that sort of exposure. She liked her privacy and working for the local station had been able to preserve it. Robert had warned her against stressing too much how she felt about that. Perhaps it was something that one just grew accustomed to.
CONGRATULATING herself on her good timing Emma sat down gracefully in the chair indicated by the hovering secretary. Exactly three minutes to spare before the time appointed for her interview.
Across the other side of the room she caught sight of her own reflection in a mirrored section of wall surrounding an almost tropical plant display. The cool, graceful woman staring back at her was almost a stranger. She had never quite grown accustomed to the image she had learned to project during her years in the media, Emma reflected, hiding a rueful smile. As a teenager she had been gangly and awkward, lacking Camilla’s blonde prettiness. It had been during her first job that an older colleague had suggested a grooming course at a local modelling school might be a good idea. At first she had been dismissive, but the advice had taken root and now she considered the money the course had cost her to be one of her best investments. She wasn’t pretty and never would be, but knowing that she had learned to make the best of herself gave her a calm confidence which was reflected in the way she held her body and moved. What she never saw when she looked at herself was the purity of her bone structure and the sensual lure of the contrast between the dark russet of her hair, and her pale Celtic skin.
One or two curious glances came her way from people passing through the foyer but Emma ignored them. She knew she wasn’t the only candidate for the job, but they must have decided to interview them all on separate days because she was the only person waiting.
Having been kept waiting for the obligatory ten minutes the discreet sound of a buzzer on the secretary’s desk heralded the commencement of her ordeal.
The room she was shown into was large and furnished in a modern high tech style. Three people were already in the room. All of them men. Robert had warned her against adopting a sexual approach to the interview. ‘I know you won’t anyway,’ he had added, ‘but just remember it’s brains they’re looking for as well as looks.’
Emma hadn’t needed the warning. She had scorned using her sex to get her own way all her life. In fact her father had once commented that she was almost too direct. ‘Men, on the whole, enjoy having their egos massaged, my dear,’ had been his mild comment, one afternoon when she had delivered a blisteringly disdainful look in the direction of one of his parishioners. She had tried to explain that she hadn’t liked the way the man had looked at her, or appreciated his heavy-handed compliments, but her father had simply shaken his head. ‘Emma I suspect you’re always going to take the hard route through life. Something in you demands that you meet situations head on. Try to learn that sometimes it’s useful to have the ability to side-step them.’ She had now mastered the art, but it had been a hard-won mastery, and she often had to bite her tongue to stop herself from saying what she thought. ‘Too direct’ other people had called her, while Camilla made no bones of her verdict. ‘You’re always so aggressive Emma,’ she had told her once, ‘and men don’t like it.’
The interview progressed smoothly; she was able to answer all the questions put to her and she was also given the chance to air some of her own views, which she did cautiously. It was difficult to appear natural, when she knew that every movement, every inflection of her voice and manner was being studied to assess how appealing or otherwise it would appear to a viewer. Because that was what it all came down to—viewers, audience ratings … popularity.
She had promised herself before she left that she would be herself and that was what she tried to do. She was rewarded when her three interviewers stood up, signalling the end of her ordeal, and the most senior of them smiled broadly at her.
‘I think you’ll do us very nicely Emma,’ he told her. ‘I take it there won’t be any problems with contracts or commitments to your present post?’
Her eyes widened fractionally. Was he offering her the job? What about the other applicants?
‘None at all,’ she managed to assure him crisply, ‘but surely you’ll want to …’
‘You were our final interviewee, Emma,’ another member of the trio interrupted. ‘John here always believes in saving the best for last. In this case, I think he was right. If you have the time I’d like to take you down to our legal department so that we can run through a contract with you. There’ll be a brief training period before you actually go on camera; we already know that you come across well. We’ll have to take some publicity shots of you. There’ll be a good deal of media interest of course. And a final word of warning … unfair though this sounds, the public expect our women newsreaders to be, for the lack of a better description, morally sound, I think you know what I mean?’
Emma did. As Robert had told her she had nothing to fear on that score. ‘You’re not involved with a married man and you don’t have any dubious lovers lurking in your past, so you should be okay there.’
She had remarked at the time on the unfairness of the double standard, but Robert had merely shaken his head and told her that that was the way things were.
‘You’ll come under a lot of pressure from the media, but anything you’re dubious about, refer to us.’
She spent a further hour going over her contract; the salary she was being offered was reasonable rather than generous, but it should be enough to enable her to live in London, and there was a good wardrobe allowance.
‘Initially at least, we’d like you to consult our wardrobe department about what you wear on screen.’
Nodding her head, Emma reflected wryly that even her taste had to be checked; nothing was going to be left to chance, but then the slot she was going to occupy on the new early evening programme was an important one, and it would be fighting for viewers against a long-established and very popular show on another channel.
‘Now we’ll leave you in peace,’ she was told when they left the legal office. ‘You’ll need time to mull over everything that’s happened. We won’t need you here for another fortnight. Can you be ready to start then?’
They were in a corridor now and Emma automatically stepped to one side as a door opened and a man stepped through it. Tall and broad, he exuded an air of power and vitality. He nodded to the man accompanying Emma and then switched his attention to her, studying her with almost brutally open sexual appreciation. Strong though her control was, it wasn’t strong enough to prevent the seep of angry colour into her skin. Her eyes fiercely grey in the frame of her face glared her resentment at him. The amused smile curling his mouth softened his features momentarily before his glance dropped to her breasts and lingered there quite blatantly.
Emma couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so angry. She could feel the tension of it curling her fingers into talons, her tension increasing as she was forced to swallow her resentment down and force a coolly indifferent expression into her eyes as they met the knowing mockery in his. She had never seen anyone with such darkly green eyes before, she thought, hypnotised by them. Weren’t green eyes a sign of a changeable, untrustworthy personality? The thought brought her a brief measure of satisfaction, quickly banished in the rage that almost choked her as he moved down the corridor and past her, deliberately allowing his body to brush against hers. There had been room for him to squeeze past without touching her, but he had not done so.
‘I’m sorry we can’t offer you lunch,’ her companion was saying, ‘but
