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“Then leave before I change my mind.”
Once again, I lower my gaze and hear the office door close softly behind her. If anything, I feel bad that I haven’t stepped up before this. She looks so weary, and I take full responsibility for that. The trouble is, now I’m minus an assistant tomorrow which should be ok, but there are back-to-back meetings all day and nobody to organise them. Perhaps I should have planned this more carefully, but for some reason something hit me hard when she stood before me.
I know I’m cold and unfeeling. I always have been but lately it’s not sitting well with me. When my fairy stopped my car, I was ready to tell her what I thought of her and send her on her way. However, something stopped me and an unusual act of kindness on my part awakened something in me that I liked. It felt good to help somebody in need. Even a surly fairy who didn’t have a good word to say to me. For some reason, it lit something inside me I liked and when I returned home to my empty mansion, I couldn’t think of anything else but her.
Now I know who sent her it’s lit a spark inside me because one thing’s for sure, I haven’t seen the last of her and if I’m right, she will find me and for some reason, I’m looking forward to that moment more than anything.
JESSICA
Mrs Armstrong is gawping at me as if I’ve grown two heads. I know I make her nervous, it’s obvious but when I instructed her to allow me full access to the personnel files on the computer, she paled and mumbled something about clearing it with Mr Harvey first, causing me to glare at her and say icily, “May I remind you that I am here on official police business. I am undercover and trust you to assist me. If you are unhappy about that, alert your boss to the fact you employed somebody without going through the usual process and see how long he allows you to keep your job.”
I don’t care that she looks as if she’s about to cry because this is my big chance. My first solo job and whoever is targeting her boss had better watch out because I will stop at nothing to find them and make sure they spend a long and lonely Christmas behind bars.
Against her better judgement, Mrs Armstrong allows me access and I spend most of the day researching the staff, starting with the ones who recently left, were dismissed or resigned.
My notebook is filling up with potential candidates and I am staggered by how many people left his employment in the past month alone.
Once I’m finished, I type a quick email to my department and instruct them to discover what they can about the names I’ve given them. If there are any suspicious circumstances, I am confident we will uncover them and, for the first time since I arrived, it’s as if I’m getting somewhere.
As closing time approaches, I finally have something to go on and so, rather than follow the rest of the staff towards the staff entrance, I take a different path and head up to confront the man himself. It’s finally time to meet the most hated man in this building and try to unravel the mystery of the poison postman.
CHAPTER8
ROBERT
Iam already regretting giving Sylvia tomorrow off. I never realised how much she does for me. There will be no endless supply of coffee. No gentle reminders of meetings that are waiting for me. No prompts throughout the day of my diary and nobody to fetch me lunch and organise me. Subsequently, I’m now extremely irritated and so when there’s a loud knock on my office door at six pm prompt, I say angrily, “What is it?”
The door flies open, and I blink in amazement as a very confident woman strides inside, looking like every dream I ever had disguised as a nightmare.
For a moment I stare in utter surprise, which is nothing to the look she gives me when she hisses, “I might have known.”
I recover fast and smirk, “What’s the matter? Do you need a lift home and couldn’t bear waiting in the cold this time?”
“You!” she snarls, and it’s almost an accusation, causing me to shrug. “Is that the best you can do? You weren’t short of words the other evening, if I remember correctly.”
“I see.” She glares at me, her eyes flashing and leans on the desk, facing me off with a superior smirk on her face. “You coward. You allowed me to rant and rave about this place and didn’t even give me the courtesy of revealing who you were.”
“Miss Taylor.” Her eyes widen as I address her by her name and for the first time since I’ve met her, she looks a little unsure.
“Firstly, why would I tell you my life story when you crashed into it uninvited? Secondly, your mouth was running quicker than my car so I never got the chance and thirdly, you were so judgmental I’m guessing it would have only stoked your vitriolic fire even more. No, I was happy to help and happy to escape your obvious hatred for anyone who has done better than you.”
“How dare you!” She is positively breathing fire and for some strange reason, it ignites my interest even further. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I was so attracted to a woman and all I can picture is running my hand around the back of her head and pulling those angry lips to mine while I demonstrate how much I desire her. However, she is obviously having none of those thoughts because she pulls back and starts pacing my office with a rather fetching scowl on her face.
“How did you discover my identity? Was it Mrs Armstrong?”
“Who?” I’m confused, and her derisive laughter irritates me. “Who? Are you kidding me? She’s your personnel manager, you moron. The woman who slaves away dealing with your rash decisions to streamline your workforce, causing you to be the most unpopular boss in history since Scrooge.”
“Now you’re being overdramatic. Calm down.”
“Dramatic, you say. If you think this is being dramatic, then I feel sorry for the bland, boring life you must live in your ivory tower.” She appears to take a deep breath. “Now, are you going to sling insults at me all night or not because if you take my advice, you will sit back, shut up and listen to what a mess this company is in?”
Now I’m listening because at the mention of my company, I’m all ears.
She perches on the seat opposite my desk and crosses her legs, making my eyes gaze lazily down the length of them despite my better judgement. An irritated, “Eyes on my face, Mr Harvey, if you please.” Causes me to glance up and she spits, “Firstly, I am no fairy, just in case you were wondering.”
“You’ve got that right.” I snipe back and she sighs as she runs her fingers through her long blonde tresses, causing me to shift slightly in my seat. The fact she’s so attractive hasn’t escaped me and if anything, the image I had in my mind is nothing to the vision before me. If God moulded my perfect woman, it’s Miss Taylor, attitude and all and it’s taking all my self-control not to proposition her and take her home for my own amusement.
“Now, I have been deployed here to discover the identity of the poison Christmas cards that you reported to the local station, which I have codenamed the postman.”
