‘But you’re in charge. I’m waiting for orders.’

‘We need to get a dumpster,’ he said in exasperation. ‘Something to get rid of this lot.’

‘You have two weddings to organise before Christmas and you’re planning to redecorate the salon?’ she said cautiously. ‘Right.’ She lifted the phone. ‘I’ll order a dumpster.’

‘Dresses,’ he said, in increasing frustration. ‘We need to organise a wedding dress and attendants’ outfits.’

‘They might take some time,’ Jenny said, and started dialling.

He lifted the phone from her hand and crashed it down onto the cradle.

‘If I don’t get some solid help here I’ll-’

‘Sack me?’ she said, and smiled.

Damn the woman. He knew she was competent. He wanted to take her shoulders and shake her.

He wanted to kiss her.

That thought wasn’t helping things at all. His normally cool, calculating mind was clouded, and it was clouded because this woman was looking up at him with a strange, enigmatic smile.

This woman who was as far from his life as any woman he’d ever met. This woman who was up to her neck in emotional entanglements.

His employee.

He took a deep breath, turned, and paced the salon a couple of times, trying to clear his head. He knocked one of the bridal mannequins and spent a couple of minutes righting it.

He turned to Jenny and she was watching him, her eyes interested, her head to one side like an inquisitive sparrow.

Forget she’s a woman, he told himself. And forget she’s an employee. Let’s get this onto some sort of even keel.

‘Jenny, I’m out of my depth here,’ he told her. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

She stilled. The faint smile on her face faded. He’d shocked her, he thought. Whatever she’d been expecting it hadn’t been that.

There was a long silence.