Page 5 of Single Dad Christmas

He’d think she’d lost the plot.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, and now she knew she blushed, because she’d been standing there like an idiot, staring at the hand he held at his side.

“Right. Thank you for your time, Noah.” She walked towards the table and collected her document wallet and handbag, grateful beyond belief for the palace deportment lessons, which meant that even as her knees wanted to knock and her fingers itched to tremble, she didn’t betray a hint of the inner turmoil he’d been able to spark with a single direct look and handshake.

CHAPTER TWO

“CAN I SEE YOU IN my office, Louisa?” She had just put her handbag down at her desk when the phone buzzed and the voice of the agency owner came through.

One of her father’s oldest friends, from university, she didn’t feel the same need to impress Stuart Conroy as other staff did. She also didn’t see him as a miserable curmudgeon, which he seemed to have the reputation of.

“Sure, I’ll be right there.”

She’d stopped for a coffee on the way back to the agency and grabbed it from her desk before making her way down the corridor and up the floating timber stairs that led to Stuart’s glass-fronted office. Glass fronted, so he could keep an eye on his staff. With that being said, in his mid-fifties and having made his fortune twenty times over, Stuart was not often at his desk these days. And good for him, Louisa thought approvingly. There was more to life than work. Out of nowhere, she imagined the future she’d imagined would be hers, the life she’d idly foreseen, when she and Ares had first started dating. It hadn’t been a wildly passionate love affair, for either of them. It just hadn’t beenpractical, given the strictures of dating a King. But they’d been good together. They’d made one another laugh. It had been so easy to envisage a rich, happy future at his side, with children and a puppy dog. But in those visions, Ares hadn’t been King, and the publicity, protocol, and press were nowhere to be seen.

She knocked once at the door to Stuart’s office. He glanced up and motioned with his hand for her to enter.

“You did well today.”

She blinked, surprised. “I’m sorry?”

“I’ve just been speaking to Fox.”

Her heart twisted sharply. She sipped her coffee to hide any tell-tale reaction.

“He likes you.”

Her knees developed their own gravitational pull again. She ground her teeth, furious with her body for being so attracted to Noah Fox that even the mention of his name should heat up her blood.

“I’m glad. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it?”

“You’re good at what you do.”

“Thank you.”

“He wants you to take over.”

Another slug of coffee. “He mentioned that.”

Stuart studied her, but unlike with Noah, Louisa could handle his scrutiny without a hint of tension.

“His business is worth a fortune if I’m frank. If you were anyone else, I’d be ordering you straight back to his office to set up shop.”

She stared at him. “You would?”

“But your father—,” he grimaced. “I promised him I’d look after you. I know what you’ve been through, Louisa. I don’t want to put you in any situation you’re not comfortable with. So, if working for Fox directly is a problem for you—,” he let the sentence hang there, a question implicit.

“It’s not that,” she said, a little breathlessly. “But I clearly don’t have the experience or skills to manage a campaign of that magnitude. Plus, I have other clients?—,”

“And I have other client managers,” he said. “You’ve only been here a month; I can easily redistribute your workload for the next little while.”

Her jaw dropped. “But I don’t know what I’m doing. I wouldn’t know where to start with something like this?—,”

“I know that. And I explained it to Fox. He’s adamant—he wants you at the top. What happened with Donovan?”

She opened her mouth to answer then clamped it shut. She felt a weird sort of loyalty to the man, even when he had landed her in it that morning, by failing to show up.

“It doesn’t matter,” Stuart waved a hand in the air. “I’ll talk to him later. As far as I’m concerned, this is a done deal, if you’re happy with that.”

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