Free Mr and Mischief by Kate Hewitt Page B

smiling, and Helen darted an anxious look at Jane.
    ‘I disconnected three calls,’ she confessed in a whisper. ‘And I got the lists wrong—’
    ‘The lists?’
    ‘The ones about who likes their calls and who doesn’t,’ Helen explained. She sounded frantic. ‘I mixed it all up, and gave the calls to people who don’t want them and not to those who do—’
    ‘Oh, well, no one was too bothered, were they?’ Emily said, quick to reassure Helen. ‘I told you, we’re quite a friendly bunch here.’
    ‘Mr Hatley came down right to the desk,’ Helen said in a low voice. ‘Shouted at me that he didn’t want the bloody calls.’ She blinked up at Emily, who felt her heart give a little twist at Helen’s obvious misery.
    ‘I should have warned you about John,’ she said. ‘He’s an old bear, but his bark is much worse than his bite. Or growl, I suppose. Come on.’ She reached for Helen’s coat, which hung on a nearby hook, and handed it to her. ‘There’s a pasta place around the corner that does a wonderful lasagne. Let’s forget our troubles for a bit.’
    Helen rose gratefully from her seat and Emily waved to Jane, who gave her a rather despairing shake of her head and a pointed look at Helen before Emily sailed through the building’s front doors. It appeared it was going to take more than a morning for Helen to figure out the phones, but she’d get there in the end. Emily would make sure of it.
    In any case, everything looked better from a cosy table in a restaurant, as they tucked into huge bowls of pasta and crusty garlic bread.
    ‘How are you finding London?’ Emily asked as she twirled some linguine around her fork. ‘Is Richard showing you around a bit?’
    ‘A bit,’ Helen allowed. She sounded cautious, perhaps even unhappy. Emily could hardly pretend to be surprised.
    ‘He’s busy, I suppose?’ she said in sympathy; she could just imagine Richard getting on with his flood retention basins and hydraulic mechanisms and who knew what else, leaving Helen quite on her own.
    ‘I didn’t realise he worked quite as much as he did,’ Helen admitted. ‘And I don’t understand a word of it—’
    ‘Neither do I,’ Emily confessed cheerfully. ‘And I’ve worked here for five years.’ She was interested in people, not mathematical formulas or desalination plants, for that matter. ‘Surely he’s been around sometimes, though?’ she asked, and Helen gave a little shrug.
    ‘Occasionally,’ she said softly. She hesitated, then confessed in an anxious rush, ‘I suppose it’s bound to be different than you think, isn’t it? We’ve been friends for so long, you know, and of course things will be bumpy at first—’
    Bumpy? Emily felt a swell of self-righteous indignation. Surely Helen deserved a bit better than
bumpy,
a little more than sitting at home waiting for Richard to ring. ‘Tell you what,’ she said suddenly, an idea lighting her mind and firing her heart, ‘I’ve an invitation to a party tonight—it’s a launch for a new clothing designer, I think.’ Actually, she wasn’t sure what it was for; she received dozens of invitations every week, so that Emily mixed them up in her mind. Yet any of them would be a good opportunity to dance and laugh, and that was just what Helen needed. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’
    Helen’s face slackened in shock. ‘Me? You want to go with
    me?’
    Richard had already done a number on her, Emily thought sourly. ‘Of course. It’ll be fun.’
    ‘I don’t have proper clothes—’
    ‘You can borrow something of mine.’ Emily eyed Helen assessingly, acknowledging that she was probably a size or twosmaller than Emily was. Well, she had a few things she didn’t fit into any more, alas. And the idea of a makeover energised her. ‘We’ll have a real girly evening getting all done up,’ she said, ‘and then have a night on the town! Richard won’t know what’s happened to you.’
    Slowly, shyly, Helen brightened. ‘That does