My boss and I

Episode4.LOVE IN DISGUISE

LOVE IN DISGUISE

Alexandra didn’t look a bit like Kingston, and now that he had seen her Dan had to concede. The Kingston were dark-haired, dark-eyed, tall people with no sense of humor.

Pamela had routinely been labeled as an absentee wife and mother who spent half her time in Sydney and Melbourne living it up and getting her photo in all the glossy magazines.

Dan knew she had remarried eighteen months after her first husband’s death. Wedding number two was no fairy tale, either. It, too, had gone on the rocks. Pamela was a banker with whom she had a young son. It seemed Sandra had moved out fairly early.

He wondered exactly when. Not yet twenty-one, the combative little Miss Sandra Kingston gave the strong impression she had looked after herself for some time.

And possibly after her mother, the basket case. Hell, he knew as much about female depression and the various forms it took as the illustration of Doctor Freud.

All right, what are you thinking? Sandra cut into Dan’s pondering.

I was wondering when you left home.

As the question was asked so probingly, she began to move the salt-pepper shakers around like chess pieces. To be honest, from which you might deduce I’m given to telling lies, I’m not. I’ve never really had a home.

You and me both, he confessed, laconically. Instantly she was diverted from her sombre thoughts. So there’s more? She leaned forward, elbows on the table,

All attention.

If you think I’m about to share my life story with you, Ms Kingston, I’m not!

She shook her head. Is that a hint I’m communicating too much? She asked tartly, slumping back in her chair.

Not at all. It strikes me you’ve spent a lot of time alone.

She sighed theatrically, then stole one of his sandwiches. That’s what happens when your mother has three husbands.

One of them was your dad, He pointed out. She nearly choked, and she was so quick to retort.

That son of a b***h Lloyd challenged that at least a dozen times before I was ten.

The muscles along his jaw tightened. He knew all about labels. He’s not a very nice person, he said shortly.

He’s a bully, she said. And I’m going to prove that. He upset my mother. I know she wasn’t the woman to exercise caution but don’t you think she would have been completely cautious but don’t you think she would have been completely insane to try to put one across my dad let alone my fearsome old grandpop.

My dad always knew I was his little girl. He used to call me “my little possum. He told me every day he loved me. I think he was the only person in the entire world who did. Then he went off and left me. I was so sad and so angry.

My mum and I needed him. It’s awful to be on your own. She dug her pretty white teeth into her nether lio again, dragging them across the cushiony surface, coloring it rosy.

So a man does come in handy? he asked. She looked into his eyes and he saw the sorrow behind the prickly front. A dad is really important.

Hadn’t he faced that all his life? Even a bastard of a dad.

Getting killed was the very last thing your dad wanted, Sandra. Unfortunately, death is the one appointment none of us can break. I’m sure your mother loves you. Your grandfather too in his way.

Gid that’s corny! Now she fixed him with a contemptuous glare. “In his way. What a cop-out!

He made you his heiress, he pointed out reasonably. Do people who hate you leave you a fortune? I don’t think so. Your grandfather passed his son, your uncle, and his only grandson who is older than you by three years.

I can count, she said shortly, hungrily polishing off another one of his sandwiches. I got to go to university. I was a famous swot.

Head never out of a book?

Something like that. She shrugged, picking away a piece of rocket. In a locked room. My stepfather, Jeremy Linklater, I V, developed a few little unlawful ideas about me.

He who thought himself unshockable was shocked to the core.

You can’t trust anyone these days, she

said in a world-weary fashion. Certainly not men. There should be a protection Scheme for female stepchildren.

Hell! he breathed, hoping it wasn’t going to get worse. He didn’t touch you?

Her expression showed her detestation of stepfather Jeremy. Not the bad stuff. How was confiding all this to a stranger when she had never spoken about it at all? There was just something about this Daniel Carson.

Thank God for that! He released a pent-up sigh. The guy must have crawled out from under a rock. So when did you leave home?

She shrugged, l*****g a little bit of avocado off her fingertips. I went to boarding school. Then I went on to uni and had on-campus accommodation. It proved a lot safer than being at home.

Did your mother know what was going on?

Surely not. That would have been criminal.

She sighed. My mother only sees what she wants to see. She can’t help it. It’s the way she’s made. Besides, Jem was pretty adept at picking his moments.

I was always on high alert. Occasionally he got in an awful messy kiss or grope. Once I pinched his face so hard he cried out. Then I took to carrying a weapon on my person.

He could picture it. Don’t tell me. A stun g*n?

Close. A needle with a tranquilizer in it.

You’re joking! That was unexpected. And dangerous.

All right, I am. But I was desperate. I took to carrying my dad’s Swiss Army knife. You know what that is?

Of course, I know what it is, he said, frowning hard at the very idea of her needing to carry such a thing as a weapon. I have one, like millions of other guys. It’s a miniature toolbox.

You don’t have one like mine. It’s a collector’s item, she boasted. An original eighteen ninety one version.

Really? I’d like to see it.

She laughed. And I’d enjoy showing it to you if I couldn’t bring it on the plane.

I wish I could meet up with this Jem, he said grimly.