Lessons in Love Read Free

place of mortification and she opened her mouth to speak.
    ‘Well that’s hardly fair!’ she interjected. ‘How can I possibly be expected to give a good presentation on something I read yesterday? You never told us we’d be expected to memorise it! Had I known you were going to thrust this impromptu speech upon me, I would at least have had the foresight to take notes.’ She was pleased to hear murmurs of agreement from the students around her.
    Nicholas Cavanaugh stared at her penetratingly for a moment before speaking, his nostrils flaring in indignation. Emily held her head high and kept her gaze locked on his. Finally a tense smile appeared on his lips. ‘Perhaps that’s true for a classroom situation. But in the world of business you’ll be expected to give presentations at the drop of a hat, sometimes having to summarise information you’ve read only moments before. You must all learn to prepare yourselves for such an eventuality. If you can’t, then you may as well quit now.
    ‘I’m a professional businessman with a company in Melbourne. I know what the demands of the job are, and I expect that by the end of this semester all of you will too. Now, at least, you’ll all know to be prepared. If you must, take brief notes and revise them before class, but please get into the habit of absorbing what you read.’ His eyes bored into her as he spoke, making it feel as though every word was directed solely at her. The coolness of his tone felt like ice in her chest, and it took every ounce of courage she had not to slink away like the failure he thought her to be.
    For the remainder of the class she took notes furiously, refusing to look at him even once. The hour dragged on interminably, but finally she was free, and at long last her body returned to its normal state.
     
    She arrived at work and sighed at the huge pile of correspondence sitting in her ‘in’ box. Determined to get the morning’s events well out of her mind, she switched on her computer and got to work immediately. Her boss, Mark Overington, had left a message saying he’d be out of the office for the rest of the day, so she could work in relative peace.
    During her lunch hour, she called the mechanic and was relieved to discover that her car had a simple fault with the alternator, and would be ready for her to pick up that evening.
    After lunch she set to work on some filing, and unfortunately, the task was so routine that it left her mind free to wander, and wander it did, right onto Nicholas Cavanaugh. Just the thought of him set her heart to pounding, and turned her insides to jelly, which made her dislike him all the more. He was so well presented and self assured; although he couldn’t have been more than ten years her senior, and she wondered what had given him the confidence and poise that she so obviously lacked.
    Fortunately, once the filing was done, she was able to settle down to doing the accounts payable, which used up just enough of her mind that she was able to forget that annoying man for the moment.
    At five o’clock on the dot, finished with all her work for the day, Emily tidied her desk, locked the building and hurried to the bus stop, arriving at the mechanic’s at twenty past five, only to find that her car was still being worked on.
    ‘Sorry I’m not finished yet,’ the mechanic, Rick Jeffries, said politely. ‘Would you be able to wait another quarter hour or so?’ Emily frowned slightly, annoyed.
    ‘I suppose I’ll have to. What’s the problem?’
    ‘We had a rush job to finish and had to put yours on hold.’ He looked at her apologetically, and she frowned in response.
    ‘A rush job? I need my car as much as anyone else,’ she said, wondering why her car got relegated until someone else’s ‘rush job’ had been completed.
    ‘I really am sorry Emily. I thought I’d get done in time. If you’re in a real hurry, I can get one of the boys to give you a lift home.’ She repressed a sigh.
    ‘No,