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‘Dinner tonight,’ he said as she packed up her briefcase. ‘That wasn’t a question, Magenta,’ he added when she looked at him with surprise. ‘If we’re going to take this company where it needs to go, you and I have to embark on a crash course of familiarisation so we can do more than work together. We have to be able to read each other’s minds.’
‘Talking of which,’ she said, a faint smile creeping onto her lips as she busied herself sorting documents, ‘is the theme I suggested for the party okay with you—or do you think it too predictable?’
‘Sixties?’
‘Medallions, flares and lots of chest hair?’ She looked at him now, looked him long, hard and straight in the eyes.
‘I think I can come up with something.’
‘I’m sure you can.’
But it wouldn’t wait until the party, Quinn thought as Magenta left the room.
‘You’re impossible,’ Tess told Magenta when she heard Magenta had booked a table for supper with Quinn for six o’ clock that evening. ‘What sort of dating time is that? And why a steak house? Haven’t you heard of sexy venues and subdued lighting?’
‘Not when I’m holding a business meeting—this isn’t a date. Quinn and I have important things to discuss.’
‘Like what? Your place or mine?’
‘Like where we’re going with the business. I’m only pleased that he’s involving me.’
‘Magenta, are you blind? First off, you’re the heart of Steele Design—you’re the major reason people come to us for ideas. Quinn is never going to get rid of you. And, secondly, perhaps most important of all, Quinn is one hot-looking man.’
‘And my employer. I never mix business with pleasure.’
‘Never say never—and by the way, you with serious frown lines sprouting like weeds on your face, you’re coming with me.’
Shaking her head in bemusement, Magenta allowed Tess to drag her out of the office. It was their lunch hour and she had been neglecting her friends recently. Calm down—go with the flow for once, she told herself firmly.
‘A hairdresser’s?’ Magenta said, gazing up at what seemed to be a vaguely familiar door.
‘Bed-head to beauty queen,’ Tess promised, chivvying her inside. ‘I bring you my friend,’ she told the young man with floppy hair. ‘You’d better look after her, Justin. I hold you personally responsible for the safe return of this woman. She must look refreshed and years younger by the time you’ve finished with her—like she’s never done a day’s work in her life.’
‘Miracles take a little longer,’ Justin opined, studying Magenta critically.
‘If I’m a lost cause…’ Magenta was already leaving.
‘Lost, you may be,’ Justin declaimed in stentorian tones. ‘But now I have found you all will be well again.’
‘Oh, well, that’s okay then,’ Magenta said uncertainly, noticing Tess was blocking her only escape route to the door.
‘And see she gets her nails done, will you?’ Tess added in an aside. ‘Something Jackie Kennedy—French manicure, perhaps? She might look like she works down a coal mine, but she’s actually a creative.’
‘I know the type,’ Justin assured her in a theatrical whisper.
‘Just make sure she’s ready to play her role in a very important sixties party tomorrow night. Oh, and she’s got a date tonight, so make it sexy.’
‘Got it.’
‘You’ve gone too far this time,’ Magenta complained, but Tess was already pulling faces at her from the wrong side of the door.
Magenta caught sight of her reflection in one of the many mirrors on the way out of the salon. Justin had given her a new look all right. Her hair was long, sleek and shiny, as opposed to the notorious bed-head frizz-top, as diagnosed by Tess.
Trust a friend to tell you the truth, Magenta thought wryly, brushing her long fringe out of her eyes. Justin had modelled her on one of his favourite sixties icons, he had explained, a model called Jean Shrimpton who had already appeared on the cover of Vogue at the age of eighteen. ‘But I’m twenty-eight,’ Magenta had protested.
‘And don’t look a day over forty,’ Justin had told her reassuringly. ‘That’s how you will continue to look unless you allow me to work a little magic.’
It was when Justin talked about magic that the dream started coming back to her—bits and pieces to begin with, and then rushing in on her like a tidal wave she couldn’t escape. Not that it had anything to do with real magic; she knew that. Dreams were the work of an over-active mind. All she had to do was slow down a bit and she’d sleep soundly at night again.
