irgin Secretary His Virgin Secretary Cathy Williams CHAPTER ONE Bruno was coming, flying back from

New York, and Katy knew that there was just n o way that she was going to be able to do her usual .and disappear the minute he arrived Bruno Giannella, put quite simply, terrified her. She had first met him eighteen months ago, when she had been subjected to an interview that had paid lip servi ce to his opening words-that he just wanted to discover a bit about her, conside ring the role she would have in his godfather's life. Thereafter had followed th e most gruelling hour and a half she had ever endured, which had left her in no doubt that the only way she could possibly get along with the .man was to have a s little to do with him as possible Since then, she had managed to turn evasion into an art form. His visits to his godfather were fleeting, infrequent and pre-planned. Bruno Giannella was not, sh e had long concluded, comfortable with spontaneity. Impulse did not feature high ly in a life that seemed to have been programmed right down to the last minute. It was something for which she was eternally grateful because it gave her

ample opportunity to coincide her departures from the house with exquisite timin g, either just missing him or else seeing him while .virtually on the hop .Now, however, there was to be no such easy avoidance Joseph, his godfather, had been rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack the afternoon before. It had all been a tremendous shock and as soon as things had quiet ened down somewhat she had telephoned his godson to tell him what had happened. It spoke volumes that she had had to call nearly a dozen numbers befor e she had eventually been put through to him in his New York of fice and when sh e finally had made contact, she'd been subjected to a thinly veiled implication that she had somehow taken her time getting in touch with him. No sooner had she stammered her way into her explanation about the difficulties she had had disco vering his precise whereabouts, than he'd been briskly informing her that he wou ld be on his way back to England immediately and that he would expect her to be at the house when he arrived the following day. The click of the telephone be in g hung up on her when she'd been virtually in mid- sentence had been an apt remi nder of why .she so actively disliked the man Not that there was any point brooding on the inevita ble, she thought now, eyes fixed on the drive with all the nervous desperation of someone awaiting the hang man's noose. She had taken up position on the faded rust- coloured chair an hour before, when walking around the house had ceased to work as an effective courag e- boosting exercise, and had not moved from her vigilant vantage point since. S he reasoned that, if she had time to adjust to the sight of him