Love to Hate You

Chapter One - The Morning After, the Morning After

Mattie walked into the office five minutes late. She was on the cusp of perspiring, but her dash from the Tube to the office wasn't quite long enough to work up a proper sweat. She was never late; never. She couldn't afford to be; not when she was the PA to one of the founding partners in Paxton and Colville, a major architectural firm. Mattie had found - in her three years working under Chris Colville - that architects were sticklers for detail. On the one hand, she thought it probably a good thing; no one wants buildings which are going to fall down when the wind changes, or wall sockets in absurd locations. She'd learnt, however, that is wasn't much fun working for an architect. Chris Colville was exacting, and apparently, she wasn't up to the mark. That was why Monday morning was the worst possible time for Mattie to be running late, and on the brink of sweating wet patches onto her blouse. She knew she was going to get a disdainful roll of the eye, an aloof grunt, and then a snarky email from Crisis Chris (because if something wasn't perfect, then it was a crisis). But to make matters worse, Chris's counterpart from the US office - Rafe Paxton - was relocating back to the London office, after some hushed-up to-do in New York, and he was due to start work in London that morning. Incurring the wrath of two anally-retentive, grunting, eye rollers, was not what Mattie wanted; especially not when she knew she was already skating on thin ice with Chris Colville.

Any excuse, Mattie said to herself, any excuse, and he'll ditch me. Or worse; he'll pack me off to the Edinburgh office and make me PA to that tart, Melissa. Eurgh! Still, the inconvenience of being late - that day of all days - and the thought of that dreary, cold office, way up north, was tempered by a quiet inner glow, because Mattie had gone to a wedding on the Saturday, and she had met someone. A very handsome someone, with lovely hands, and a hotel bed he was more than happy to share with her. The mere thought of it made Perpetually Single Mattie smile.

'What're you smiling at?' snapped Chris Colville, just as a dazed Mattie was about to slam right into him. 'You're six minutes late; nothing to smile about!' he said, accusingly.

'Six? Only five, surely?' quipped Mattie; an ill-conceived attempt at levity.

'Five - six; what does it matter? One minute late is late. Late is not okay, girl.' She shuddered. He always called her "girl" when he was mightily displeased with her. She would have been offended by the disrespectful pet name, because she was, in fact, twenty-nine, but she knew she looked far younger. Door-to-door salesmen always asked "are your parents in?" when they came to her flat (the downside of having her own front door), and the people on self-service in the supermarket always asked her for I.D. whenever she bought alcohol. In truth, she couldn't blame rotund Chris, because she looked about twenty-two at most (when she was dressed up in "business dress"), and had the tastes and habits of a Fresher at university.

'I'm sorry, Chris,' said Mattie, contritely. 'I'll get you your coffee, and then -'

'No!' he barked. 'I wanted my coffee six -' he paused to look at his watch, 'seven minutes ago, but you weren't here, and now I have a meeting with Paxton and the junior partners. Do something useful while I'm gone; I'll be in the board room most of the morning.'

'Sure. Totally,' Mattie nodded, wondering what constituted "useful".

In the end, she decided "useful" was staring dumbly at her mobile phone, wondering if Magic Hands from Saturday night might text her. He didn't, of course, because no self-respecting man says goodbye to a woman late on a Sunday morning, and then texts her at 10:02 A.M. on a Monday, does he? Instead, Mattie opened the one text message she had from him - sent to her as a means of exchanging numbers.