Only You - Lord of the Manor book 1

Chapter 6

'Morning,' I sing to Tom as I sashay past his desk on Thursday.

He looks up at me over his thick framed spectacles – a blatant fashion statement and Tom's effort to be taken more seriously. I should tell him to lose the canary yellow dress shirt and grey trousers that are verging on leggings. That would do the trick.

'Did someone get laid?' He smirks. 'Join the club, I'm exhausted!'

'No! Tom, you're such a tart.' I feign a disgusted look as I throw my stuff down by my desk. 'Anything to report?' I ask to divert the conversation from Tom's sexcapades.

'Nope, I'm just going over to Mrs Baines to give her a cuddle. You know, she rang me at eleven last night to ask if she could expect the electricians in this morning. Interrupted me right in the middle of...'

'Enough!' I hold my hands up. 'I don't want to know.' I sit down, swinging my chair around to face him.

'Apologies, darling. It was really good though!' He winks. 'Anyway, she's in a panic because her summer ball is scheduled for July and she wants all the works completed in time. There's not a hope, darling! If she would just stop changing her bloody mind, then we might get somewhere.' He springs up from his chair and air kisses me from ten feet away. 'Au Revoir, darling!'

'Bye. Oh, where's Victoria?' I shout after him.

'Appointments.' he calls, shutting the door behind him.

I turn to face my desk as Sally places a coffee in front of me. I pick it up immediately, taking a sip while she hovers at my desk nervously.

'Patrick called to remind you that he's not in today.' she says.

'Thank you, Sally. Did you have a good weekend?'

She smiles, nodding enthusiastically as she pushes her glasses up her nose. 'I did, thank you for asking. I finished my cross-stitch and cleaned all the windows, inside and out. It was wonderful.' she says dreamily as she scurries off to file some invoices.

Cleaning windows? Wonderful? The girl is sweet, but good Lord, she's as dull as dish water.

I spend a few hours working through my email to clear my inbox. I check the final clean-up of Lusso is complete and grab my phone when it starts dancing across my desk. I roll my eyes when I see who's illuminating my screen. He just will not give up. Yesterday was a relentless bombardment of calls – all of which I rejected – and he's still at it. I've got to speak to the man eventually. He has something that I need...my car.

At one o'clock, I leave the office to meet Beth for lunch.

–

'Are there any decent men left in the world?' she asks thoughtfully, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. 'I'm losing the will to live.'

'It wasn't that bad, was it?' I ask. Her date yesterday evening was a failure. When she walked into the apartment at nine thirty, I knew it couldn't be good news.

She drops her napkin on her empty plate, pushing it away. 'Louis, when a man gets a calculator out at the end of a meal to work out what you owe, it's usually not a good sign.'

I laugh. 'So, you won't be seeing him again?'

She scoffs. 'No, the bill saga was bad enough. When he dropped me home in the taxi and accepted the twenty I offered him, it finished me off.'

'You were a cheap date.' I giggle.

'Yeah.' She picks up her phone and starts tapping away at the screen, holding it up to show me. 'One BLT and two waters, you owe twelve quid.' We both have a little laugh at Beth's failed date. I love that she can be so lighthearted about it. Beth maintains that it will happen when it happens. I'm with her on this.