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Simon hesitated. ‘Look, I know you’ve only done document and telephone work for me, Alex, but you’re damn good at it!’
Alex put her hands on her hips. ‘If we’re talking mining here, are we also talking technical terms?’
Simon glanced at her keenly as he thought, I wish we were—then said, ‘No. It’s for the social events they need you. They …’ he hesitated ‘… wanted to be assured you’d be comfortable in formal social circumstances.’
‘So you told them I don’t eat my peas with my knife,’ Alex remarked, then started to laugh at his injured expression.
‘I told them you came from a diplomatic background. That seemed to reassure them,’ he said a little stiffly because, if the truth be told, he did have one reservation about Alex and this job and it was neither her manners nor her fluency in Mandarin … it was the way she dressed.
He’d never seen her in anything but jeans, although she did have a variety of long scarves she liked to wind round her neck—and her hair was obviously a bit of a trial to her. She also wore glasses.
A classic bluestocking, one could be forgiven for thinking. Not that it had ever mattered how she dressed, because telephone interpreting and document translation were all behind-the-scenes stuff. In fact she did a lot of it from home. You would expect no less than a high social scene from the prominent Goodwin Minerals, though.
He broke his thoughts off with a jerk of his chin. He could sort that out later; getting the job was the important thing and he was running out of time.
‘Hop in the car, Alex,’ he instructed. ‘We’ve got an interview with Goodwins in about twenty minutes.’
She gazed at him. ‘Simon—you’re joking! I’ve just arrived home. I need to shower and change at least and I’m not even sure I want to do this!’
‘Alex …’ he strode across the pavement and opened the passenger door of his car ‘.please.’
‘No, hang on, Simon. Do you mean to tell me you committed me to an interview and you committed Wellford’s to this job with Goodwin Minerals when you weren’t even sure I was coming home today?’
‘I know it sounds a bit, well.’ He shrugged.
‘It sounds exactly like you, Simon Wellford,’ she told him wearily.
‘Great men seize the moment,’ he responded. ‘This could lead to an awful lot of work coming our way from Goodwins, Alex. It could be the making of Wellfords—and,’ he paused suddenly before saying, ‘Rosanna’s pregnant.’
Alex blinked at her boss. Rosanna was Simon’s wife and this would be their first child so the future of the interpreting service would be especially important now.
‘Why didn’t you say so at the beginning?’ she demanded, then her gaze softened and she beamed at him. ‘Oh, Simon, that’s wonderful news!’
Once in the car, some of the difficulties associated with this mission came back to her, however.
‘How am I going to explain the way I’m dressed?’
Simon glanced at her. ‘Tell ‘em the truth. You’ve just arrived back from a skiing holiday. We’ll be dealing with a Margaret Winston, by the way. She’s Max Goodwin’s principal private secretary.’
‘Max Goodwin?’
‘The driving force behind Goodwin Minerals—don’t tell me you haven’t heard of him either?’
‘Well, I haven’t. Simon—’ Alex clutched the arm rest as he wove his way through the city traffic ‘—do you have to drive so fast?’
‘I don’t want to be late. He’s a very powerful man, Max Goodwin, and—’
‘Simon!’ Alex interrupted urgently, but it was too late. A delivery truck pulled out unexpectedly in front of them and, despite a liberal application of the brakes, they bumped into the back of it.
Simon Wellford clutched the steering wheel and groaned heavily as he stared at the crumpled tip of his bonnet. Then he turned his head to Alex. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine, slightly jolted, that’s all. How about you?’
‘The same.’ He flinched as the driver of the truck, a burly annoyed-looking man, hove into view. ‘But this just about wrecks it all.’
‘How far away are we?’ Alex asked.
‘Only a block but—’
