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He didn’t react, but she could see the shift in his eyes – assessing, probing, calculating. “I worked for six months under a guy called Calvin Martinovic.”
“Cal, yes,” he said. “He’s a commercial finance executive?”
She nodded.
“So what happened?”
She made a clicking noise with her tongue. “The internship ended. I guess I didn’t ‘wow’ him or whatever.”
Luca still didn’t respond, except for his eyes, which Bronte was becoming adept at decoding.
“About two weeks after I left, someone from HR contacted me. There was a senior level assistant vacancy coming up. Calvin had put my name forward as a candidate. When I spoke to him about it he said it would be an interim thing, until he could make space in his team.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, that never eventuated, but it didn’t matter. The job is challenging and I love it. No two days are the same. It’s not what I thought I’d be doing when I graduated from my degree but I’m not looking to move away from the role I’m in.”
He was silent.
“Ashton’s wrong.”
Nothing.
She fought an urge to fill the silence, waiting instead for him to say something.
“You studied business and corporate finance.”
That wasn’t what she’d expected. “Yes.” Her response was halting, from surprise.
“And you graduated with first class honours.”
Her cheeks grew pink. “Yes.”
“So what the hell are you doing working as my assistant?”
“I’m a team assistant,” she bristled. “And I just told you – I love what I do.”
“So Ashton was completely wrong, then, about you desiring to progress into a job more like what you trained for?”
“I think you’re seriously underestimating the work I do,” she muttered. “I get to read reports that are way above anything I’d be doing if I was working my way up the ladder.”
“Like the Watney Group appraisal.”
“Right!” She nodded quickly. “That’s highly confidential. Only a handful of people have had their eyes on that and I’m one of them.”
“And you realised straight away that the textile group was – how did you put it?”
“Dodgy,” she mumbled.
“Right,” he clicked his fingers. “How?”
“I just – could see that their supply chains don’t stack up. They’re over burdened with debt in the current retail climate, and I couldn’t find any evidence that they’re working towards greener production or fairer wage commitments. That seems like a time bomb, to me.”
He stared at her and now she could clearly understand his mood. Frustration.
“Can we not talk about this?”
Again, he was silent.
