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‘Okay,’ Freya was thinking on her feet. Three months, that could work. Then she’d fly back with him to Alexandria. ‘So, the secondment has been shifted back three months?’
The dean shook her head. ‘Ah, I see the confusion. I’m afraid there is no secondment, well not from here to there. Alexandria has come to us instead!’
Freya looked at her, aghast. ‘I’m sorry – what?’
The dean cast her gaze to the newest member of her team.
Freya looked his way too. He shifted in his seat.
‘I’m sorry, I still don’t understand …’
‘Tarek has been seconded to us rather than us sending someone—’ she looked pointedly at Freya, ‘—over to Egypt. It works out very well, considering the amount of work we have to do with the new artefacts on temporary loan.’ She smiled.
Well it doesn’t work for me, Freya thought.Not. At. All.She could feel her stomach twisting into a knot of frustration, the like of which she hadn’t felt since her parents had refused to let her spend the summer with Jolene and her family at their summer house in America.Why is life so unfair?thought Freya,and so full of disappointments?
But not for everyone. She eyed the new intern coolly. Although, surprisingly, it didn’t seem as though he was jumping for joy at being there. She’d be over the moon if she were in his shoes. But his sullen expression said he wasn’t happy – not at all.
That annoyed her even more. He didn’t appreciate how lucky he was to get this break and visit another country. She felt foolish forshaking his hand so enthusiastically, greeting him so warmly. He was a horrible, horrible young man. Although, of course, he wasn’t. He was tall and handsome with large brown eyes that were staring right at her.
She looked away, wishing he wasn’t so good-looking. Damn him.
‘It’s a good thing too that Tarek here accompanied our new temporary acquisitions all the way from Alexandria. Aren’t we lucky?’
Lucky? Right now, that was the last thing she was feeling.
The dean continued, ‘We are also very fortunate to have the son of the head of Alexandria’s museum, no less, working with us over the next few weeks.’
Freya shot Tarek a look. So that was how he had wangled the position. It was nepotism – pure and simple. And that was how her secondment had gone straight out of the window.
‘Besides, even if the secondment was still up for grabs,’ the dean said, ‘we couldn’t have let you go.’
‘Why not?’ Freya threw back before she’d censored what came out of her mouth. She sounded like a petulant child who’d been denied a bag of sweeties before teatime.
The dean stood up. ‘Because we need our brightest and best to show Tarek how we do things here, and that’s you. I need you to work with Tarek to set up the temporary exhibition.’
‘What? I thought I was setting up the exhibition in the museum?’
‘Yes, you’ll be helping Tarek.’
‘HelpingTarek?’
Tarek stood.
‘I’m going to leave you in Freya’s capable hands,’ said the dean as she walked to the door and opened it. Freya bit her lower lip before she said something she’d regret. She gave Tarek a black look instead.
As if sensing something, he turned around and eyed her coolly. ‘So, where’s the vault?’ he said in almost perfect cut-glass English.
Freya would rather have stormed out at that point and told him to get lost, but the dean was standing at the doorway, about to close the door behind them. She could hear every word. She commented, ‘Well, you two are going to get on like a house of fire.’
Don’t bank on it, thought Freya, turning on her heel and walking out down the corridor to the wooden staircase that led to the basement. She could hear his footsteps following behind her. It was bad enough that she had lost her secondment, but the fact that his father had got him this position added insult to injury.
She expected he didn’t have the first clue what he was doing. What were his qualifications? Was he even interested in all this, or had his father pushed him into it, and he’d felt duty-bound to follow in his footsteps? She expected he’d come on a little jolly to see some of England, then faff about in a museum for a bit because that was the deal, then go home and tick that little trip off his to-do list.
She glanced over her shoulder at the good-looking guy.Stop thinking that and remember he stole your secondment. Besides, he wasn’t her type. What is my type?She thought. A guy she’d gone out with in sixth form, and then Theo, whom she’d met at a wedding, made up the sum total of her relationships.So what?she thought defensively, wondering why she was even thinking about that. People went out in sixth form, and they met life partners at weddings – it wasn’t unheard of.
‘Where are we going?’ Tarek demanded, rudely interrupting her thoughts.
‘We’re going to the archives in the basement – where do you think?’ she barked back. They walked on in silence, Freya wondering what she was going to tell Jolene when she returned with their newest recruit. At least Jolene wouldn’t remark on how cute he was.
