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.She found that there was no aspect of it she couldn’t, in her head, alter.She was in high spirits when the telephone shrieked just as she was about to leave work for the day.The minute she picked up the receiver something told her that Max Forbes would be at the other end.Some inner instinct that sent her pulses racing.It had been peaceful these last two days.Her only communication with her boss had been via e-mail and fax and the work had gone smoothly at this end.Now, as she heard the deep velvet voice down the end of the line, she realised that something intangible had been missing from the office.Excitement.A certain thrill of anticipation.A heightened state of awareness in which her senses were always, in his presence, on full alert.‘Vicky.Max here.Glad I caught you before you left.’Vicky played with the cord of the telephone, wondering what could have warranted a phone call when fax and e-mail could easily provide sufficient communication between them and neither sent her nervous system into overdrive.‘How is it going in New York?’ she asked politely.‘I’ve dealt with all your e-mails and sent both of those faxes off to Roger’s and Walnut House, as you requested.’‘Yes, yes.Fine.Good.Look, the reason I’m calling is that the problem out here is bigger than I had first thought.’ He paused.‘Quite an unpleasant situation has arisen, as a matter of fact.’ His voice, when he said that, was cold, and she shivered at the prospect of Max Forbes on the trail of whoever had made the situation unpleasant.She had now seen enough of him at work to realise that there was a core of steel running through him that made him a formidable adversary.‘Is there something you’d like me to do from this end?’ Vicky asked anxiously.‘For starters, you can cancel my meetings for the next week.Get Anderson to chair the ones that can’t wait, but the rest will have to be rescheduled.’Vicky had already flicked out some notepaper, and even while he spoke was rapidly cataloguing in her head which of his meetings would need to be handed over to Ralph Anderson.‘Anything else?’‘Yes.I need you over here—and that’s not a question, it’s an order.Heads are going to roll over here and everything will have to be meticulously documented.I’m meeting with lawyers this afternoon to see where we stand, but there’s a hell of a lot to get down in writing and a lot of it is highly confidential.I can’t trust a temp out here to do the job, provided I can get one to do it well enough, and what’s going on is too sensitive for any of the secretaries in the company to deal with the information.I take it,’ he said, ‘that there won’t be a problem with that?’She could hear the hard edge to the question.He was not going to allow her to wriggle out of this, and however much she told herself that she would clear off as soon as possible, she was reluctant to leave under a black cloud.She needed a good reference if she was to apply for anything worth doing at a later date and clock-watching never got an employee anywhere.‘How long would you need me for?’ she asked, heart thudding at the prospect of asking Brenda to have Chloe and her daughter’s tears at the thought of her mother going abroad without her.They had never been separated and it was a precedent she had no wish to set.‘Three days at the outside, probably less.Don’t worry,’ he said coolly, ‘I fully appreciate that foreign travel is not something you’re interested in, but this time there’s no choice.You can book Concorde over.You know where I’m staying.Get a room there as well.I’ll make sure there’s no problem in that area.’Vicky sighed inaudibly.‘Will that be all?’‘E-mail me with your time of arrival and expect to be working the minute your feet touch the ground.’‘Of course,’ she said with a hint of sarcasm.‘I wouldn’t dare expect otherwise.’The adrenaline was still surging through her bloodstream when, one hour later, she found herself asking Brenda whether she could keep Chloe for the following night, at the most two.‘I’ll pay you, of course,’ she said, over a cup of coffee, and Brenda looked at her intently.‘Never you mind the money, Vicky.Just so long as this job doesn’t start taking over your life.I’ve seen some of these career women and they spend their lives in a state of permanent exhaustion.Not,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘that it seems to be doing you any harm at all.’‘What do you mean?’ In the corner of the room Chloe and Brenda’s little girl Alice, who was one year older, were playing a vigorous game of Barbies.From the sidelines, Ken watched with blank-eyed interest.‘I haven’t seen you look so…so well…for months.Skin radiant, eyes sparkling.Whatever work this boss is feeding you, it agrees with your system.’‘He’s feeding me?’ Vicky said, laughing, half at the antics of the Barbie dolls, who now appeared to be engaged in physical warfare despite their attire of bikinis and high-heeled pumps, and half at Brenda’s mistaken notions.‘Too much work, heaps of responsibility and no end of sarcastic comments, not to mention nosy prying and pointed innuendoes.’Brenda laughed in response.‘Well, watch out.A girl could get addicted to a diet like that.’But it was settled, as was the flight to New York which she’d booked that afternoon, and she felt the first stirrings of excitement when she arrived at Heathrow with her small flight bag and was shown all the respect and subservience obviously given to anyone who had enough money to fly by the most expensive method in the world.Only when she booked into the hotel in New York, after an enjoyable and uneventful flight in surroundings that were speedy but cramped, did the excitement give way to apprehension.It dawned on her more fully now that she was going to be here with Max Forbes for at least two days, maybe three, and this time there would be no five o’clock ending and eight-thirty start [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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