Oh-So-Sensible Secretary Read Free

they compared bonuses, a German tourist, and a pair of middle-aged women carrying on a conversation that veered bizarrely between some terrible crisis that a mutual friend was enduring and whether a Danish pastry was more or less fattening than a blueberry muffin.
    Phin picked up a tray and hustled me along behind them. ‘What about something to eat?’ he said. ‘I’m going to have something. I’m starving.’
    I eyed the doughnuts longingly, but there was no way I was going to eat one in front of him. ‘Just coffee, please.’
    ‘Sure?’ I could almost believe he had seen the yearning inmy eyes, because he leant suggestively towards me. ‘You don’t want a piece of that chocolate cake?’ he said, rolling the words around his mouth suggestively. ‘A scone with cream? One of those pastries? Go on—you know you want to!’
    I gritted my teeth. ‘No, thank you.’
    ‘Well, you’re a cheap date,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have one of those doughnuts.’
    I had to press my lips firmly together to stop myself whimpering.
    Ahead, Otto’s ferocious wife, Lucia, was making coffee, shouting orders back to Otto, and working the till with her customary disregard for the service ethic. Lucia was famous for her rudeness and the customers were all terrified of her. I’ve seen senior executives reduced to grovelling if they didn’t have the correct change. If the coffee and the cakes hadn’t been so good, or if Lucia hadn’t been so efficient, Otto’s would have closed long ago. As it was, she and the café had become something of a local institution.
    ‘Next!’ she snarled as we made it to the top of the queue, and then she caught sight of me and smiled—a sight so rare that the executives now helping themselves to sugar stared in disbelief.
    ‘Back again, cara ?’ she called, banging out old coffee grounds from the espresso machine. ‘Your usual?’
    ‘Yes, thanks, Lucia.’ I smiled back at her, and then glanced at Phin, who was watching me with an oddly arrested expression. ‘And…?’ I prompted him.
    ‘Americano for me,’ he supplied quickly, before Lucia got impatient with him. ‘No milk.’
    ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ I asked Phin as I slid onto a shiny plastic banquette. Otto’s wasn’t big on style.
    ‘I’m curious,’ he said, transferring the cups to the table and pushing the tray aside.
    ‘Curious?’
    ‘Perhaps intrigued is a better word,’ said Phin. ‘You know, I’ve dodged guerrillas in South America, I’ve been charged at by a rhino and dangled by a rope over a thousand-foot crevasse, but I found Lucia pretty scary. She had every single person in that queue intimidated, but you she calls cara . What’s that about?’
    ‘Oh, nothing,’ I said, making patterns in the cappuccino froth with my teaspoon. ‘I wrote her a note once, that was all.’
    ‘What sort of note?’
    ‘I noticed that she wasn’t here one day, mainly because the queue doesn’t move nearly as fast when she’s not around. I asked why not, and she told me she’d had to go back to Italy because her father had died. I wrote her a short note, just to say that I was sorry. It wasn’t a big deal,’ I muttered. I was rather embarrassed by the way Lucia had never forgotten it.
    Phin looked at me thoughtfully. ‘That was a kind thing to do.’
    Feeling awkward, I sipped at my coffee. ‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. ‘Anyone can write a note.’
    ‘But only you did.’
    He picked up his doughnut and took a big bite while I watched enviously. My mouth was watering, and I was feeling quite light-headed with the lack of sugar.
    ‘Want a bit?’ he asked, offering the plate.
    I flushed at the thought that he had noticed me staring. ‘No…thank you,’ I said primly.
    ‘Sure? It’s very good.’
    I knew it was good. That was the trouble. ‘I’m sure.’
    ‘Suit yourself.’ Phin shrugged, and finished the doughnut with unnecessary relish.
    The more he enjoyed it, the crosser I got. What