The Double Life of My Hot Secretary novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Notice

Vaughn turns up at Tara's door with a contract and a loose hair clip, and a text tells her to take whatever he offers.

On Saturday morning I went to see my mother.

Harbor House smelled of floor wax and boiled carrots, and the nurse at the desk smiled when she saw me.

"She's had a good week," the nurse said. "Everything's paid through December, so you don't need to worry about anything."

I didn't tell her I was worried anyway.

My mother sat in the window with a blanket over her knees and her red-grey hair brushed flat.

Maureen Kilgallon had been a school cook for thirty years, and she still counted the people in every room.

"You're early," she said.

Her words came slowly since the stroke, one at a time, each of them chosen.

"I quit my job, Ma," I said.

"The man?"

"The man."

She studied my face. "Good," she said, and patted my hand with her good one.

I laughed, and then I had to look at the window for a minute.

"Money?" she asked.

"I've got it covered."

"Tara."

"I've got it covered, Ma."

She looked at me for a long time. Then she nodded and let me lie.

I spent Sunday in my flat in Bridgeport scrubbing a kitchen that was already clean.

On Monday at seven fifteen someone knocked on my door.

I opened it in a T-shirt and leggings with my hair half up, holding a coffee.

Vaughn Draycott stood in my hallway in a charcoal suit.

He had never been to my building. In five years he had never needed to be.

"Miss Rendell," he said.

"Kilgallon."

"Kilgallon." He repeated it carefully, and one breath later he called me Miss Rendell again. "May I come in?"

"No."

"Your contract has a notice clause."

"You're kidding."

"Two weeks." He held up a folded paper. "Clause fourteen."

I took it out of his hand. There it was, in tiny print I had signed at twenty-three.

"I'll be in the office Monday," I said, "and the Monday after that. After that I'm gone."

"Or," he said, "you stay and I double your salary."

"No."

"Triple."

"No, Vaughn."

His mouth flattened. He stepped into the doorway without waiting for me to move, and the whole hall seemed to shrink.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want to not be your slave."

"You were never my..." He stopped. He looked past me into the flat: the bare table, the one chair, my mother's photograph on the shelf.

Then his gaze dropped to the open gym bag by the door.

A silver heel stuck out of it.

His eyes stayed on it for a second longer than they should have.

I stepped across the doorway and nudged the bag shut with my foot.

"Dance class," I said.

"I didn't ask."

"You looked."

"I look at everything," he said. "It's why I'm good at my job."

"It's why you're awful at it."

He actually smiled at that. A real one, short and crooked. I had worked for him for five years and I had never seen it.

My stomach did something stupid.

"You're the only person who talks to me like that," he said.

"I know. I was the only one."

"Was."

"Was," I said.

He was close now. Too close, in a hallway meant for one person.

My hair clip had been slipping all morning. As I turned my head, it came loose and slid down the side of my neck.

Vaughn caught it before it fell.

His fingers closed on it, and the back of his knuckles brushed the side of my throat.

I stopped breathing.

He held the clip for a moment. He did not give it back.

"Tell me what you need to come back," he said, very low. "Not money. What."

I looked at his hand, still near my skin.

I didn't want to want it. I wanted it anyway, and I hated him for that too.

"I need you to know my name," I said.

"I know your name."

"Say it right."

He opened his mouth.

For a second I thought he would.

Then something went across his face and shut it, and he put the clip into my palm and closed my fingers over it.

"Two weeks," he said. "I'll see you Monday, Miss Rendell."

He walked down the hall without looking back.

I stood there with my hand closed on the clip, my pulse in my ears.

My second phone buzzed on the shelf.

I picked it up.

Heard about Friday, dear. Take whatever he offers. Stay close to him.

I stared at it.

In three years, Pharmacy had never once told me to stay close to anything.

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