The Billionaire Boss's Bride(5)

‘So you managed to find one still alive and kicking, then?’

‘Don’t tease her, George. She’s had a very stressful day so far.’

The banter made Tessa feel suddenly foolish and sidelined and the unfortunate butt of some ongoing joke at her expense. ‘I wouldn’t say stressful,’ she retorted, ‘just a little disorienting.’

She felt the warm pressure of his fingers on her elbow as he led her towards the revolving door and heard the deep throb of his laughter, which brought on an attack of un-warranted confusion.

‘Okay. Disorienting. Are you going to be warm enough out here with just a suit? The café’s not far but it’s still a walk…’

‘I’m fine.’ She resisted the temptation to add that she would have brought her coat if she had foreseen a day that involved walking. But, on day one, she had decided to treat herself to a taxi both ways and had not envisaged needing anything heavier than her cream-and-black-flecked woollen suit.

‘I don’t suppose your last job involved too many episodes of disorientation?’

‘Most jobs don’t.’ Their destination was within sight. Literally a good, old-fashioned café with no trimmings. It was heaving, with an eclectic mix of suited businessmen, rough-and-ready workmen, taxi drivers and women who looked as though they had spent the night on the tiles and were on their way home. Most, though, were taking their breakfasts away with them and it was a relief to be out of the cold and in the warmth.

‘Do you come here often?’ Tessa heard herself ask inanely.

‘Does a good breakfast. Now, what will you have?’ He positioned her at one of the tables and narrowed his eyes to read the blackboard with the specials, which was behind her.

‘Coffee.’

‘Right. Wait here.’ Within ten minutes he was back carrying a tray on which were two steaming mugs of coffee and a plate mountainously piled with bacon, egg, black pudding and what looked suspiciously like fried bread.

Oh, your arteries are really going to thank you for that injection of cholesterol, she was tempted to say.

‘Don’t even think of saying what’s going through your head.’

‘I wasn’t thinking anything!’

‘Tell me about your last job,’ was all he replied, leaving her to wonder uncomfortably how he had managed to read her mind.

‘I told your mother…well, it’s all there on my CV.’ Comprehension filtered through. ‘But I guess you didn’t read my CV.’

‘I left the finer details of your employment to my mother. Your last job?’

Tessa sipped her coffee, which was surprisingly aromatic. ‘I worked for a firm of accountants. Not one of the top three, but one of the bigger ones, doing all the usual stuff. I’m fully computer literate and can handle pretty much anything from spreadsheets to invoicing.’ Silence followed that, interrupted only by his eating. ‘I’ve also arranged training courses, overseen meetings, in short done everything a PA is trained to do.’

Curtis washed down the last of his breakfast with a generous mouthful of coffee, then sat back in his chair and looked at her assessingly.

‘And you enjoyed it, did you?’

‘Well, yes, of course. I was there for a number of years—’

‘Why the change of job, in that case?’

Gone was the light-hearted, unconventional man who had confronted her at eight-thirty that morning. In its place was someone shrewd and forthright and very focused.

‘It wasn’t going anywhere.’ Tessa flinched away from that disconcerting blue gaze. ‘I felt that I needed to expand my horizons and, in a company like that, it’s only possible if you’re one of the professionals.’

‘But you liked working there, aside from the obvious limitations, am I right?’ He watched as she nodded and could hear her wondering where this was going. ‘You liked the order, the environment, the routine.’

‘Those things are very important, I think, in the successful running of a company,’ Tessa said defensively.

Order. Routine. Yes, she did like those things. They formed the perimeter of her life and always had. How else would she have been able to cope with bringing up her unruly ten-year-old sister when she had only been going on eighteen herself? In fact, compared to Lucy, or maybe because of her, she, Tessa, had always had her head firmly screwed on. Her parents had always praised her for that. Lucy might be the beauty with the ebullience, but Tessa was the responsible one, the one on whom they relied. The one on whom they had still been relying when their car had swerved into a tree on a rainy night back home. Tessa had mourned and grieved and picked up the pieces the best she could and, yes, had fallen back on order and routine to help her through.