this position three weeks ago, certain that the reason she hadn’t been offered any of the endless list of the other jobs she had applied for was because she had been too forthcoming with the truth.
But this job looked as if it was hers—particularly as the older woman on the other side of the desk was making no secret of the fact that she favoured Magenta over the only other candidate on the shortlist.
‘And you won’t find it a problem dividing your time between the demands of the office and those of a five-year-old?’ The younger, fair-haired woman, by the name of Lana Barleythorne, was challenging her. ‘He can’t have been at school very long...’
‘Well over a year,’ Magenta supplied, proud of how bright and advanced for his age her little boy was. ‘And I do have very satisfactory childcare.’ She didn’t tell them about Great-Aunt Josie, who had shown her and Theo such unconditional love when they had needed it most.
Her answer seemed to please her interviewers, because the more matronly of the two women was now explaining that the marketing manager for whom she’d be working was attending a conference that day but had asked if Magenta would be prepared to come in and meet her later in the week.
Yes! Had she been on her own Magenta would have punched the air in triumph. ‘Of course,’ she answered calmly instead, hoping she didn’t look too desperately relieved.
She was still trying to keep her concentration on what they were saying, and to stop herself grinning from ear to ear, when a knock had her gaze swivelling across the large modern office to the tall man in an immaculate dark suit who was striding in.
Andreas! Magenta tried to force his name past her lips but no sound came out.
What was he doing here? she wondered, aghast. And why had he barged in dressed like that, as though he had every right to?
‘Mr Visconti...’ The older woman, looking surprised, was getting to her feet, but a silent command from him had her subsiding back onto her chair. ‘This is Miss James,’ she explained. ‘We were just about to wind up her interview.’
‘I know.’
The deep voice was calm. Matter-of-fact. But he hadn’t yet looked her way and Magenta guessed that he hadn’t connected the name with her or realised that it was his ex the woman was referring to, now sitting there in a state of shock.
‘That’s why I came in.’
The impact of his sudden entrance had made her go weak all over, she realised, and then he suddenly glanced her way and his intensely blue eyes met the stunned velvety-brown of hers.
‘Mr Visconti is our Chief Executive,’ her principal interviewer was telling Magenta, through what seemed like a thick and muffling fog.
Chief Executive? How could he be? she wondered when she finally managed to grasp what the woman had said.
‘He’s the man we’re all ultimately answerable to,’ said Lana Barleythorne, who seemed to be having difficulty keeping her eyes off him. ‘He has the last word on whatever changes might be taking place throughout the chain.’
‘And I’m afraid this position has already been filled.’
He took his eyes off Magenta only briefly, to direct a glance towards the people she now realised, staggeringly, were his employees.
‘But we thought—’ piped up Lara, his clearly adoring fan.
‘It’s Miss Nicholls—the last candidate,’ he stated tonelessly, and in a way that imparted to anyone who might dare to challenge him that his decision was final and no one else had the authority to question it. ‘I’ve already spoken to...’
Numbly, Magenta only half heard him saying that he had spoken to his marketing manager and she was happy to take the other candidate on.
‘I see.’ The woman who was obviously the spokesperson for the three sounded surprised.
And all at once, through her shock and mounting dismay over losing a job that had not only been within her grasp but which she had been counting on to get her out of financial deep water, Magenta began to see things as they really were.
He had known she was in here. Probably from some list he had vetted before coming in. Which was why he hadn’t shown any sign of surprise or shock when he had seen her. Because he had already decided—even before he had opened that door—to snatch the chance of that job right out of her hands!
‘Miss James...’
The woman Magenta knew she had won over from the start made a futile little gesture with her hands.
‘What can I say? Except that I think we owe you an apology.’
For what? Magenta thought, hurting, angry. For building up her hopes? For making her think she could be out of the woods with her finances and her barely affordable flat? For throwing her back into the never-ending queue for far too few realistically paid jobs? Perhaps they didn’t have bills to pay and debts to settle, but she did! And now, just because she’d walked into a company controlled by this man with an obvious score to settle, none of those bills were ever likely to be paid!
Not caring any more about what impression she created, she leaped up from her chair and, in response to the woman’s suggestion about owing her an apology, uttered, ‘Yes, I believe you do! I’ve had to take a whole morning off work—without pay—to enable me to come to this interview today, and I think that the least you could have done in return would have been to get your facts straight! It might not be any skin off your noses to drag people here under false pretences, but if this is the way your company operates then I hope your paying customers don’t arrive at their hotels only to find the previous guests still occupying their beds!’
She felt sorry for her interviewers—particularly the woman who had shown such enthusiasm for her capabilities before their cold and calculating boss had walked in. Her venom was directed solely at Andreas. She hadn’t wanted to show him up in front of his staff, but if she had, she thought fiercely, then after what he had just done it was no more than he deserved!
‘That’s all I have to say,’ she concluded. And she had done so without embarrassing herself, or even tripping over her words, she realised, pivoting away from them—from him—as the ordeal and the thought of what it would mean for her and Theo brought shaming tears to her eyes.
‘Miss James.’
The deep, masculine voice addressed her formally from across the room but she ignored it, tearing over the high-polished floor to the door through which she had come with such high hopes only half an hour earlier.
‘Magenta!’
He didn’t seem bothered by what the others might make of him calling her by her first name, and images of a young man swam before her eyes. A young man who was determined, high-spirited and unrestrained—a young Andreas who refused to be dominated by his father’s will....
His softer command—and it had been a command, though infused with a persuasive familiarity—stopped her in her tracks.
Standing there, with her heart banging against her ribcage, she brought her head up, breathing deeply to control her humiliating emotion, squaring her back beneath the silver-grey jacket before she steeled herself to turn around.
