be brilliantly organised. If he was out of the office she emailed the messages to him so he could act on them if they were urgent. Or she dealt with queries herself and sent him an email to tell him what she’d done.
He loved the fact that she used her initiative instead of running to him with questions.
And whenever Luke reached a point in his work when he was about to stop and make himself a mug of coffee, Sara was there before him. Just as he was about to look over to her desk and ask if she wanted a coffee, too, she’d place a mug on the coaster on his desk. Rich, smooth coffee, the exact strength he liked, with no milk and one spoonful of sugar. Perfect.
‘Have you been talking to Di or something?’ he asked when he’d finished his coffee.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Because you second-guess me, the way she did. It’s almost like having her back—and she had four years to get used to the way I work.’
Sara laughed. ‘No, I haven’t talked to her. Not about you, at any rate. She called the other day to see how everything was and I told her to put her feet up with a mug of ginger tea and stop feeling guilty.’
‘Good. That’s what I told her, last time she rang.’ He paused. ‘So how did you…?’
‘Know how you work? Observation,’ she said. ‘Most people have routines.’
‘So you’re saying I’m set in my ways?’
She spread her hands. ‘Work it out for yourself, boss,’ she teased.
‘You’re just as set in your ways,’ he retorted, slightly nettled.
‘Meaning?’
If she was going to be straight with him, then he’d be straight with her. ‘You’re here on the dot of nine, you always take exactly an hour’s lunch break and you leave at the dot of five. And you never, ever work late.’
‘Because I’m good at time management.’ She returned to her own desk. ‘Besides, the longer the hours you work, the more your productivity drops. By the third day of working late, you’re actually running behind.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘Easy.’ She scribbled something on a piece of scrap paper, then walked over to his desk and put it in front of him. ‘One curve. The x axis is time, the y axis is your productivity rate. Now, would you agree that it’s higher in the morning, when you’re fresh, and lower at the end of the day, when you’re tired?’
‘Yes.’ Though he could see exactly where this was heading, and he had a nasty feeling that she’d boxed him neatly into a corner.
‘So if you’re not fresh, because you’re tired from the previous day, you’ll start further along the x axis, from a lower productivity point, as if you’ve already worked a couple of hours. And the more days you work late, the further along the x axis you start each morning.’ She folded her arms. ‘My point, I think.’
‘Hmm. And what about personal variables? Some people are best first thing in the morning, others are better later in the day.’
‘True.’
‘And some people thrive on working long hours. Point to me.’
‘Some people think they thrive on it,’ she countered. ‘I hate that culture where you have to be seen to be in early and work late. Presenteeism isn’t good for you. The way I see it, if you want to get more done, you need to work smarter, not harder.’ She frowned. ‘Do you ever take time to smell the roses, Luke?’
‘I don’t need to smell any roses.’
She looked at him over the edge of her rimless glasses—glasses, he’d noticed, she only used for computer work. ‘Yes, you do. Everyone needs to refresh themselves, or they’d burn out. So what do you do?’
He shrugged. ‘I go to the gym.’
‘You own several gyms. So that doesn’t count. It’s work.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Can you tell me, hand on heart, that whenever you go for a workout or what have you, you don’t start appraising the place and thinking about how to maximise the use of the gym?’
‘When I play squash or have a workout, I focus on what I’m doing. Otherwise,’ he said with a grin, ‘I’d be at the bottom of the squash ladder.’
‘Whereas you’re at the top?’
He spread his hands. ‘Top or second. Whatever.’
‘And the moment your workout or your match ends, you switch over to business, don’t you?’
‘It’s who I am.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s what you do. Who you are is…’ Her voice faded and for a second he caught an odd look in her eyes. Something that made his pulse skip a beat. But then it was gone, and he had to remind himself she was off-limits.
‘So aren’t these parties you go to any fun?’
‘They’re overrated,’ he admitted. ‘Or maybe I’m getting old. But, yeah, I’m starting to find them boring.’
‘Is that why you change your girlfriend so frequently, too?’
‘Probably.’
‘Maybe,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘you’re seeing the wrong kind of woman.’
He nearly asked what kind of woman she thought fitted the bill. But maybe it was better not to know. Better not to wonder if a certain bossy blonde would fill the empty spaces he almost never admitted were in his life.
Before he realised what he was doing, he asked, ‘How about you?’
‘I go to the theatre and the cinema with my friends. We might go out for a meal—anything from a pizza to tapas to Thai, as long as it’s good food. Or I’ll go home to be spoiled by my parents and play with my toddler niece and take the dogs for a long run in the orchard.’
Hmm. She hadn’t mentioned her partner. Or maybe the guy was so much part of the furniture that she didn’t bother mentioning him by name.
But there was a bigger danger area here. Even if she had been free, she was clearly very close to her family—a world away from his own life. So it was definitely better to keep things strictly business with her.
‘So I take it you don’t work weekends?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘That’s a pity,’ he said. ‘Because I could do with you this weekend.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’m going to see a hotel,’ he explained. ‘And, as I think you have a gut feel for what needs fixing, I’d be interested to see what you thought of it.’ He spread his hands. ‘Of course I’d pay you for your time, because it’d mean an overnight stay, but if you came with me I’d respect your right to clock-watch—and I promise you can stop answering my phone and let it go to voice mail at five o’clock on the dot. And you can take a couple of days off next week—paid—to make up for the time.’
She gave him a speaking look at the phrase ‘clock-watch’, but when she spoke her tone was mild. ‘This weekend.’
‘Unless your partner will have a problem with it?’
‘Partner?’ She looked mystified.
‘Justin,’ he enunciated. Saying the man’s name helped him remember that she was spoken for. That she was off-limits.
Her face cleared. ‘Oh, Justin. He isn’t my partner. He’s my oldest brother. I share a flat with him.’
Luke’s heart missed a beat. He’d managed