as he wrestles on his trousers before calling to whoever is behind the door: ‘One minute, please.’
‘It’s locked, right?’ I ask as I hurry on my underwear, then my dress.
‘Yes, it’s locked, but that still makes us look bad.’
This isn’t our first moment like this; you think we’d be better at it by now.
‘No rush, Mr Starr.’ It’s Caroline, his secretary. ‘Except I’ve got the post for you, and it’s quite heavy.’
‘She’s not going anywhere,’ he whispers to me, panic in his voice.
I exhale deeply. Being romantically involved with your boss is not all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you have to keep your relationship a secret.
Will and his wife, Stephanie, were in love, once upon a time. They got married, had a couple of kids but then, as Will moved through the ranks of the company, eventually reaching the top spot when his dad retired, they just fell out of love and decided to call it a day. The thing is, Will is very much the face of the family business, and despite the company being huge, they really play up the family angle. Now that Will is in charge, they paint him as a good guy, a family man, so leaving his wife and two young kids simply because he didn’t want to be with his wife any more would not have painted a pretty picture. And in a way Will was lucky that Stephanie agreed to pretend they were still together, to keep up appearances, and to keep Will’s/the firm’s wholesome reputation in tact. So, despite Will and Stephanie’s understanding, divorce isn’t on the cards any time soon, and if Will were to be caught sleeping with his assistant, it would ruin him. So it isn’t exactly unusual for us to sneak around and keep our relationship a secret.
‘You’re going to have to hide,’ he snaps at me in a whisper – like this is my fault.
‘Hide?’ I ask in disbelief. I’ve never had to hide before. ‘Where?’
‘Under the desk,’ he instructs, pushing me under the large, oak desk in the centre of his office.
‘You’re effing kidding me?’ I ask, and Will shoots me a look – I know that he doesn’t approve of swearing, but I thought that might be OK given the circumstances. I can tell from the look in his eyes that he is dead serious. ‘Fine.’
Down I go, underneath his desk. I watch as Will straightens up his tie before bushing his suit down, exhaling deeply as he heads for the door. I am just about to tuck myself away when I realise that I forgot to put my stockings back on. I spy one of them on the floor, and it’s within arm’s reach so I grab it. No sign of the other one, but there’s nothing I can do. Will is opening the door.
‘Good morning, Caroline,’ he says breathlessly. ‘I thought you were at the doctor’s this morning?’
‘I was,’ she replies. ‘I’ve been, all is well. I know I took the morning off, but I thought there’s no sense in waiting until the afternoon to come in – may as well make myself useful. I see Candice is running late.’ Caroline sighs. ‘Ah well, best she has a lie-in. I think that one is getting a lot of late nights at the moment.’
I can only see Caroline’s feet, but I feel my eyes narrow as I shoot them a death stare.
Sweet Caroline (that’s what I call her – because she isn’t) may just be an evil genius, and were I not the target of her evil master plan to oust me from the company, I might actually be impressed by the way she operates. You see, Sweet Caroline is nothing but sweetness and light to me – in front of other people. Sometimes, I even hear her saying nice things about me to other people, making caring excuses for any mistakes I might make, or excusing my lateness for me like she did today (by making it sound like I’m out partying every night). This means that, to everyone else at the firm, Caroline is Sweet Caroline, but when it’s just me and her she is horrible to me, and because I know her niceness is an act I cannot be nice back to her, or be nice about her to others. This leaves everyone else wondering why I don’t like Caroline, because she’s just so nice to everyone, and speaks so highly of me… I’m telling you, she’s an evil genius.
There aren’t too many female employees here, but Caroline is certainly the queen bee. As female employees come and go, she takes them all under her wing (everyone but me, who she took an instant disliking to) and I’m guessing she drips poison in the ears of them all, because none of the women seem to like me. Thankfully, I always have Will on my side.
‘You look warm,’ she observes, not suspiciously as far as I can tell, just curiously.
‘Yeah, I was just getting a bit of exercise in,’ he tells her, before laughing it off. ‘Getting a bit portly in my old age.’
Oh, that was fast thinking. I’d probably be impressed were I not so incredibly mortified right now.
‘I just bumped into Stephanie,’ I hear Caroline say.
‘What, she’s here?’ Will replies.
‘No, no. I saw her at the doctor’s – how is she doing? She looked a little peaky.’
‘She’s fine, she’s fine,’ Will babbles, instantly arousing my curiosity. I get that Will is sticking around for his kids, and because it’s a smart business move, but it never occurred to me that he might be staying around for other reasons – is his wife ill? I mentally pinch myself as Will and Caroline chat about work stuff. It’s this silly situation; it makes me paranoid and needy and feel just plain bad about myself. I know that we’re not doing anything wrong and that it’s only a matter of time before we can be together properly – Will assures me every day – but on days like today, when I’m hiding underneath a desk clutching one of my stockings, it doesn’t feel like I’m not doing anything wrong. I feel very much like the ‘other woman’ that I am most certainly not.
As Will and Sweet Caroline chat, I watch them from my hiding place – well, I watch them from the knees down, like the opening sequence of The Bill circa 1985. That’s when I notice my other stocking, caught on the heel of Caroline’s shoe.
I slowly peep out from under the desk, in an attempt to quickly grab the offending hosiery before it can be spotted. I pull it, but it’s not budging. It’s well and truly caught on her heel. I give it a hard yank and it finally comes loose, but Will spots me out of the corner of his eye.
‘Come here,’ Will instructs Caroline, pulling her close for a hug. ‘I’m glad you got on OK at the doctor’s.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Caroline replies brightly. I quickly crawl back underneath the desk and Will finally releases her and she leaves.
With the door closed, Will locks it before leaning back against the wall and breathing a sigh of relief so huge, I practically feel my hair blow in the breeze.
‘That was a close one,’ Will says.
‘Yep,’ I reply, scooching out from underneath the desk. I feel deflated at having to hide, but I do my best to remain positive.
‘You want to be careful hugging Caroline like that.’ I laugh brightly. ‘She’ll have you for sexual harassment.’
‘Candice, that’s not funny,’ my lover ticks me off. ‘That was too close. Way too close. And when she mentioned Steph, I thought she might be here.’
‘Is Stephanie OK?’ I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.
‘Yes,’ Will replies quickly, ‘why do you ask?’
‘Just that Caroline said she’d seen her at the doctor’s… I was just checking.’
I smile sweetly, hoping that if my face looks happy then my mood will follow. The truth is, I’m starting to grow tired of our situation. I mentioned this to Will recently and he promised to do something about it.
‘Your stomach is looking a little…full today,’ Will observes, changing the subject.
‘What?’ I run my hands over my tummy self-consciously.