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There was a glint in Quinn’s eyes as he leaned back to stare at her.
‘This is all about you running a successful business, isn’t it?’ Magenta continued. ‘Or did I miss something? And there is one question I would like you to answer.’
‘Which is?’ Quinn’s eyes turned hard.
‘What difference does gender make to a successful team?’
He relaxed, making her wonder if Quinn had expected her to attack him on the personal front. ‘That’s for you to prove and for all of us to find out,’ he said.
‘We still get our chance?’ She kept the pressure on. She had no intention of walking away from this and making things easy for him.
‘Don’t push me, Magenta.’
‘So, that’s a yes?’
‘That’s a maybe,’ he corrected her.
She counted it as a victory—however small—and, knowing she’d pushed things as far as she could, she turned to the subject of the end-of-year party. How many more of these cold-blooded meetings with Quinn could she take? It was better to get through as much as she could now, Magenta reasoned.
Quinn was looking at her as if assessing how much she could take on. ‘It will be held at the end of this week, well before Christmas,’ he said. ‘Not much time for you to arrange things, but that suits my schedule better. Well? Don’t you have work to do?’
Magenta’s head was reeling with all the things she had to do. Quinn had just brought the party forward with no warning at all. She could throw up her hands and admit defeat, or…
‘If you can’t handle it,’ he said, ‘just let me know.’
‘I can handle it,’ she assured him.
‘Do you have a theme?’
Did she have a theme?
‘If it’s good enough, it might buy your team a second hearing.’
In that case, she definitely had the theme. ‘I’ve got the theme.’
Well, she would have in a minute.
‘I’m listening.’
‘The theme is…’ She had to come up with something mildly original or go to the bottom of the class, risking the girls’ opportunity to advance in the business in the process. ‘Back to the future,’ she said as inspiration struck. Okay, it was not so original, but Quinn wouldn’t know that. ‘It can be interpreted any way people like—but, as we’ve had the first man in space, and the race is on to land a man on the moon…’ Ideas were tumbling over each other in her brain.
‘Could be different,’ Quinn admitted.
‘Could be fun.’
‘Could be.’
‘I’m interested to see how you interpret it. And Magenta?’
‘So…?’
She turned at the door.
‘I’m going to trial some of your ideas.’
‘You are?’ All her personal battles with Quinn were put on hold. She felt like hugging him. Fortunately, after what had happened, she had more sense.
‘Tell your team to get back to work on the ad campaign right away.’
‘They never stopped working on it,’ she said quietly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘WHAT are you complaining about?’ Magenta heard one of the men, who she’d heard others address as John, taunting Nancy in the main office as she closed Quinn’s door. ‘You’ve still got a job, haven’t you?’
The men hadn’t waited long to resume their bullying tactics, Magenta reflected angrily. It was vital the girls won this battle or there would always be conflict between the sexes in the office. But at least Quinn had agreed to give them a chance. She had even persuaded him to let them use the old boardroom as their temporary campaign-headquarters, and she’d planned to call an emergency meeting there now. But overhearing the exchange between Nancy and their male colleague reminded Magenta how far they had to go—that and the fact that she could wake up at any moment, leaving her new team in the lurch.
‘It’s tradition,’ John was saying. ‘You women are supposed to make all the homey, holiday preparations. Just because you have a few letters to type, that’s no excuse. We need our mince pies and treats while we handle the real work around here.’
If any useful work was going to get done, they all had to calm down. ‘I’m afraid the girls won’t be free to run errands for you,’ Magenta explained, shooting a warning glance at Nancy.
‘Oh?’ John demanded. Glancing at his cronies, he sat back, staring at Magenta as if he were a headmaster forced to deal with a child he considered very much his intellectual inferior.
‘We’re all going to be busy, because we’re all back in the race,’ Magenta explained. ‘Quinn is going to judge both campaigns and choose the one he prefers.’
