The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes Read online

  When Charlotte Fforbes inadvertently falls in love with her boss, her usually cool self-control is tested to its limit. Thus far, Charlotte has carefully avoided love’s emotional tar pit, but suddenly she is in it up to her neck. Her first strategy is to ignore it — for one thing, boss Patrick is a husband and father.

  Then Charlotte is given a clue that Patrick’s marriage may not be as stable as believed, and that is enough to fan a spark of hope into an infatuation-fuelled inferno. Transformed from efficient PA into a woman whose reason has been muffled with duct-tape and locked in a cellar, she’ll now do anything to find a way into Patrick’s heart.

  Anything includes arranging to be nanny-for-a-month to the small children of Patrick and his wife and two other families at a Lake Como villa. Charlotte’s complete lack of child-minding experience daunts her the least. If she’s to win Patrick, she must also prevent his cousin’s wife being seduced by her charming, feckless ex, while fending off dogs, Gypsy gatecrashers and a large, vengeful ghost from Patrick’s past.

  But Charlotte’s biggest test will come when she is forced to question whether her affections have been entirely misplaced — and, if so, was this her last ever chance to feel love like this again?

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For Nicky, who was blessed in an Italian post office

  1

  Charlotte wasn’t sure of the exact moment she’d fallen in love with her employer. She suspected there had never actually been an exact moment, but more a series of inexorable progressions. It reminded her of the time she’d become stuck in a Thames mudbank, while walking from her friends’ yacht to the riverside pub in which said friends were sitting warm and dry and free of mud, having left earlier in a rowing boat when the tide was higher. The problem had not been the walking, as such; it had been when she’d paused in the evening gloom to make sure she was still going in the right direction, the lights from the pub being blocked by branches. The pause had allowed the mud just enough time to creep up around her boots, thus creating a suction that completely prevented her, when she attempted to do so, from lifting either of her feet.

  The emotions she experienced at that moment were very similar to those that arose within her when she had realised how she felt about her boss. There was a small amount of panic but, as Charlotte’s grip was always firm, the primary emotion was disgust — at her own stupidity. Charlotte worked very hard to keep control over all aspects of her inner and outer life, and it was times like these that confirmed for her that if there was a higher power then He/She/It was disposed towards the kind of practical jokes that only the perpetrator finds funny. Despite Charlotte’s best efforts to be vigilant, she was unable to completely avoid life’s side-splitting sack of flour poised atop the door, or fate’s riotous handshake buzzer that makes your fillings pick up radio signals for a week.

  But while both the suctioning mud and her newfound pash for her employer seemed fine examples of Providence’s plastic wrap across a toilet bowl, Charlotte consoled herself that the two situations were quite different. Stuck in the mudbank, she’d had to acknowledge that unless she wanted to wait several hours until the tide changed (which, in any case, may not have worked to her advantage), humiliation was unavoidable. So it proved. After several texts to gain her friends’ attention, Charlotte was rescued by them and pretty much everyone else in the pub, who banded together to lay down planks on the mud, haul her out and spend the rest of the long, long night laughing at the fact she was now wearing a pair of ancient Brimsdown Rovers shorts (away colours) and socks with cartoon reindeer on them that had been pinned up behind the bar one Christmas and never taken down. Charlotte suspected the memory still prompted a fond chuckle from some of the pub regulars. Her rescue had apparently been even more exciting than the time a fellow regular (since deceased) had caught a nine-pound chub on a boilie. Charlotte had no idea what that meant and considered it a matter of personal pride that she would never, ever look it up.

  With the boss situation, by contrast, Charlotte knew humiliation could be avoided. All she had to do was continue to maintain the air of efficient, professional aloofness that had been the hallmark of her employer–employee relationships thus far. She knew Patrick was not one for hierarchy and treated everyone — clients, contractors, cleaning lady — alike, but she was determined not to let his informal manner dupe her into dropping her guard.

  Charlotte believed the risk of this was slim, for the simple reason that an efficient aloofness was in fact the hallmark of all her relationships. Her childhood had been an object lesson in the fruitlessness of expending emotion in an effort to gain affection, and now that she was an adult, she preferred friendships that required little investment past lending an ear. Charlotte was happy to lend an ear, as long as this was all she was required to do, and her friends were happy that she listened and had no desire to bend their ears in return. One friend said that Charlotte had been more use than the Jungian therapist who’d charged three hundred pounds an hour.

  Possibly for this reason alone, Charlotte had never lacked for friends. True, since she’d hit her thirties, her circle had been shrinking as various members had married, bred and moved out of the city so they didn’t have to send their children to schools that shone a light on the architectural merit of HM Prison Wandsworth. Some of these friends still called Charlotte. She wished they wouldn’t. Charlotte had as much affinity with children and their ecosystem of education, nutrition and large vehicles as she did with the theory of dark matter, and felt convinced that, if she ever became interested enough to put her mind to it, the latter would be much easier to understand.

  However, she had no desire to become a recluse. She enjoyed going out for an after-work drink with the friends who were left in the city. She enjoyed, when she felt like it, picking up men in suitable bars or nightclubs and taking them to a suitable venue (never her flat) for sex. When a film-director friend had said he would sponsor her to become a member of the private and rather swanky Shoreditch House, Charlotte realised, after one dinner there with said friend, that everyone in the place knew everyone else, which simply wouldn’t do. She did not want to see the same faces in her bed more than once. Ideally, she would even avoid learning their first names. Romance novels and vicars of a certain vintage might use ‘intimacy’ as a synonym for sex, but Charlotte saw no need to elevate the connection beyond the physical. That was simply asking for trouble, most commonly expressed by the dreaded question: ‘When can I see you again?’ Charlotte had a variety of answers on the theme of ‘never’, a spectrum that began with letting them down gently (for those she quite liked) and ended with the actual word ‘never’ for the egomaniacs or the odd one who’d turned out to be as dumb as a box of gravel.

  No, Charlotte did not want to cut people out of her life entirely, but, pre-
Patrick, she had never contemplated giving up living alone. She’d seen no need to analyse this preference; the facts spoke for themselves. Alone, she could do what she liked, when she liked, how she liked. Alone, she was in complete control. For that reason, and with acknowledgement to William Ernest Henley (though she considered his poem on the whole ridiculous), she had believed that the menace of the years would find her unafraid. She was extremely attractive in a way that many considered supremely English, with perfect skin, cornflower-blue eyes and pale strawberry-blonde hair in a straight shoulder-length bob. So she had good reason, and the evidence of Helen Mirren in her sixties still looking hot in a bikini, to believe she’d remain attractive. And she knew she’d always have the choice to let people, if only briefly, into her life. Even if all her friends eventually slipped away, there would forever be men in bars and clubs who would be up for no-strings sex. It was one of the laws of the universe.

  But now the universe was proving unreliably, disturbingly elastic, and any smugness that had accompanied Charlotte’s feeling master of her fate and captain of her soul had been crushed like a bug. By a man who looked as if he should be first in line for the casting of Bill Sikes.

  When Charlotte had applied for the job as Patrick King’s personal assistant, all she’d cared about was that the hours were reasonable, the location of his office convenient and the salary fair. She’d had no interest in who he was, though she’d quickly found that this indifference was not shared by others. From those others, she’d learned that her soon-to-be new boss had made a lot of money in property development (the estimates ranged widely, but judging by the fit-out of his offices Charlotte guessed it was several million, and not a million-billion-trillion as one of her friends had declared, spilling her mojito as she stretched her arms out wide to illustrate), and that he might have gained it through criminal activity (the evidence for this being that he was six foot five and had the face and accent of an East End gangster). He was married, and one friend started to mutter about Frances Shea, Reggie Kray’s unfortunate young wife who took her own life, until another friend said that he’d met Patrick King’s wife and, while she was undeniably gorgeous, it would be she who drove people to suicide, not the other way round. Someone else said they thought he had a child, and at that point everyone lost interest and started talking about Damien Hirst.

  Once she’d started working for Mr King (she’d politely refused his invitation to call him Patrick), Charlotte also learned that he had a large, extended family of Gypsy origin, whose members phoned and emailed constantly. By noting how fast Patrick (which she did call him in her mind) replied, Charlotte was able to ascertain the family pecking order. At the top by miles was Patrick’s Uncle Jenico, and when he visited the office in person Charlotte could see why. Jenico Herne was like a giant redwood: on one hand, he was tall, broad and majestic; and on the other, if you ran up against him, there was no doubt you’d come off second best. He exuded a calm but categorical promise of retribution to those who might do him or any of his family wrong. Patrick, Charlotte observed, had a similar presence — you’d think twice before annoying him — but he lacked the imperturbable bearing that made his uncle truly terrifying.

  Charlotte’s first-hand knowledge of Gypsies was admittedly nil, but, still, she didn’t think Jenico looked as Gypsy-like as Patrick did. Patrick was all dark hair, eyes and skin — swarthy, as Charlotte’s father would say when he was pretending not to be racist — whereas Jenico’s skin was fairer and his hair a dark red. She decided it was a genetic quirk, because two of Patrick’s young cousins had the same red hair and, more intriguingly, so did Patrick’s little son, Tom, who was nearly two.

  Charlotte had seen photos of Tom because Patrick had them all over his desk. He also had a few photos of his wife. Her name was Clare, and Charlotte had to admit that she was, indeed, gorgeous — chestnut haired and in her mid-thirties, which made her about ten years younger than Patrick. Clare never came into the office because, according to Patrick, she was too busy with Tom.

  So it was to Charlotte’s surprise that Patrick had brought Tom to work one morning. The reason given was that Clare was ill. Charlotte had gathered that Clare being ill was like pandas mating; it almost never happened. Now that it had, it seemed the family had been unprepared.

  ‘Don’t you have a nanny?’ Charlotte had asked. ‘Or an au pair?’

  Patrick had started to say a word beginning with ‘F’, then glanced guiltily at Tom and turned it into a cough. ‘Clare would sooner skin a cat and eat it raw than have a nanny. If I suggested an au pair, she’d skin me.’

  ‘What about your family? Can’t they help?’

  ‘Clare suspects that my family skins and eats cats on a regular basis.’

  Charlotte had given him a steady look. ‘And do they?’

  Patrick had grinned. ‘These days, only on very special occasions.’

  Charlotte’s eyes had travelled to where Tom stood, beside the sliding cabinets that housed files. They were very nicely designed sliding cabinets, with whisper-quiet mechanisms that meant they shushed to and fro with barely a sound. At least, they did if you weren’t trying to crash them together, which Tom was. Repeatedly.

  Charlotte had given Patrick another steady look. He’d screwed up his face apologetically, and said, ‘I don’t suppose—?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even if—?’

  ‘No.’

  Patrick had blown out a breath. ‘Fuck.’

  Then the door to the office had opened, and in had walked one of Patrick’s cousins. Despite the regularity of their contact with Patrick, the identities of most of the Herne/King clan tended to blur for Charlotte. She could distinguish Jenico, Patrick’s mother, Consuela, and one of his female cousins, Aishe, only because they were all, in their own way, more than a little scary. Consuela, Charlotte was convinced, would hex her without a qualm, and Aishe was unfailingly impatient and blisteringly rude. Not to Charlotte, but about numerous of Aishe’s own relatives, including Patrick (but not, Charlotte observed, Jenico). Charlotte quite enjoyed her conversations with Aishe.

  The cousin who had just walked through the door was Aishe’s brother. He was about thirty-five, dark like Patrick and extremely good looking, but so reticent that if Patrick had not recently hired him to manage a construction project, Charlotte would have had difficulty singling him out from the rest of the muddling Gypsy crowd. Even now, she had to think for a moment to recall his name.

  ‘Anselo!’

  Patrick had greeted him with such bonhomie that anyone who knew him would have been instantly on their guard.

  Anselo instantly was. Charlotte had already decided that his good looks were marred by a tendency towards surliness, but in this case she felt he had every right to look distrustful. She’d seen his gaze slide to where Tom stood, happily slamming the filing cabinets.

  ‘No.’ Anselo had shaken his head. ‘No way.’

  ‘It’ll be good practice.’

  That’s right, Charlotte remembered. Anselo’s wife was about to have a baby.

  ‘Do you want this project completed on time or not?’

  ‘What’s one day?’ Patrick had scowled.

  ‘The difference between on time and not.’

  Patrick had scowled harder. ‘Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do with him?’

  ‘Take him to the Natural History Museum, or Madame Tussauds, or something.’

  ‘He’ll shit himself at Madame Tussauds. And he’ll probably break something at the Natural History Museum. Like a large dinosaur skeleton.’

  ‘Legoland, then. It’s a bit of a drive, but …’ Anselo had shrugged.

  ‘How about the zoo?’ Charlotte had said.

  Both men had stared at her.

  ‘Can I go to the zoo in a suit?’

  ‘I don’t think they charge you more. Just don’t stand too close to the chimpanzees. They can throw quite accurately.’

  Patrick had inhaled a deep, slow breath and then turned towar
ds his young son.

  ‘Come on, you. We’re going to the zoo. And if a chimpanzee so much as fucking looks at me, I’m going to vent my frustrations by kicking his hairy backside from one end of Regent’s Park to the other.’

  That had been two months ago. Anselo’s wife had had her baby — a boy, whom they’d called Cosmo. Patrick’s own wife had been ill twice more, and, though Patrick had obviously managed to find a better place for Tom than outside the ape enclosure at London Zoo, Charlotte knew that things weren’t going smoothly on the domestic front. She knew because she’d overheard more than one heated phone conversation, and because she had caught him twice now wearing the same clothes as the previous day, a sure sign that he had not been home.

  And some time during those two months, Charlotte had fallen in love with him. Charlotte had not been in love before and was disturbed enough by its symptoms to look them up on a medical website. Even then, it took her quite some time to grasp that a rare strain of Peruvian pig flu was not the reason why, whenever Patrick was around, Charlotte felt her stomach hurtle up through her oesophagus and thump to a halt at the top of her windpipe, dramatically restricting her ability to either speak or breathe.

  When she did finally work it out, she was so disgusted by herself that she had to take an early lunch break and go pound the streets, muttering, until she realised her fellow pedestrians were giving her more space than they’d willingly give a sane person. This prompted her to duck into the nearest church, a place she felt would welcome her as it had most likely given up all hope of attracting anyone bar the homeless or the kind of little old lady who still wore interlock undergarments. Sitting on the hard pew, Charlotte had another surge of panic. Unlike the time on the mudbank, Charlotte knew no one could rescue her from this. Short as yet of a solution, she briefly considered praying, until she saw the name of the church’s resident saint, and sensed the hand of the divine prankster sneaking upwards to press the water-filled bulb of his fake buttonhole. This was the church of St Etheldreda. To Charlotte, that said it all.