Maxine and Tamsin laughed, relieved to have the old Lindsay back. “Well ...” began Tamsin, leaning toward them both. “It’s funny you should ask that. Because last night ...”

And then Stephen barged in. He was looking smarter than usual. He was wearing a new suit, with trousers that didn’t flap around his ankles, for once, and a new tie—just as nondescript as usual, but without the food splotches down the front. Stephen was neither young, nor old; neither good looking, nor revolting; neither fat, nor thin; not tall or short.

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