Boss and His Secretary

TARYN was aware that her concentration had gone to pot and pulled in to the side of the road. Sitting in her parked car, she felt poleaxed by what she had just doneby what Brian Mellor had just done. She had worked at Mellor Engineering for five years, and had grown to love Brian ever since she had been promoted to his PA two years ago. Brian was head of the prosperous and wellthoughtofcompany. He was a good employer and they worked well together. He was tall, blond, easygoing, kindand married! His wife, Angie, was a lovely person too. Not in features. In actual fact Angie Mellor was rather plain. But what she lacked in beauty she more than made up for in her quiet but warm and giving personality. It was clear that she adored her husband, clear also that their children, sevenyearold Ben and threeyearold Lilian, adored their father too. That their marriage was blissfully happy was apparent to anyone who saw Brian and Angie Mellor together, which had greatly helped Taryn to keep her love for him hidden. Disturbingly, though, she had sensed around six months ago that everything was not going so well in the Mellor household. Taryn had not been quite able to put her finger on what was wrong, or to know why she felt that anythingwaswrong. Just an outofkilter word here, a cross look there when Angie came into the office, which she did every Friday when she was in town shopping. And then, two months ago, Angie had stopped coming in on a Friday. 'Is Angie all right?" Taryn had asked Brian on a number of Fridays. "Fine," he'd replied absently, and straight away plunged on with some workrelated issue. It had worried Taryn. She'd felt she knew Angie well enough to ring her on some pretext. But to do that somehow seemed to be not only prying but, since Brian had said his wife was 'fine', slightly underhand. Matters appeared not to have not improved. And on that very day, Taryn, much to her own astonishment, let alone anyone else's, had walked out on her job! Sitting motionless in her car, she could still not quite believe she had done what she had. She loved her job. She was good at it. She loved Brian, was fond of his wifebut having walked out, there was no going back. There could not be; she just knew it, no question. Feeling shaken, and very much all over the place, Taryn relived how the day had started much the same as any other day. She had parked her car and made her way into the manystoreyed building that housed not only the head office of Mellor Engineering, but other highly successful companies too. She'd been first in; she sometimes was. With her home life not as harmonious as she would have liked, she often left for work early, and, depending on what particular strife was taking place at home, frequently worked late. When Brian had arrived that morning, however, he'd seemed a touch distracted. Taryn had made no comment but, having dealt with some of his post, discussed the remainder with him and then returned to her own office. She'd watched him, though. Throughout that morning, whenever they'd been in contact, she had watched the man she'd only ever known as pleasant as, clearly unhappy about something, he went about his business. But it had been nearing four that afternoon when she'd had cause to go into his office and, observing his strangely morose expression, had just had to softly ask, 'What is it, Brian?" "Nothing...' he began. But then, sort of lunging to his feet, 'I've had enough," he said in a strangled kind of way. 'I can't take any more!" "Oh, Brian love," she murmured, the small endearment, often thought but never said, out before she could stop it. "Oh, Taryn," he cried miserably, and before she had a clue to what he was about to doalmost as ifSteele, Jessica is the author of 'Boss and His Secretary ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373183029 and ISBN 037318302X.