Free Her Impossible Boss by Cathy Williams

She hadn’t bargained on the fact that her body would have a will of its own and would go haring off in the opposite direction.
    Samantha had made it to him, and it was only when they were both looking at her that Tess took in the woman sitting next to him at the small, circular metaltable. For a few seconds her steps faltered, because if this was a relative then she certainly wasn’t a relative of the comfortable variety.
    Holding a cup primly between her fingers, and with dark shades concealing all expression, was a strikingly attractive woman with an expertly tailored bob that was sharply cut to chin level. A pale lemon silk cardigan was casually draped over her shoulders.
    Matt half stood as she reached the table but his companion remained seated, although she pushed the shades onto her head revealing cool brown eyes.
    ‘Tess…I’d like you to meet Vicky.’
    The expected return of his common sense was failing to materialise. It had been a trying morning. Samantha had been disappointed that their cosy party of three had expanded to include Vicky, and although Matt told himself that it was healthy for her to deal with the fact that Tess was not a member of the family he had still felt as though some of the progress he had made with his daughter had been somehow undermined by the inclusion of Vicky in their day out.
    And then had come his disappointing reaction to seeing Vicky. His interest had not been re-ignited, and indeed he had been irritated by her.
    She had had precious little contact with Samantha before her three week visit to Hong Kong, but had immediately seen fit to try and establish a relationship. He had been all too aware that his daughter had retreated into herself and had blamed him for this unwelcome development.
    All in all, a bit of a nightmare, and now, seeing Tessnext to Vicky, he was already beginning to draw unwelcome comparisons.
    ‘You’re the nanny!’ Vicky offered a cool smile. ‘Matt’s told me about you in his e-mails. What a blessing that you turned up when you did! This little thing has been super-naughty with her nannies—haven’t you, sweetie? You’re very young, aren’t you?’
    E-mails? Tess didn’t like the thought of being discussed behind her back, and it was dawning on her that this was Matt’s girlfriend. The fact that he even had one came as a shock, but as the reality of it began to sink in she wondered how on earth she could ever have expected otherwise. Men like Matt Stickland were never short of women throwing themselves at him. He was as rich as Croesus and sinfully good-looking. Now, in light of this, her silly infatuation with him—if it could even be called that—struck her as tellingly naïve.
    This woman was far more the type he would go for, even if his body language was saying otherwise. She was clever and accomplished, and, as the day progressed, Tess was left in very little doubt that there was absolutely nothing the woman hadn’t already achieved or else was about to.
    Vicky talked non-stop. She tried to make jokes with Matt, who smiled stiffly and contributed very little to the conversation. She gave long, educational lectures to Samantha about every animal they passed and was undeterred by the silent, faintly hostile response. She confided in Tess every qualification she had ever gained and her progress in her career step by step, starting with when she was a lowly junior manager and culminating in her exalted position now, as CEO of one of the largestlisted companies in America. She was smart and she was self-confident, and she had scaled heights in her career that most women might only ever dream of.
    Matt wouldn’t raise his eyebrows and make some dry, amused remark about
her
taste in television programmes. He would have informed discussions with her and talk about everything from the state of the economy to world politics.
    Tess waited two and a half hours before she felt it polite to tell them that she would be on her way. Samantha, like her,