‘What time on Saturday?’
‘About six o’clock? We promised Katy that she could have an early-evening party.’
There it was again, the ‘we’ word, reminding Ursula—if she had needed any reminding—that Ross was already spoken for.
‘So no jelly and ice cream?’ she questioned lightly.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that! If you’re very good, I’ll see if I can organise chocolate cake!’ He grinned back and began to draw funny little shapes onto the large sheet of paper in front of him, which told Ursula that he was about to go into creative mode.
Unusually—and lucratively—Ross Sheridan managed to combine the twin accomplishments of being artistic and yet having a strong head for business. In the competitive world of advertising he was already a bit of a legend—and he was still only thirty-two! As a copywriter, he was second to none—his the dizzy success story which others aspired to. As people said—any campaign with Ross Sheridan’s name on it was Midas-kissed!
His rise had seemed effortless—but Ursula knew how hard he had worked to get to where he was today. He had started out at Wickens, one of London’s biggest agencies, where he had quickly established himself as one to watch. Early on he had produced two brilliantly successful ads which had gone on to win national awards. That was where he had met Ursula, who had been temping because the money had been better and she had needed as much as she’d been able to get her hands on.
In Ursula, Ross had recognised talents which complemented his own. She was punctual, efficient and sensible. She didn’t spend hours on the phone to her boyfriend or come back from lunch all giggly with wine.
When Ross had left Wickens he had taken Ursula with him—to the buzzy ‘hotshop’ agency where all the brightest talents had converged, and where Ross had met Oliver Blackman. And when Oliver and Ross had formed Sheridan-Blackman—their own breakaway agency—Ursula had been their first full-time member of staff.
She’d been with Ross so long that sometimes she felt like part of the wallpaper—while at others it seemed that her life with him had sped by in a flash. And the one great constant was his charisma. That never dimmed, just kept drawing you to him, like a moth to the flame.
Like all creative personalities, he had his flaws. He could be irritable and exacting, short-tempered and impatient. But he compensated with his enthusiasm, his brilliance and the occasional smile which could make grown women swoon.
She looked at him now, trying to analyse his appeal.
Every day was dress-down day at Sheridan-Blackman, and today Ross was wearing trousers which made his legs look spectacularly long. He wore these with an open-neck shirt which couldn’t disguise those lumberjack shoulders or the lean body which every woman in the building dreamed of.
He topped six feet in his bare feet—which everyone knew because he often kicked his shoes off after arriving at the office! His hair was lighter than black but darker than brown—wavy, thick and usually in need of a trim.
Ursula sighed. It wasn’t easy working for a man who looked as if he should be starring in a jeans commercial!
Forcing herself to concentrate on something else, Ursula rose to her feet. ‘Do you want some coffee?’ she asked him.
‘Coffee sounds good.’
She was almost at the door when he said, ‘Ursula?’
She turned round, noticing blue-black shadows beneath his eyes, and thinking that he looked as if he needed a good night’s sleep. ‘Yes, Ross?’
‘Any chance of a couple of aspirin to go with that coffee?’
When he turned those big dark eyes on her like an abandoned puppy, there was every chance that she would grind the chalk to make the tablets herself!
‘Hangover?’ she quizzed sweetly. ‘Or some ongoing complaint I should know about?’
He scowled. ‘I just asked you for a couple of pills—I didn’t expect to have you carry out a full medical on me!’
Unwanted, X-rated thoughts went sizzling across her mind, but Ursula didn’t miss a beat. ‘Yes, boss,’ she said crisply. ‘You just carry on sitting there quietly relaxing while I run around and fetch for you.’
‘Thanks,’ he replied absently, scribbling on a notepad and not seeming to notice the sarcasm in her voice.
In the office’s adjoining kitchen, Ursula ground some coffee beans, then plugged the kettle in. She looked out of the window at the London skyscape as she waited for it to boil, reflecting on how lucky she was to work slap-bang in the centre of London, and in such a stunning suite of offices. For a girl with just a clutch of typing certificates to her name she hadn’t done too badly!
Like the rest of the building, the kitchen had been designed with the kind of flair you would expect from an advertising agency. Glossy and slick. As Ross had informed her on her first day at Wickens, ‘Image is everything in this business.’ Ursula remembered that he had said it in a very cynical, jaded kind of way, and she recalled wondering whether he was happy or not.
She remembered the day she had discovered that he was married, with a young daughter, and the great stabbing feeling of disappointment she had felt. Which had been utterly ridiculous when she had thought about it afterwards. Surely she hadn’t been expecting that a dreamy hot-shot like Ross would be interested in a plump Irish orphan like her?
But having her hopes dashed—however futile they had been—had meant that she had gone on to develop a strong working relationship with her boss, one that wasn’t based on false expectations of having him clasp her in his arms one day! That wasn’t to say that she didn’t still sometimes have the occasional little fantasy about him—but she wasn’t alone in that. So did every other woman in the building!
‘What’s happened to the coffee?’ came a low growl from the office. ‘Are you boarding a plane for Colombia to harvest the beans yourself?’
Ursula smiled as she popped two aspirin out of their foil container, poured him a glass of water and carried them through to him.
He looked pale, she thought critically, handing him the drink and the tablets.
‘Thanks.’
‘Are you ill, Ross?’
He shook his head. ‘Just sleep-depleted.’
‘Well, don’t frown,’ she told him sweetly. ‘It’ll give you lines,’ and went back out to the delectable smell wafting from the kitchen before he had time to come up with a smart reply.
Pinned on one of the walls of the kitchen was a framed still of one of Ross’s most successful campaigns, featuring a glossy young blonde with bee-stung lips, sipping from a glass of iced cocoa. The blonde had been sitting on a beach, clad in the skimpiest of bikinis, and Ross’s copyline had read, ‘Not Just For Bedtime...’.
The campaign had exploded the myth that cocoa was only drunk by fuddy-duddies. It had also started a hot and angry debate in the women’s pages in newspapers about whether it wasn’t time to stop using sexist images to sell products. Ross had refused to comment.
Sales had shot through the ceiling, and Ross had become the hottest property in town—and in more than just a commercial sense. With his creative genius, a body that was lean and hard—and eyes which could sometimes resemble hell’s fire—Ross Sheridan was the man whom everybody wanted to be seen out with.
Except that he was seen out with nobody because he had a wife and daughter at home!
And Ursula admired him for that. Over the years, the man had had enough temptation put in his path to have tempted the holiest of saints. She had seen models and actresses coming on to him like nobody’s business. But Ross hadn’t just resisted—he had shown absolutely no interest.
Which only added to his