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He nodded abruptly, closing the interconnecting door as he said, ‘Twenty minutes, Seraphina, and then I’d like you in here with the Breedon file, the Einhorn file and notebook and pencil.’
Pat, Pat, Pat… As the door closed Sephy leant limply against Madge’s desk for a moment. How could you blackmail me with friendship into this position?
And then she straightened sharply as the door opened again and he poked his head round to say, ‘Why haven’t I seen you before if you’ve worked here for six years?’ as though she had purposely been hiding in a cupboard all that time.
It was on the tip of her tongue to answer tartly, Because I’m not a model-type femme fatale with long blonde hair and the sort of figure that drives men wild—the type of woman Conrad Quentin usually went for if the newspaper pictures were to be believed—but a very ordinary, brown-haired, brown-eyed, slightly plump little nobody. But she felt that would be pushing her luck too far. Instead she gritted her teeth, forced a smile, and said quietly, ‘You have seen me, Mr Quentin. We have spoken on at least two or three occasions.’
‘Have we?’ He frowned darkly. ‘I don’t remember.’
He clearly considered it her fault, and she was prompted to retort, with an asperity it was difficult to temper, ‘There’s no reason why you should, is there? You’re a very busy man, after all.’ He was often abroad on business, and Quentin Dynamics was only one of his many enterprises, all of which seemed to have the Midas touch, and it was to this Sephy referred as she added quickly, ‘You can’t know everyone who works for you, and the way you’ve expanded over the years…’
‘I trust that is a reference to my business acumen and not my waistline?’ And he smiled. Just a quick flash of white teeth as he closed the door again, but it was enough to leave her standing in stunned silence for some long moments. The difference it had made to his hard cold face, the way his piercing blue eyes had crinkled and mellowed and his uncompromising jawline softened, had been…well, devastating, she admitted unsteadily. And it bothered her more than anything else that had happened that day.
But she couldn’t think of it now. She seized on the thought like a lifeline and took a deep, shuddering breath as she glanced towards the filing cabinets. She was here to stand in for the formidable Madge and she had to make some sort of reasonable stab at it. She had been used to looking after Mr Harper for four years and virtually carrying that office at times; she could do this. She could.
Twenty minutes later to the dot she knocked at the interconnecting door, the files and her notebook and pencil tucked under one arm.
She wished she had worn something newer and smarter than the plain white blouse and straight black skirt she had pulled on that morning, but it was too late now. They were serviceable enough, but distinctly utilitarian, and because she had overslept she hadn’t bothered to put her hair up, as normal, or apply any eye make-up.
Oh, stop fussing! The admonition came just as she heard the deep ‘Come in’ from inside the room. Conrad Quentin wouldn’t be looking at her, Sephy Vincent. He wanted an efficient working machine, and as long as she met that criterion all would be well.
She opened the door and walked briskly into the vast expanse in front of her. The far wall of the room, in front of which Conrad Quentin had his enormous desk and chair, was all glass. Before she reached the chair he gestured at, Sephy was conscious of a breathtaking view of half of London coupled with a spacious luxury that made Mr Harper’s little office seem like a broom cupboard.
‘Sit down, Seraphina.’
That was the fourth or fifth time; she’d have to say something. ‘It’s Sephy, actually,’ she said steadily as she sat in the plushly upholstered armless chair in front of the walnut desk, crossing her legs and then forcing herself to look at him. ‘I never use my full name.’
‘Why not?’ He had been sitting bent over piles of papers he’d been scrutinising, but now he raised his head and sat back in the enormous leather chair, clasping his hands behind his head as he surveyed her through narrowed blue eyes. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
The pose had brought powerful chest muscles into play beneath the thin grey silk of the shirt he was wearing, and at some time in the last twenty minutes he had loosened his tie and undone the top buttons of his shirt, exposing the shadow of dark body hair at the base of his throat.
Sephy cleared her dry throat. ‘It doesn’t suit me. Even my mother had to agree she’d made a mistake, but I was born on the twelfth of March, and on the calendar of saints Seraphina is the only woman for that day.’
He said nothing, merely shifted position slightly in the black chair, and now she was horrified to find herself beginning to waffle as she said, ‘Mind, it could have been worse. There’s a Gertrude and a Euphemia in the next few days, so perhaps I ought to be thankful for small mercies. But Seraphina suggests an ethereal, will-o’-the-wisp type creature, and I’m certainly not that.’
He leant forward again, the glittering sapphire gaze moving over her creamy skin, soft mouth and wide honey-brown eyes, and he stared at her a moment before he said, his tone expressionless, ‘I think Seraphina suits you and I certainly don’t intend to call you by such a ridiculous abbreviation as Sephy. It’s the sort of name one would bestow on a pet poodle. Have you a second Christian name?’
‘No.’ It was something of a snap.
‘Pity,’ he said laconically.
She didn’t believe this. How dared he ride roughshod over her wishes? she asked herself silently. She was searching her mind for an adequately curt response when he switched to sharp business mode, his eyes turning to the papers spread out over his desk as he said, his tone keen and focused, ‘How familiar are you with the Einhorn project?’
As luck would have it she had been dealing with the problems associated with this particular package over the last weeks, and she had just spent ten of the last twenty minutes delving into the file to see if there were any confidential complications Customer Services hadn’t been privy to. ‘Quite familiar,’ she answered smartly.
‘Really?’ He raised his dark head and the hard sapphire gaze homed in. ‘Tell me what you know.’
She considered for a moment or two, trying to pull her thoughts into concise order, and then spoke quietly and fluently as she outlined what had been a disastrous endeavour from the start, due to a series of mistakes which Sephy felt could be laid fair and square at Quentin Dynamics’ door.
He looked down at his desk as she began talking, a frown creasing his brow as he listened intently without glancing at her once. As she finished speaking the frown became a quizzical ruffle, and he raised his head and said, ‘Brains and beauty! Well, well, well. Have I found myself a treasure, here?’ And then, before she could respond in any way, ‘So, you think we should take the full hit on this? Reimburse for engineering call-out charges as well as a free upgrade for the software?’
It probably wasn’t very clever to tell him his company had made a sow’s ear out of what should have been a silk purse within the first half an hour of working with him, but Sephy took a deep breath and said firmly, ‘Yes, I do.’
‘And Mr Ransome’s report, that recommends we merely reduce the cost for the new software?’
Mr Ransome was trying to cover his own shortcomings with regard to the whole sorry mess, but Sephy didn’t feel she could be that blunt.
She didn’t answer immediately, and t
