Blind Date with the Boss (Heads or Hearts #6)

​CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SALLY tried to carry on at work as if nothing in her life had changed, but it was a tall order considering that everything had changed while she’d been dancing with Logan Black.

? To start with she’d discovered she’d fallen helplessly in love with him, which was a whopping big problem on its own. But then he’d made everything worse by moving in close to her. She’d felt his body heat and every inch of her skin had tightened.

? Tingled.

Yearned.

It could have been a delicious moment, might have become a delicious moment, if her mind hadn’t flashed to that other time. That other dancing partner.

Instead of bliss, panic had flared.

The only good thing was that she hadn’t dissolved into a quivering, gibbering mess. She’d been pleased, actually, that she’d managed to recover fairly quickly. But then Logan had complicated everything again by asking her out to dinner.

He'd made it sound so simple and straightforward – nothing more than payment for the lessons. But any way Sally looked at dinner with Logan Black it was complex, thorny, problematical...

To start with, every girl knew that dating the boss was a lightning-rod for trouble. If the rest of the staff found out, they would immediately conclude she was hungry for a fast-tracked promotion. And if office gossip wasn’t something to fret about, there was the whole business of the white roses.

Talk about confusing. Sally suspected that very few women – even women as sophisticated as Chloe had been – had the savoir faire to meet their boss’s current lover and then head off to dinner with him .

But Logan had assured her there’d be no problem and in the end his unruffled certainty had tipped the balance. It was why she’d said yes.

? After all, he stood to lose more than she did if news of their dinner date became water-cooler gossip at Blackcorp. And it was his problem if their dinner date upset his lover. If he could be calm about that, why couldn’t she?

? Nevertheless, whenever Sally thought about that evening, she found it was possible to look forward to a date and dread it at the same time.

Not surprisingly, when Logan arrived at six-thirty, her stomach was a mass of nerves. He’d quickly showered and changed, as she had, and now he was wearing casual beige trousers and a dark shirt beneath a rather sporty, lightweight jacket.

His hair was still damp and Sally, in her best little black dress and kitten heels – because there was no point in not looking her best – could smell his aftershave as he opened the car door for her. Once inside the car, she smelled the scent of the white roses glistening on the back seat and her stomach tightened.

Logan tried to make conversation as he drove to Clifton House, but for once Sally was too tense to respond with anything more than monosyllables. Eventually, he gave up, and the journey was completed in uncomfortable silence.

They arrived at very large iron gates, which were opened by a man in a little sentry box. The man greeted Logan and actually dipped his cap as the black car purred through the gateway and up a long, gravelled drive that wound its way through green parkland.

Sally gasped. ‘Where is this? It looks like the grounds of a mansion.’

‘Clifton House,’ was Logan’s brief and unsatisfactory reply.

They emerged from a grove of trees into a wide courtyard complete with a beautiful fountain. In the rays of the setting sun, two storeys of windows glinted gold. This was a mansion. And Sally was way, way out of her comfort zone.

The name – Clifton House – had been embellished in gold on a black sign. And then beneath it, in smaller print, were the words Nursing Home .

Sally rounded on Logan. ‘I don’t understand.’

As he steered his car into a parking space between graceful sandstone columns, he slanted her a sheepish smile. ‘This is where I bring the white roses.’

‘Is – is the woman you love sick? Or does she run this place?’

‘Her health is quite delicate.’

‘What does that mean? Has she been seriously ill? Or through some kind of detox program?’

‘God forbid.’

Slipping out of his seat, he opened the rear door and retrieved the roses, and then he came around to open Sally’s door, but she beat him to it. ‘What’s going on, Logan? This isn’t making sense.’

He grinned. ‘Just be patient and all will be revealed.’

Stamping her foot angrily, Sally fumed. ‘I’m not setting foot inside this place until I know who I’m supposed to be meeting.’ She stamped her foot again. ‘And why she’s in a nursing home.’ Another poke. ‘And why you’ve got such a silly grin on your face.’

‘Bravo!’ cried a voice from behind her.

Spinning around, Sally discovered a diminutive old lady in a motorised wheelchair. The woman’s face was a picture of delighted surprise and her lively brown eyes twinkled from beneath a tidy cap of snowy curls.

‘I like to see a young woman with fire,’ she said.

‘Darling,’ Logan intervened, stooping quickly to kiss the old lady’s papery cheek and settling the bouquet of roses gently in her lap. ‘What are you doing outside at this hour?’

‘It’s such a lovely evening, I thought I’d come out to meet you. And I’m very glad I did. Now, introduce me to this interesting young woman.’

There was a flash of emotion in Logan’s eyes that Sally couldn’t quite identify. It was followed by a charming smile of apology. ‘Grandmother, this is Sally Finch.’

Why hadn’t she guessed that the white roses were for someone like a grandmother? Why hadn’t Maeve or Kim guessed? The nerve of Logan to let his staff think they were for his lover.

‘Sally,’ Logan continued. ‘I’d like you to meet my wonderful and formidable grandmother, Hattie Lane.’

Swallowing her outrage, Sally dredged up a smile as she offered her hand to be clasped by thin and wrinkled fingers. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Lane.’

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Sally and please, call me Hattie.’

‘Now,’ Logan said quickly, ignoring his grandmother’s sharp, birdlike glances of bristling curiosity, ‘let’s get you inside out of this damp night air.’

Taking hold of her wheelchair, he propelled it towards the front doorway.

Clifton House was certainly fancier than any nursing home Sally had visited, more like a grand hotel. Logan’s grandmother’s room was on the ground floor. Spacious and airy, it housed a large bed with a beautiful, quilted cream bedspread, built-in bookshelves and an en suite bathroom. There was also a small sitting area with armchairs and a coffee table beside tall French windows that opened out to the garden.

‘Take a seat, Sally.’ Hattie Lane, as regal in her wheelchair as on a throne, pointed to an armchair deeply upholstered in pale green velvet. ‘That chair next to the window is very comfortable.’

Sally sat where she was told and watched with mild surprise as Logan arranged the bouquet of white roses in a beautiful pink crystal vase. His long fingers worked deftly and the results were surprisingly pleasing to the eye.

‘Thank you, darling.’ His grandmother smiled at him fondly, then with an extra twinkle in her eyes she asked, ‘And now, how about pouring us a little sherry?’

Obediently, Logan went to a pretty cupboard in the corner and extracted three fragile, gold-rimmed sherry glasses and a matching carafe with a heavy glass stopper.

‘This must be a special occasion,’ he said.

‘Of course it’s a special occasion. It’s the first time you’ve ever brought one of your young lady friends to visit me.’

Sally wished she hadn’t been looking at Logan then, hadn’t seen his frown and the sudden tightening of his mouth. Clearly, he wasn’t pleased that his grandmother had jumped to incorrect conclusions about their relationship.

Serves him right for tricking me into coming here .

If she’d had time, Sally might have asked herself why Logan had brought her here, but right now she decided it was more important to set the record straight with Hattie and to make sure she understood that Sally wasn’t one of her grandson’s ‘young lady friends’.

Too nervous to take time to find a delicate way of putting this, Sally blurted out quickly, ‘I’m not actually Logan’s girlfriend. I work at Blackcorp, you see. I started there a couple of weeks ago as a receptionist, but then Mr. Black needed dancing lessons and I’ve been helping him.’

Sally felt better now that she’d got that out, but Hattie’s air of excitement hadn’t dimmed one jot.

‘How interesting,’ she said and she beamed at her grandson. ‘So you’re finally learning to dance, Logan.’

He tried to shrug this aside. ‘It’s all Carissa’s doing. She talked me into a charity auction at the Hospital Ball, even though she knows I can’t dance to save myself.’

‘But he’s learning fast,’ Sally told her.

‘I’m sure the dear boy’s a very fast learner.’ Hattie made no attempt to hide her delighted amusement.

Still flustered, Sally said, ‘And – and he’s taking me to dinner tonight, but it – it’s only a kind of thank you.’

Hattie actually laughed. ‘What an excellent idea!’

Worried that Logan’s grandmother might still have the wrong end of the stick, Sally considered further explanation, but Logan thrust a glass of sherry into her hand.

‘Why don’t we drink to my grandmother’s health?’ He spoke smoothly, but his eyes signalled a clear warning that Sally had said quite enough.

Lifting his glass, he said to Hattie, ‘Here’s to your good health, old girl.’

‘Your good health,’ echoed Sally.

‘And yours, darlings.’ Hattie beamed at them both as if they were very good children who had pleased her greatly.

Unused to such sweet, fortified wine, Sally sipped carefully.

Hattie downed a hefty swig, then waved her glass in the direction of the roses. ‘Aren’t these blooms lovely, Sally?’

‘Gorgeous.’

‘Did you know Logan brings them to me every week?’

Sally squashed her urge to explain that she’d been mightily deceived about those roses. ‘How kind,’ she said instead.

‘It’s very extravagant of him, the naughty boy. Some weeks, I pass on perfectly good roses to my friends. They’re very happy to take them, of course.’

Leaning closer, Hattie actually winked at Sally. ‘I used to grow white Bianca roses like these when Logan and his sister were children. Logan used to love playing in my garden, so the roses bring back happy memories for both of us.’

For a moment Sally was lost in a picture of Logan as a black haired little boy, playing in a garden, with grubby knees and a torn T shirt, letting out blood-curdling yells as he threw himself into the same rough and tumble games her brothers had loved.

And now, here he was, all grown up and successful, and bringing roses to his grandmother every week. She wondered what everyone at Blackcorp would think if they knew their serious and career oriented boss had such a kind streak.

How many men would bother?

Sally realised that Hattie’s gaze was fixed on her, watching her face intently and she hoped she hadn’t been looking too wistful. Smiling quickly, she struggled to think of a way to change the subject and remembered what Logan had told her at the teambuilding workshop. ‘Am I right in believing that you used to be a concert pianist, Hattie?’

‘I was indeed.’ Hattie looked down at her knuckles gnarled with age and her fingers knotted with arthritis. ‘How I loved my piano. But I can barely knock out a tune now.’

‘Sally’s a fan of Brahms,’ Logan said.

‘Are you really, dear?’

His grandmother’s instant pleasure made Sally squirm. She wasn’t at all sure that liking one piece of music by a particular composer elevated her to fandom.

‘I – I don’t know very much about classical music.’

‘That doesn’t matter. Logan will teach you,’ Hattie pronounced with blithe confidence. ‘It’s a fair exchange, isn’t it? My grandson can teach you about music and you can teach him to dance.’