An Interrupted Marriage (Silhouette Special Edition) by Laurey Bright

you last night,” she said, flushing slightly as she recollected in what context, “there’s no need to treat me with velvet gloves. It was a perfectly ordinary remark.”
    “Okay, I’ll try to remember.”
    Jade gave an exaggerated sigh, and gazed at him with her chin on her hands, her elbows resting on the table.
    Magnus winced. “I’ve just done it again, haven’t I?”
    Jade nodded, and he pushed away his emptied plate, smiling almost reluctantly at the long-suffering expression on her face. “I won’t apologise yet again.” He reached for a piece of toast. “Shall I ask Mrs. Gaines to make some fresh toast?”
    “No, not for me.”
    She had finished her cornflakes, and Magnus said, “Have some bacon and eggs, then.” He lifted the cover.
    They did look and smell delicious, and it would be a pity to waste Mrs. Gaines’s efforts. Later, though, she’d tell the housekeeper that there was no need to make a cooked breakfast for her.
    Magnus poured coffee as she took a crisp rasher and an orange-yolked farm egg from the dish. “There are a couple of things you could do,” he told her. “I’ve got behind with the filing, and there are letters that need typing. I’ve made notes on a tape recorder. I usually send them to a secretarial bureau in Auckland.”
    “I’ll deal with them.”
    By the time he’d finished a second cup of coffee she was ready to accompany him to the office. He gave her a pile of paper and indicated the filing cabinet. “Ask me if you’re not sure where to put any of them. And there’s a tape player on the desk over there with the typewriter.”
    “Earphones?”
    “In the drawer.”
    He switched on the computer and settled himself in front of it while Jade quietly went about slotting papers into the filing cabinet. She put aside the queries to be dealt with later, now and then stealing a glance at the apparently oblivious man sharing the room, his fingers tapping on the keys, his head bent slightly towards the screen as he concentrated on the figures that moved about it.
    It was a familiar scenario, although formerly his office had been in a glass-walled building in the heart of Auckland city.
    During a preliminary interview before hiring Jade, he had expressed both surprise and some reservations about her youth, but Jade had deliberately cultivated a mature appearance and manner, and her qualifications and ability had been impeccable.
    They’d been a good team, she and Magnus. After her first few weeks working for him, she’d never felt like an inferior staff member, a minion, and once he’d ensured she was thoroughly acquainted with her duties, Magnus had treated her like an equal.
    The job had been challenging, exciting, because they complemented each other, he with his brilliance with figures and knowledge of the intricacies of accountancy, and she with her meticulous spelling, grammar, layout and keyboarding skills, her talent for organisation, her ability to take care of time-consuming details and deal with difficult clients who wanted an appointment yesterday, or got fidgety when the person before them took up more than the allotted time.
    Always a perfectionist, she’d been constantly striving for the role of office paragon, never a foot wrong or a hair out of place. She had exerted herself to more than live up to expectation, a byword for efficiency and thoroughness.
    When his father died of a heart attack with no warning at all, Jade had been the first person Magnus told. He’d taken the call, and then asked her to come into his office and said calmly, “I’ve had bad news. My father collapsed and died about half an hour ago.”
    She’d thought at first that he was completely unemotional about it. He’d asked her to cancel his appointments or refer them to his partners, firing instructions about unfinished business so fast she could scarcely keep up as she scribbled notes. “Phone me at home if you need to,” he’d said, and stood up. “I know I can rely on