vision.
He glanced up as though sensing her gaze on him, and she felt heat warm her cheeks as she quickly looked away.
‘Thanks, Deb.’ Lily couldn’t afford not to take notice of this conversation. She jotted Deb’s agreement to take over until further notice into her diary. ‘You have the key to my office and the tapes…’
Where had Lily left the tapes? She couldn’t visualise them. ‘They should be beside the computer. If they’re not, I might have left them in the top drawer of the desk. Re-direct the phone to your place. I’ll call you tonight to catch up properly.’
The moment Lily ended the call, she scribbled self-help instructions on several sticky notes and slapped them into place above the phone, on the filing cabinet, over the dictation machine. She wished she could put up ‘Don’t be Aware of the Boss’ notices, too.
And she was wasting mental energy when her fifteen minutes were almost up! She needed to take stock. Put steps in place to ensure she could emulate the operation here and seem reasonably competent during the standard ‘unfamiliar territory’ phase. But surely once things settled down a bit Zachary would be ready to take Deborah in her place?
‘Do you have everything organised with your assistant, so you can focus solely on your work here from now on?’ He stood in his office doorway, shirt sleeves rolled up, tie loosened.
What if she couldn’t turn off the way she noticed him? What if this awareness of him didn’t go away? Just kept increasing and deepening, as it was even now? ‘Yes. It’s all organised, although it involved a certain amount of reshuffling.’
She wished he would comb his ruffled, unruly hair. And, while he was at it, don the jacket he had removed the moment she’d agreed to his demand.
‘I’m glad you’re organised, because you’ll need to be to do a good job here.’ His mouth lifted at the corners as though to soften the challenging statement.
Why did he have to attract her, anyway? He was so not her type. If she ever took another man into her life—which was highly doubtful—he would be gentle, perhaps scholarly or poetic.
A man who would dress in twill trousers and misshapen pullover sweaters, not power business-suits of darkest grey that emphasised every muscle and sinew.
‘I’ll do the very best for you that I can, Mr Swift.’ She deliberately avoided mentioning duration of time, and tried not to let anxiety get the better of her. She should be able to fool him long enough.
Her mentor at the institute might have said she should be open about her limitations, should tell people up front. But he didn’t know what it was like to see the change in their faces, to read the pity, and worse, in their eyes.
And she would get over this mild, unexpected reaction to Zachary Swift. She would! She flipped her diary open and put it in a prominent place where she would be sure to see it at frequent intervals. ‘I’ll go through all this clutter, sort it out, and get to work on the most urgent of it.’
‘Zach will do.’ His hands rested loosely at his sides. ‘And the clutter will have to wait a bit longer, I’m afraid.’
‘If not this muddle…’ She waved a hand. ‘What do you want me to tackle first, exactly?’
‘There’s a group of proposals on tape on the desk somewhere that should have been done Friday.’ He lifted a pile of papers as though to search for the tape, seemed to think better of it, and replaced them. ‘Standard beginning for each one, but individualised for the last couple of pages. And a meeting scheduled for 12.30 today in the conference room for ten people, plus us.’
‘No problem.’ Just a heap of overdue proposals and a lunch meeting to prepare for all in the space of, oh, what—an hour and a half? Panic snapped at her heels, scrambled up her ankles and sank its claws into her calves. She swallowed hard, and forced a calm tone she didn’t feel. ‘I’ll attend to typing the proposals. What’s required for the meeting?’
‘I’ll want a copy of the proposals for each guest, plus one of each for myself. You’ll also organise the meal, and take notes of anything pertinent said while we meet. Is that all clear?’ He glanced up in time to catch her scribbling furiously into her notebook, and his face softened a little. ‘You’re certainly diligent, taking notes of everything…’
‘It’s the way I work.’ She tipped her chin up and hoped he wouldn’t question her about it. ‘I’ll get started straight away. If that’s all for the moment?’
As soon as Lily said the words, she wanted to hyperventilate because she’d gone blank. She couldn’t remember any of his instructions. Not a one. They’d fallen into one of those holes inside her head, and disappeared. If her notes didn’t make sense once he turned his back, she was toast.
‘That’s all.’ He started to turn away, and then stopped. For a moment he watched her, as though he wanted to puzzle her out. ‘There are millions of dollars tied up in today’s meeting. The largest project belongs to a man who can be difficult. I don’t want him to have a reason to criticise my company.’
In other words, Lily had better not let Zach down! She focussed on breathing deeply in and out. ‘I understand.’
He must have believed the act, because he gave a short, satisfied nod. ‘I’ll leave you to it. I trust I’ll have the proposals very soon.’ He walked into his office and shut the door.
Please let me get these things done in time. Lily re-read her notes. Fortunately, they made sense. Then she scribbled the meeting details onto the wall chart and into her diary, sticky-noted the need to find, type and collate the proposals, and dived for the phone book.
Thankfully she could cajole people when needed. That is, people other than the unshakeable Zachary Swift. Minutes later, with the meal agreed upon and delivery promised by 12.15 for a 12.30 start, she began to type.
The proposals were out, copied and onto Zach’s desk with just minutes to spare. A convincing summation of several of Swift Enterprises’ recent success stories, and individual offers to each company or business.
If his guests weren’t duly impressed, well, Lily was. He dealt in big business. The knowledge of his prowess was quite…stimulating. Intellectually.
Even as she thought it, she studied his down-bent head from her vantage point in front of his desk, and acknowledged that no other male had appealed to her as much or as quickly as he had. What was wrong with her? Since moving to Sydney she had avoided even the slightest interest in men. It hadn’t been difficult to make that choice until now.
‘Good work.’ Zach skimmed the final page of the last copy, and rose to his feet. ‘Very accurate. Your typing speed must be as fast as your short—eh, note—taking.’
So he had noticed already that her code wasn’t the usual shorthand script. If he asked, she would explain it as a newly developed recording style, which was nothing but the truth. Sort of. But it worried her that he had picked up on that so quickly. What else might he see and wonder about?
When he stretched to relax his shoulders, she tried not to let her gaze be drawn to him. But she failed dismally. The man appeared to have some rather nice muscles under that suit, and something in her feminine make-up was attracted by that knowledge. In defence against her own thoughts, she crossed her arms.
‘I’m glad you’re happy with my work, although I know Deborah would have done just as well.’ She had to get that in, the first building block towards her own imminent exit. ‘These offers will mean a lot of new work, if they’re all accepted.’
His gaze tracked over her hair, then her shoulders, before taking a leisurely path downward, and back up again. It was cold comfort to her to know that in this case, unlike when they’d discussed the Rochelle debacle, the attraction appeared to be mutual. She didn’t want to want him, whether it was reciprocated or not.
He seemed to catch himself, and his glance shifted to the windows. ‘Yes, but