Knowing that he now had her full attention, Jerry went on. “You’re needed for the Japanese conference. Today. Right now, in fact.”
Tessa was dumbstruck. “Why?” she croaked, unable to comprehend what was happening.
“Rosemary Davies was involved in a car accident on her way in this morning. She’s in hospital. Nothing too serious but...”
Rosemary Davies, the ultra-cool, immaculately groomed, beautiful blonde, who was personal secretary to Blaize Callagan!
“I’ve chosen you to replace her.” Tessa’s jaw dropped open. In her world, this was like trying to fly, then suddenly soaring to the sun. Jerry Fraine was an important man. Tessa thought she had reached her career heights when she was seconded to him. But Blaize Callagan—he was the absolute top! Only rarely did she see him, tall, powerful, riveting, a man who stood out amongst other men.
“You’re free to be away for the three days of the conference, aren’t you?”
Tessa unlocked her jaw. “Yes. Yes, I’m free.” Very definitely free, her mind added savagely. Her Ex-fiancé had no further say in her life.
“Take a taxi home,” Jerry instructed. “Pack fast and be back here in Blaize Callagan’s office at ten-thirty. Not a second later.”
Tessa jerked into action, wheeling around to shove the folder of reports into the filing cabinet and lock the drawer. Her mind was in a fever. She was going to fill in for Blaize Callagan’s secretary. She would be in close contact with him for three whole days. Lord above! Her knees went weak even thinking about it. It would be a miracle if she didn’t melt into a heap at his feet. If ever there was a man made for female fantasies, Blaize Callagan was it!
“And, Tessa...”
“Yes?” She tore the key out of the drawer and swung around, still dazed by the prospect ahead of her. “Yes, Jerry?”
“Please don’t stuff up.” He lifted his hands in imploring appeal, “I am a married man. I do have children to support.”
“Well?” said Tessa, trying to get the point.
“I don’t want Blaize Callagan to think I can’t choose an efficient secretary.”
Tessa pulled herself together. Forget the fantasies. This was business. Big Business, with capital Bs. Blaize Callagan might be lethally attractive, but he was way out of her league, and all he wanted from her was her secretarial skills. If she acted like a star-struck idiot and messed up, it would reflect badly on Jerry Fraine. Not to mention the fact that it wouldn’t do her own career any good, either. Since marriage was no longer on her immediate horizon, her career was all the more important to her, and she had better concentrate pretty fiercely on it.
“I’ll do my best,” she promised grimly. “Better get moving then,” Jerry advised. Tessa snatched her handbag from the bottom drawer of her desk and raced for the door. It was only when she was in the corridor she realised that she couldn’t possibly go home to her apartment to pack the clothes she would need. If Grant was still there... If that big-boobed floozy was still there...
Revulsion cramped Tessa’s stomach as rage billowed through her mind once more. How could he do it? With that overblown creature in her bed! Between her sheets! It was the absolute pits of crass insensitivity! Which just went to show what a low-down rotten louse he was underneath all his surface charm!
It made Tessa positively ill to think that if she hadn’t come back from her parents’ place a day early, she wouldn’t have found out what she had almost married. All these years thinking he was the only man she wanted, and she had been over the moon with happiness when he had finally proposed marriage to her. Yet here it was, only seven weeks to the wedding, and he could do that! He might even be creep enough to think he had free slather in her apartment today, since her ultimatum had given him until this evening to be out. In retrospect, that had been wrong. What she should have done, of course, was hurl him and his floozy out there and then! Stark naked into the street! Except Grant was stronger than she was. And she had been so shocked, so outraged, so upset, that she hadn’t been able to think straight. She had hurled a barrage of missiles at them, then stormed out of the apartment, feeling it was too contaminated to stay there.
She couldn’t face that again.
She just couldn’t!
There was nothing for it but to buy some clothes. That boutique up the end of the road, Executive Class—she would go there. It would probably cost her the earth, but so what! She no longer had to pay for a wedding dress.
Tessa worked it all out as she rode the elevator to the ground floor. She had all her toilet things and makeup in her weekend bag. Enough underclothes for three days. She needed three outfits that would go with her black high heels and handbag. Certainly the skirt and top she was wearing at the moment did not rate as suitable wear for Blaize Callagan’s secretary.
Her heart fluttered in nervous anticipation. Blaize Callagan! Good Lord! How was she going to live up to his expectations? Well, she just had to keep her head and give it the best try she could, she told herself sternly. Jerry was counting on a good performance from her. For her own self-respect she had to perform well. She needed to feel good about something!
Forty minutes later, Tessa walked into the CMA building, wearing a black linen suit that hugged her figure in streamlined class. It was teamed with a pin-tucked, high-collared blouse in fine white lawn. The outfit had cost her four hundred dollars but it made Tessa feel like a million dollars, so to her mind, it was worth every cent. As were the two three-hundred-dollar outfits in the shopping bag she carried.
There was something very uplifting about being sinfully extravagant. Freedom, she told herself. All the scrimping and saving she had done for a future with Grant Durham was a thing of the past. It was her money now, to do with as she liked. She was no longer accountable to anyone but herself! Perhaps she would blow the rest of her bank account on a trip somewhere.
Meanwhile, this conference trip was a real godsend. It got her out of the city, away from any contact with Grant, and no doubt Blaize Callagan would keep her so busy she wouldn’t have much time to think depressing thoughts. She hoped Grant would do one decent thing and get out of her apartment before she got back. Her continued absence for three days ought to hammer that message home to him.
Tessa arrived in her office with twenty minutes still up her sleeve. She quickly repacked her weekend bag, putting the things she wouldn’t need into the plastic shopping bag. She was cramming that into the bottom drawer of her desk when she noticed the vinyl pouch that contained her “professional” glasses.