Men at Work [Quick Read] Read Online Free PDF Page B

okay.
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    The first sign that everything wasn’t going to be okay came at just after midday. Ian’s boss, Douglas, poked his head out of the door to his office and asked Emma to come in for a quick chat. The second sign that everything wasn’t going to be okay came five minutes later, when Ian heard Emma’s joyful cackle. It sounded as though she had just heard the funniest joke in the world. But the third and final sign that everything wasn’t going to be okay came just after twenty past twelve when, beaming from ear to ear, Emma came out of her meeting with Douglas. She was calling over her shoulder as she left, “Of course. Just give me lunchtime to think about it and I’ll have an answer for you this afternoon.”
    “Okay,” said Ian as Emma got back to her desk and took her seat. “What’s going on?”
    “Nothing much,” said Emma grinning.
    “Oh, Em, don’t make me beg will you? It’s clear from that cheesy grin that something is up, so what is it?”
    “Douglas has just offered me a job!” said Emma clapping her hands with glee. “Can you believe it, Ian? We’re going to be desk buddies for life!”
    Ian swallowed hard. “So you’ve said yes?”
    “I told him I’d talk it over with you.”
    “Why would you tell him that?” asked Ian.
    “Because this was only ever supposed to be a temp job. It’s been fun but part of me wonders whether, you know, if I worked here full-time, I might feel a little bit hemmed in by you.”
    “By me?”
    Emma nodded. Ian breathed a huge (but hidden) sigh of relief. “Sweetie,” he said, “there is no way I’d ever want you to feel hemmed in. So if you don’t think you ought to take the job, then don’t take it.”
    “But that’s the thing,” said Emma. “Deep down I really do want to take it.”
    “But what about the hemmed-in feeling?”
    Emma shrugged. “I think I could get used to it. I mean, I’ve been here a month and you haven’t felt hemmed in by me, have you?”
    Ian thought about telling Emma exactly how hemmed in he felt but at the last moment he stopped. Emma was so happy, he just couldn’t bring himself to ruin things for her. This was no time for the truth. “I’ve loved it,” he said and kissed her on the cheek. “It really has made my month having you around.”
    “Well in that case,” said Emma rising to her feet, “there’s no point in me hanging about, is there? I’ll tell Doug yes right now.”
    As Ian watched Emma cross the room to Douglas’s office, two thoughts popped into his head. The first was that he loved Emma more than he had ever loved any woman in his life. The second was that the idea of working with her forever made him want to poke his eyes out with the wrong end of a spoon. There was no way that he could stand working with her every day. No way at all. He would have to do something about it and he was going to have to do it soon or risk never being happy at work or at home ever again.

Chapter 11
    Emma had a stunned look on her face.
    “What did you just say?”
    “I said, I think it’s time we started a family,” said Ian, barely able to believe that he had said the words himself.
    “Are you serious?”
    “Completely serious. I love you. We’ve been together ages. And I think it’s time.”
    “But I don’t understand,” said Emma. “Where’s all this come from? Last time I checked, weren’t you the man who said I’d got more chance of talking you into a sex change than a baby?”
    “Times change,” said Ian. “Sometimes a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”
    The reason why this man was doing what he was doing had very little to do with wanting his own small bundle of joy. Since Emma had started working permanently at the Policy Planning department over a month ago, every single one of his attempts to get her to leave had failed.
    So far he had tried:
Secretly signing Emma up on recruitment websites in the hope that one of them might offer her a job back in