Time for a COFFEE

Gemma’s feelings for her boss had been simmering for too long – it was time to take action

- Rebecca Mansell

Richard Abbott pulled my ponytail at school and made me cry.

When we were at secondary school, he kissed me, and I blushed.

Many years later, when he became my boss, I realised he had forgotten our schooldays. I mean, he obviously knew we had been to school together, but his expression had been vague when I mentioned in my interview how awful Mr Jenkins had been as a geography teacher.

I got the job as his personal assistant and hoped it might lead to something more. I know it isn’t professional to mix business with pleasure, but Richard Abbott was every girl’s dream. Tall, with cool blue eyes and a mysterious air about him, he walked around the building as if he owned it (well, he did own it), and he wasn’t married. He was an eligible bachelor, ripe for the picking.

The only problem was, he never saw me in that light. Despite that, after two years of working for him, it became my goal to grab his attention in a romantic way. Surely at some point, when I gave him his early morning black coffee, he would suddenly realise that his PA had qualities beyond typing and administration? Our eyes would meet, and the earth would move and…

‘Dreaming again?’

Joe slipped a couple of folders onto my desk and fixed me with an intense stare. I flushed and looked away. If only Richard would gaze at me like that. But so far, all I’d had were a few cursory glances and polite thank yous for my work. I was his personal assistant, but it seemed to be in name only. He liked to do most important tasks himself.

‘He’s a control freak,’ Joe, who worked in the financial department, was fond of saying. He had a degree in psychology and was forever psychoanalysing people. Myself included.