Hidden Kiss (Love Is The Law 2) by Isabella Brooke Read Free Book Online Page A

bouncer
as she stared at Emily expectantly.
    "What?"
    "I'm waiting for you, pet. Come on. Put the bloody
answerphone on and let's go have us a cuppa and a natter, eh?"
    "But I…."
    "Are you a smoker?"
    "No."
    "You oughtta be," Polly said, taking a step closer
as if she were about to pick Emily up, and carry her away from her desk.
"Then you'd get more breaks and you'd not be afraid of taking them. Look
at it this way. Do you want to get deep vein thrombosis and have a blood clot
travel around your body and lodge in your head and cause a stroke?"
    "Er… no."
    "Then get up and walk with me, pet."
    This time, Emily didn't hide her distaste at the musty smell
in the poky office, and Polly laughed as she rinsed some mugs under the tap.
"You get used to it. You'll get used to all of this. How are you finding
things, so far?"
    "I like it." Emily was surprised to hear herself
admit it, but it was true. All her previous office temping jobs had been
monotonous trudges through the hell of meaningless paperwork, but at the
charity, she felt as if her work had a purpose.
    "Good. It's pretty manic here but that's all right,
really. Milk, sugar?"
    "Uh, just milk please. Thanks." Emily stayed
standing up and leaned back by the window, her eyes flicking over the curling
posters and notices on the walls. She tried to ignore the smell. "Been
here long?"
    "Three months." Polly's eyes danced. She spoke
with a smile always threatening to break through. "I thought I wanted to
specialise in children's stuff but I did a placement with kids and it broke my
heart, it really did. Then I came here and I thought I was better suited to
working with adults, you know? Though some of 'em are just like kids. So
young."
    "Yeah."
    "Plus, I think my partner woulda thrown me out if I'd
carried on with the children's work. It got to me so that I was going home in
tears and just ripping her head off, taking it all out on her, you know? It was
kinda hard to admit that something I'd dreamed about was not quite right for
me, but that's life. So, what about you?"
    "I'm sorry?" Emily had been thinking about Joel
and his youth. She'd lost track of the conversation and wasn't sure what Polly
was asking her.
    "Partner, home life? Someone to take all the aggro out
on? Pardon me if I'm prying, tell me to go stick it. I do get carried
away." She smiled wide and winningly, with the confidence that her
questions never got refused if she asked jauntily enough.
    Emily grinned back, spontaneously. When she thought of
Turner and the weekend they'd just spent together, a warm rush made her belly
contract. "Yeah. There is someone."
    "Ooh, look at you! Look at that face!" Polly
clapped her hands, making her many silver rings jangle. "You look like a
woman right at the start of a love affair. What are we talking? Days?
Weeks?"
    "Ah, it's kind of complicated. I met him eight months
ago. But we're only just getting together now, properly." She suddenly
didn't want to mention his prison sentence. She told herself it was because it
was in the past, and irrelevant to the here and now.
    Perhaps she was a little ashamed.
    "Aww, how sweet!" Polly didn't probe any further,
and Emily was relieved. "So, you had a weekend of wining and dining and
all that first-date type stuff. Loving it, pet!"
    Emily shook her head but she was still smiling. "Close.
On a budget, though. Not so much of the wining and dining." More like
crappy cooking and limp lasagne.
    Polly drank down the dregs of her tea, and moved to the sink
to wash her mug. She looked sideways at Emily, still by the window. "Is it
true you used to be a journalist? That's what Maria said, at any rate."
    Used to be? That stung. "I… I still am,"
Emily said, with a sigh. "But it's a hard life, being freelance, and I
needed to make some extra money that was a bit more reliable."
    "Oh, I see."
    Emily thought that she probably didn't, but it was time to
get back to work. As she followed Polly in washing up her mug, the staffroom
door opened