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guiltily watched her as she worked. It made him feel a bit like a lecher so, after a few minutes, he rolled himself back in front of his desk and made an effort to swivel towards the window behind him so that he no longer felt like a voyeur.
    He only realised how keyed-up he was to her presencewhen she politely peeped into his office forty minutes later with a question.
    â€˜I’ve been going through the filing cabinets,’ she began, and he indicated the chair for her to sit.
    â€˜And…?’
    â€˜It appears that two files have been made of this account, and filed under separate names.’ Vicky handed him the files, which boasted two different sets of handwriting. ‘Problem is that the information in both doesn’t correspond, even though it’s all to do with the same thing. It looks as though one of your secretaries dealt with something three months ago and then misfiled the folder. When the problem recurred, her replacement started a new file and basically told the client the complete opposite of what had been said to him previously.’ She stood up and leaned forward, flicking open both the files and then carefully indicating what she meant. One long strand of wayward hair escaped and skirted her neck, coiling in a perfect red-gold corkscrew curl.
    â€˜Leave it with me. I’ll deal with it.’
    â€˜I don’t mind…’ She glanced and met his eyes, then quickly lowered hers. ‘Sorry. Overstepping my brief. I suppose I was so accustomed to dealing with these types of customer problems at my last job in Australia that I could find it easy to slip back into my old ways.’ She reminded herself that that would be impossible, since her time allotment for this particular job was a matter of weeks rather than years. Any slipping she would be doing would be out of the office door and into the nearest employment agency.
    â€˜I have an idea,’ he said slowly, pushing himself back from his desk and tilting a bit on the chair. ‘Why don’t we pay a few visits to some of the more critical clients? If you meet them, then you can put a face to the voice at the end of the telephone and so can they. Have a look atmy diary and fill me in on what I’m up to on…let’s see…next Tuesday. We can spend a couple of hours with each and have a break for lunch at one of the better country pubs around here.’
    Vicky began calculating in her head whether Brenda, her childminder, would be able to cover for her next Tuesday. Chloe would have to miss her after-school swimming lesson, but that was fine. She hated them anyway. If they managed to clear everything up no later than six in the evening, then there should be no problem at all.
    She looked at him to find him staring at her with hooded interest.
    â€˜I’ll get your diary,’ she said hurriedly, fleeing the office before he could begin quizzing her on further evidence of her mysterious secret life. As she fished for the diary from the drawer of her desk, she wondered whether she shouldn’t just head him off by fabricating something that might satisfy his masculine curiosity. It would have to be something worth secreting away, yet nowhere near the truth. Perhaps, she thought, she could invent a double life as a stripper. That would shut him up, she was sure.
    As she headed back into the office, her mouth was curved into a small smile at her ludicrous but amusing secret plan.
    â€˜Share the joke?’
    She raised her eyes to his but she didn’t see him. What she saw, in fact, was a stage in a darkened room on which she wove with sensuous, semi-naked abandon, watched hungrily by the man sitting opposite her at the desk. Her mind was filled suddenly and sickening with an erotic image that was strong enough to blow her off her feet. She very quickly sat down, just in case, and delved blindly into the black diary on her lap, furiously flicking through thepages until her trembling fingers