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Predictably everyone complained that it was too cold. ‘Well, you can’t smoke in here,’ Magenta insisted. ‘It’s against the law.’
‘Since when?’ one of the younger guys asked, swinging his arm around her waist to drag her close so she had no alternative but to inhale his foul-smelling breath.
‘And that is too,’ she informed him, removing his searching hand from her tightly sculpted rear end.
‘Ooh.’ He turned to his friends to pull a mocking face. ‘What got into your bed this morning, Miss Steele?’
‘No one? ‘ another man suggested, to raucous jeers.
‘We all know what’s wrong with you, ice maiden.’
‘Cut it out!’ Magenta said angrily. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘Apparently, you never are,’ one of the men murmured to his colleagues in a stage whisper.
As if that were the cue for the main player to enter the scene, the double doors at the far end of the office swung open and every head swivelled in that direction. Some of the women even stood at their desks as if royalty was about to enter the room. To say Magenta was stu
‘Qui
Magenta turned to say something to Nancy, but everyone including Nancy had returned to work the second Qui
But could this really be Qui
‘Magenta,’ he said curtly, shrugging the coat off his shoulder and handing it to her along with his hat.
He knew her?
‘That’s a better look for you,’ he said, giving Magenta the most intrusive inspection yet. ‘I like to see a woman in a dress with some shape to it.’
What?
‘Keep it up,’ he said approvingly. ‘And remember, I expect the same high standards from my staff at all times—’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said smartly, playing along, which was all she could do—other than acknowledge Qui
‘I’ll need you for a meeting later,’ he said, as though they had been working together for ever. There was not a shred of equality between them, Magenta registered with a spear of concern.
‘So no gossiping with the other girls in the kitchen when you’re supposed to be making my coffee,’ Qui
Would that be the coffee with the extra-strong laxative in it? Magenta wondered.
‘And absolutely no lunch break for any of you girls. You’ll have a lot of work to get through by the time I finish the meeting I’m going into now—understood?’
Actually, no, I’m a bit confused. Magenta thought Qui
‘What are you talking about? ‘ Qui
‘Another meeting before our meeting…?’
Qui
Magenta’s mouth formed a question, but she was so stu
‘Why, hang it up, of course,’ he said as if she were one card short of a pack. ‘And when you’ve done that I’ll need plenty of coffee—hot, strong and black. Oh, and when you come into the meeting later, don’t forget your shorthand notebook.’
‘My—?’
‘You’re the office manager now, Magenta—that’s quite a promotion for you. You’ll have to sharpen up if you want to set the seal on this position.’
She’d set something in concrete—the deeds of the building, perhaps, before she dropped them from a great height on Qui
But someone else owned the building now, she remembered, biting her lip. Steele Design had been called Style Design when her father had bought it. She had no stake at all here.
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