Her first port of call was to the office of Stephen Turnbull, the young and, to her mind, extremely good-looking financial director of the company. As she made to knock on the glass door of his office, he looked up and saw her, his face lighting up in a broad smile, and there was a glint in his eye that made her knees turn to jelly. She could sense immediately the involuntary flush that had been brought to her cheeks. He come-hithered her with his index finger and she entered the office.

“Good morning, Carrie,” he drawled, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind the slicked-back hair on his head. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m well, thank you, Mr. Turnbull,” Carrie replied, trying to avoid looking into his dark-brown eyes by casting a glance first at her armful of files and then out of the window behind him. A pigeon had settled down to preen itself on the rooftop of the building opposite and it was positioned in such a way that it appeared to be sitting on top of his head. She bit at her bottom lip to stop herself from laughing. “And how are you?”

“Couldn’t be better.” He pushed himself forward and leaned on the desk. “Listen, let’s drop this ‘Mr. Turnbull’ bit. This is not a stuffy old law firm. Stephen’ll do fine.”

“All right”—Carrie felt her face colour even more—“Stephen.”

“Good.” He held a hand out for his file. “Anything interesting for me today?”

“Not a lot, I’m afraid,” she replied, handing him the file. “Oh, there are the press cuttings from Paris. I didn’t read them, though. I thought that you might like to see them first.”

Stephen flicked the elastic bands off the file, and then hurriedly sifted through his mail before extracting the stapled pages of the press reports. He glanced quickly through them, dropped them on his desk, and clenched his fist into a tight ball.

“Are they good?” Carrie asked tentatively.

“They are bloody wonderful, Carrie. They are truly bloody wonderful.”

Carrie lifted her shoulders in girlish glee. “Oh, that’s terrific. Jackie will be delighted.”

“You bet she will,” Stephen replied, casting a smiling glance past the receptionist and across to the office opposite where Jackie sat at her desk. The steely glare that met him made the smile quickly disappear from his face. “Right,” he said, his voice suddenly becoming brusque. “I think that will be all, thanks, Carrie. I won’t hold you back. I’m sure you’ve got lots to do.”

The young receptionist became flustered at his sudden change of tone. “Right, yes, of course I have. I’m sorry I’ve kept you.” She hurriedly left the financial director’s office and averted her eyes from his gaze as she walked along the corridor to make her next delivery.