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A little uncertainly she got out of the lift and walked towards the door marked ‘Personal Assistant to the Chief Executive’.
Madge Fielding, the previous owner’s secretary, had retired when the takeover bid’s success had been announced, and when Saskia saw the elegantly groomed dark-haired woman seated behind Madge’s desk she assumed that the new owner must have brought his PA with him from Demetrios head office.
Nervously Saskia gave her name, and started to explain that she worked for Gordon Jarman, but the PA waved her explanation aside, consulting a list in front of her instead and then saying coldly, without lifting her head from it, ‘Saskia? Yes. You’re late. Mr Latimer does not like... In fact I’m not sure...’ She stopped and eyed Saskia with a disapproving frown. ‘He may not have time to interview you now,’ she warned, before picking up the phone and announcing in a very different tone of voice from the one she had used to address Saskia, ‘Ms. Rodgers is here now, Andreas. Do you still want to see her?
‘You can go in,’ she informed Saskia. ‘It’s the door over there...’
Feeling like a naughty child, Saskia forced herself not to react, heading instead for the door the PA had indicated and knocking briefly on it before turning the handle and walking in.
As she stepped into the office the bright sunlight streaming in through the large windows momentarily dazzled her. All she could make out was the hazy outline of a man standing in front of the glass with his back to her, the brilliance of the sunlight making it impossible for her to see any more.
But Andreas could see Saskia. It hadn’t surprised him that she should choose to arrive at work later than her colleagues; after all, he knew how she spent her evenings. What had surprised him had been the genuinely high esteem in which he had discovered she was held both by her immediate boss and her co-workers. It seemed that when it came to giving that extra metre, going that extra distance, Saskia was always the first to do so and the first to do whatever she could to help out her colleagues.
‘Yes, it is perhaps unusual in a young graduate,’ her boss had agreed when Andreas had questioned his praise of Saskia. ‘But then she has been brought up by her grandmother and perhaps because of that her values and sense of obligation towards others are those of an older generation. As you can see from my report on her, her work is excellent and so are her qualifications.’
And she’s a stunningly attractive young woman who seems to know how to use her undeniable ‘assets’ to her own advantage, Andreas had reflected inwardly, but Gordon Jarman had continued to enthuse about Saskia’s dedication to her work, her kindness to her fellow employees, her ability to integrate herself into a team and work diligently at whatever task she was given, and her popularity with other members of the workforce.
After studying the progress reports her team leader and Gordon himself had made on her, and the photograph in her file, Andreas had been forced to concede that if he hadn’t seen for himself last night the way Saskia could look and behave he would probably have accepted Gordon’s glowing report at face value.
She was quite plainly a woman who knew how to handle his sex, even if with him she had made an error of judgement.
This morning, for instance, she had completely metamorphosed back into the dedicated young woman forging a career for herself—neatly suited, her hair elegantly sleeked back, her face free of all but the lightest touch of make-up. Andreas started to frown as his body suddenly and very urgently and unwontedly reminded him of the female allure of the body that was today concealed discreetly beneath a prim navy business suit.
Didn’t he already have enough problems to contend with? Last night after returning from the wine bar he had received a telephone call from his mother, anxiously warning him that his grandfather was on the warpath.
‘He had dinner with some of his old cronies last night and apparently they were all boasting about the deals they had recently pulled off. You know what they’re like.’ She had sighed. ‘And your grandfather was told by one of them that he had high hopes of his son winning Athena’s hand...’
‘Good luck to him,’ Andreas had told his mother uncompromisingly. ‘I hope he does. That at least will get her and Grandfather off my back.’
