to say it. Are you planning on going to Australia?’ For some reason he found that he didn’t care for the thought of that at all. He tried to imagine her forging a life in the outback, stuck in the middle of nowhere. But then, she wouldn’t be forging it on her own, would she? Hooded blue eyes took in the now slim figure in front of him, her skin bronzed and glowing from three months spent in the sun, her brown hair shiny with copper highlights and falling in a thick, blunt bob to her shoulders. No, some Neanderthal outback rancher would be all too happy to play caveman to her. That thought made his teeth snap together and he frowned at her.
‘No,’ Rose informed him wearily. ‘I’m not planning on moving out to Australia and I know you value what I do here.’
‘Then why?’ He gave one brief scathing glance at the offensive letter lying on his desk. ‘One polite paragraph is all I deserve after being an exemplary and generous boss to you over four years?’
‘I didn’t think you would like flowery speeches. And there was nothing more to say, anyway. I really am leaving because I think there are still things out there left to do and I can’t do them while I’m working here, even though, yes, you’ve been a very generous boss.’
‘Things left to do?’ Gabriel frowned.
‘I…yes…’
‘What things?’
‘A business course, as a matter of fact…’ Among other things, she thought, such as developing a life of my own, a life that included finding a suitable mate, settling down, having a family, doing all the things most women dreamed of from a young age.
‘You want to do a business course?’ He made it sound as though she had just revealed a secret yearning to fly to the moon.
‘As a matter of fact, I do!’ Rose tilted her chin up defensively, her normally serene face flushed with sudden annoyance that he found it so incredulous that she should have ambitions outside the ones he so kindly allowed her. ‘I left home at eighteen,’ she snapped, revealing yet more of a life she had previously been keen to keep under wraps, ‘to look after my mother and when she passed on I did a secretarial course, took a series of temporary jobs just so that I could get sufficient funds together to put myself through a really good intensive course…If you recall, I came to you as a temp…and ended up staying here permanently…’
‘You never said…’ Gabriel murmured, reading the dismay on her face as she contemplated her outburst. So his cool, calm, level-headed secretary had fire burning inside. Of course he’d suspected that from the very start. ‘What was your sister up to while you were looking after your mother?’ he asked curiously, sidetracked by that window into her private life.
Rose looked at his devilishly handsome face and tried to wriggle back to her secure guarded territory but he was having none of it. After a few seconds of thick, expectant silence, she shrugged and looked away. ‘Grace was at university and then she met Tom and everything got…very hectic for her. So. Anyway, that’s one of the things I want to do…’
‘And you’ve checked out these business courses?’
‘Well…’
‘No point spending time doing a business course only to find that it qualifies you to bounce right back here…’
‘Thanks for the tip, Gabriel. I’ll make sure I’m very careful what sort of course I sign up to.’
He was looking at her thoughtfully, so thoughtfully that her antennae pricked up, waiting for some passing remark which she suspected she wouldn’t like.
‘Naturally, I’ll work out my notice,’ she ventured into the lengthening silence. No response. She plunged on, wondering whether this silent tactic was designed to make her feel guilty. He certainly wouldn’t be beyond using every trick in the book to get her to stay, if that was his goal, especially now that he had a benchmark for comparison after three months of unsatisfactory stand-ins. ‘I intend to take just a couple of months off after I leave here, enjoy the summer…maybe even go abroad somewhere…and then the course will start in September…’
‘And it never occurred to you that we could discuss this…? Maybe arrive at a conclusion satisfactory to both of us…?’
‘Not really. I mean…’
‘Why not?’ Gabriel was in there like a shot. ‘Because underneath it all, you have a problem with working for me?’
‘Of course not!’ The last thing she needed, not that it mattered, was to leave Gabriel with the ego boosting impression that he had an effect on her.
‘Then why didn’t you come and discuss your dilemma with me?’
‘I really only thought about it when I was in Australia,’ Rose admitted. ‘I had time to think out there and to realise that I needed a change if I was to advance my career…’
Gabriel, struggling with the prospect of a litany of incompetent secretaries cowering and ducking for cover every time he raised his voice, mentally cursed her absent sister once again for introducing strife into his otherwise perfectly uncomplicated working life.
‘And I agree with you,’ he told her suddenly.
‘You do?’
‘Of course I do.’ He leaned back, linking his fingers behind his head, and surveyed her with an expression of sympathetic understanding that she had never seen in evidence before. ‘You’re young. You’re clever…’ He allowed the throwaway compliment to sink in. ‘You want a career beyond taking orders from me. Not,’ he felt compelled to add, ‘that I haven’t given you your fair share of responsibility. In fact, considering your original duties were filing, typing and fending calls, you’ve come a long way. But that’s by the by…’
Rose tried to keep up with this surprising twist. Not that Gabriel wasn’t unpredictable. He was. She just hadn’t anticipated any such reaction to her resignation because, really, how many ways were there to react to a resignation letter? And so he was now accepting it. Why feel disappointed with an outcome she knew was inevitable?
‘I can understand your drive to go further…After all, I am a perfect example of someone who has been there, someone who was driven to better himself…’
‘I don’t plan on dizzy heights…’
‘Did I ever tell you that my parents started with nothing? That my father’s business began with dabbling in the rag trade? Just enough money to raise us without too much hardship but not so much that we didn’t know from very young the importance of an education and the importance of making the most of our talents?’
‘Don’t worry, Gabriel, I won’t be competing with you on your level in two years’ time…!’
Their eyes met in perfect understanding as he appreciated the gentle, teasing irony behind her remark and Rose looked away quickly. He might not have much inside information about her private life but in many ways he knew her better than anyone else ever had and certainly cottoned on to her quirky sense of humour quicker than anyone she had ever known. Even Grace had seemed left behind sometimes.
‘If you had told me sooner I would have happily arranged to fund your course.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Day release. Even two days a week. You keep the salary you’re at and the only condition is that you train up someone to fill in for you when you’re not here. And, when your course is complete, I guarantee you a junior position on the top floor. I was also thinking of rewarding your efforts here with a company car…’
‘I’m not sure…’
‘So we’re back to that invisible reason for quitting and since it’s nothing to do with what I have to offer by way of benefits, then it must have something to do with me…’
‘I told you, of course not!’
‘Then why don’t you give it a go, Rose…?’Gabriel leaned