She was ironing a neat business shirt when Harry wandered in, back from wherever he had bolted to for sanctuary. She heard the front door and then he clattered down to the kitchen and stuck his head round the door.
‘Bring out your dead. The place feels like a morgue. Where’s Ma?’
‘In her room.’
‘Ah,’ he said, understanding. ‘A maternal moment?’
Zoe looked up and grinned. ‘Horrible boy. Artemis has moved out. Ma’s taken to her bed.’
Harry took the news with equanimity. ‘Predictable.’ He investigated the fridge. ‘Is there anything to eat? I’m starving.’
‘You can make yourself toast now, or I’ll do scrambled eggs later.’
‘I’m a growing boy. I can’t live on scrambled eggs.’
Zoe sighed. ‘Okay. Order in.’ It was an extravagance, and money was tight. But her mother’s housekeeping was erratic and Zoe’s back-up food planning had gone awry this weekend.
Harry was gleeful. ‘Great. Indian? Chinese? Italian?’
‘Anything but pizza,’ said Zoe, knowing that meant he would get crispy fried duck and plum sauce. ‘And ask Ma if she wants some before you make the call.’
She finished ironing her shirt and hung it on a hanger before starting another one. Nothing of Harry’s needed ironing, fortunately. As for Deborah, it was getting more and more difficult to get her to change her clothes at all. She would certainly not appreciate having her faded tee shirts pressed.
Zoe finished the ironing, folded the rest of the washing, threw away a pair of socks with holes in the toe and closed up the ironing board.
Harry came back from their mother’s room, announced that Deborah was watching a video on her small television, and called in his order.
‘One fried seaweed. One sesame prawn toast. Two egg fried rice. Crispy duck twice.’
Zoe bit back a smile.
He came off the phone and raised an eyebrow at the shirt on its hanger. ‘Trying to impress?’
‘Well, I was a bit rude to the new boss,’ admitted Zoe. ‘I’d like to—er—retrieve the position.’ She twinkled. ‘Actually, what I mean is I want to knock him cold. I’ve got a point to make.’
Harry sucked his teeth thoughtfully. ‘Leave the top button undone,’ he advised.
Zoe puffed. ‘Thank you,’ she said with irony.
‘No, on second thoughts, make it two. These modern bosses take some impressing.’
‘You’d know, of course, idle little toad.’
‘I’m glad you brought that up. I’ve lined up a job for the summer.’
‘Great,’ said Zoe. ‘What?’
But he only looked mysterious and refused to tell her. Zoe had effectively been substitute mother since Harry was ten. She knew enough not to push it.
Instead she got out plates and put them in the old- fashioned oven to warm.
‘Harry—’
He was leafing through the television programmes. ‘Yes?’
‘Do you think everyone moves in with their boyfriend eventually?’
He looked alarmed. ‘What has Naomi been saying?’
Naomi was his girlfriend.
‘No, not you.’ Zoe thought about it. ‘Well, not yet anyway. I was thinking of, well, me.’
He laughed. ‘The guy would have to work hard to get you to stick with him long enough to move in.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Zoe, depressed.
Harry thought about it. ‘And Suze hasn’t, has she? I mean Hermann’s great, but she doesn’t want to move to Germany, does she? She’s still in that flat she wanted you to share?’
Zoe nodded, even more depressed. She had shared the flat with Suze for a few months after she came down from university. But first Artemis, then Harry had had their public exams, and Deborah had been locking herself away in her room and cooking family meals at midnight. There had been no choice, really.
‘I don’t think I’ll be moving out again just yet,’ she agreed brightly.
And added silently, If ever.
Monday morning was better. Zoe liked mornings anyway. Besides, she was always better when she had something to do.
And this morning what she had to do was show Jay Christopher that he had engaged a treasure. When she moved, as she would at the end of her contract, Jay Christopher was going to realise that he had made a big mistake by insulting her. A big mistake.
Zoe almost skipped into the cream and silver offices of Culp and Christopher. Jay Christopher, she thought, hugging herself, was in for the education of his life.
Though quite what she was going to do at Culp and Christopher nobody seemed to be sure. The Human Resources manager, a tall blonde, was manifestly not expecting her. She made a couple of investigative phone calls while trying to deliver a welcome spiel. It did not work very well.
‘A degree in chemistry? Aren’t you overqualified to temp?’
‘Yes.’
What else did she expect her to say? thought Zoe, irritated. But the blonde was flustered by her brevity. She muttered a question into the telephone wedged under her ear and looked at the file in front of her.
‘Er—yes. Well. So, do you think you’re suited to the sort of work we do here?’
Zoe tried to be patient. ‘That’s why the Manoir Agency sent me.’
‘Ah, but why did they choose you particularly?’
Zoe narrowed her eyes at her, losing patience. ‘Just drew the short straw, I guess.’
Fortunately her answer fell on deaf ears. The telephone had obviously started broadcasting.
‘Oh, it’s Jay’s doing, is it?’ said the woman into the telephone. She made a note on her pad and then said, ‘Right. I’ll bring her along at ten.’ She almost flung the phone down and turned back. ‘Have you worked in public relations before, Zoe?’
‘No,’ Zoe admitted.
‘Well, this is a very progressive company,’ said the blonde, getting back on message with evident relief. ‘We’re committed to training. I’ll make sure you go on one of the introductory talks that our chief gives. Jay Christopher,’ she added unexpectedly, ‘is just wicked.’
Zoe blinked. She thought of the man she had seen, tall as a tree and mad as a hornet. And up for a serious bit of reeducation. She gulped. ‘Wicked?’
Just what did that mean in a super-sophisticated office like Culp and Christopher? Zoe looked wildly out of the window and prayed for divine translation.
At home, with her twenty-year-old sister and seventeen- year-old brother, she knew what wicked meant. It was hip. It was far-out. It was wild. The ultimate compliment.
But that was in a house run for people who still spent their days in full-time classes and their nights dancing. The offices of Culp and Christopher Public Relations PLC were not like that. Culp and Christopher carried sophistication into a realm that made her eyeballs bubble.
The blonde, whose name she had been too nervous to catch, had already whisked her round so fast her toes had hardly touched the gleaming wooden floor. There were plenty of people milling about among the irregular geometric shapes that seemed to be desks. They were discussing their weekends, laughing, all friendly enough to the newcomer. But so far Zoe had understood less than half of the conversations she overheard. It was like travelling in foreign country. Who could guess what wicked meant in the realms of the super-cool?
The very grown-up super-cool, what was more. The blonde was wearing a dark grey trouser suit that was so well cut it seemed to flow into new shapes as she moved. It put Zoe’s crisply ironed white shirt back where it belonged, on the bargain rack.
Oh, boy, am I out of my depth here.
And there was no way to disguise it. She gave up and asked, ‘Wicked, like how?’
‘You’ll see,’ said the blonde mysteriously.
That didn’t help at all, of course.
‘He’s got a bad temper?’ Zoe hazarded doubtfully.
She hoped that was what the blonde meant. Zoe knew about a lot about bad temper. She knew she could handle
it, too. She wasn’t sure how well she was going to handle the designer suits and the minimalist office.
The blonde grinned. ‘Who knows?’
‘What?’
‘There was a movie we did some publicity for. The Ice Volcano. The girls started to call him that.’
Zoe blinked again. The man who wore flame silk shirts? Ice? This was worse than a foreign language. This was a foreign universe.
The blonde saw her confusion and laughed heartily. ‘Jay is very, very self-contained. When he’s angry he goes all cold and quiet. Brings the hair up on the back of your neck. Ice. Only then he explodes…’
She leaned back, smiling reminiscently. It was obviously a great show.
‘Does he explode often?’ said Zoe warily.
‘Hardly ever. But when he goes, he goes. Once seen, never forgotten.’
‘Oh.’
The blonde got to her feet. ‘Probably won’t happen while you’re here. Don’t worry about it. Come on. I’ll show you where the hot negotiating goes on.’
She did, pointing out various framed photographs of products and personalities on the walls as they went. The photographs were all high quality, and some were truly beautiful. But they meant nothing to Zoe. There seemed to be a lot of sportsmen in fields or beautiful women standing in front of film posters.
The blonde was dry. ‘Jay is very big in the sports world. It might be a good idea if you mug up before you meet him.’
I’ve already met him. He looked at me as if I were a slave he wasn’t very interested in buying.
‘I suppose so,’ she said carefully.
‘We’ll tell Poppy. If he isn’t in yet, she can give you his publicity file and you can learn it by heart.’ She zipped Zoe down a narrow corridor, indicating doors briskly as they passed. ‘Ladies’ rest room. Supplies cupboard—everything that you want is in there: stationery, disks, printer cartridges, privacy, gossip. The kitchen. Boardroom.’
‘I’ll remember,’ said Zoe, trying to commit the layout to memory. She thought there was a fifty-fifty chance that she would succeed.
The blonde pushed open another door. This one was studded with silver saucepan lids and led into a botanical hot house. Climbing plants and fig trees grew right up to the glass roof and the roof was high.
Instantly Zoe forgot the location of the stationery cupboard and the boardroom.
‘Are there spiders in there?’ she said involuntarily.
Her guide looked surprised. ‘Never thought about it.’
‘I bet there are. Hundreds of them. I hate spiders.’
‘Don’t worry, you won’t be working in here. This is restricted territory. Jay’s PA lives here. You don’t get in without a visa.’ She waved the note Suze had given Zoe to bring. ‘Ah, here she is.’
For a moment Zoe wondered wildly if she were actually talking about a ten foot Swiss cheese plant. But then another tall blonde appeared from behind it. She was carrying a tiny trowel, with a gold handle, and had a pile of smart maroon laminated brochures stuffed precariously under her arm. She looked distracted.
‘Hello, Isabel,’ she said to Blonde Mark I, scattering brochures.
Ho. So they don’t like each other. Zoe was good at interpreting tones of voice. She bent and gathered up the fallen brochures.
‘Hi, Poppy,’ said Blonde Mark I coldly. ‘This is the girl from the agency I called you about. Zoe Brown. I’ve done the paperwork, but you’ll know where Jay wants her to work.’
It was sweet enough. But so was poison, thought Zoe. Dislike was clearly mutual.
She sighed. She hated office wars. It was tough enough being a temp anyway, without having to work out departmental battle lines.
She said hastily, ‘They said something about a research project? But I can file and do word processing as well.’
The blonde called Poppy looked taken aback. Isabel smiled maliciously.
‘Your call,’ she said. ‘I don’t know a thing about it. Suze at the temp agency said Jay rang through to her himself.’
‘Then we’ll ask Jay.’
Isabel went into exaggerated surprise. ‘He in yet?’
‘Er—no.’
Isabel grinned. ‘Been to stay with the gardener bird, has he?’
Poppy narrowed perfectly made-up eyes at her adversary. The Battle of the Blondes, thought Zoe. She moved carefully out of range.
‘I’m not discussing Jay’s private life with you, Isabel Percy, so you can stop fishing. If you don’t know what to do with her, you can leave Zoe here with me. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of work to do.’
Isabel recognised defeat. She shrugged and turned to Zoe.
‘Sorry about that. If you need to talk, you know where I am. Human Resources, second floor.’
‘Thank you,’ said Zoe in a neutral voice. Rule One, when joining a new office, was be polite to everyone.
‘Jay will tell you everything you need to know,’ said Poppy quickly.
‘It’s still kind of you,’ Zoe told Isabel. ‘I appreciate it.’ Rule Two was don’t take sides.
Isabel raised a hand in farewell. ‘Good luck. Don’t get eaten by the spiders. See you around.’
She went.
The hard look went out of Poopy’s face. She went back to faintly worried, which Zoe suspected was her habitual expression.
‘Suze didn’t say anything else about where you’d be working?’ Poppy asked. ‘Like research into what, for instance?’
Zoe shook her head. ‘But I could start with Mr Christopher,’ she said, mindful of Isabel Percy’s advice. ‘I obviously ought to know more about him and this agency than I do.’
‘Of course.’ Poppy looked relieved. She dived round a curtain of leaves so fat they looked as if they ate people. Had eaten several recently, in fact. Zoe followed, taking care not to brush against the plant in case it had teeth.
Behind it there was an oasis of relative normality.
‘Wow,’ said Zoe, forgetting Rule Three, never comment adversely on the working environment, ‘a real desk. Drawers and a leg at each corner and everything.’
Poppy was rummaging through a pile of papers that leaned like the Tower of Pisa, but at that she looked up and grinned.
‘Don’t let the trendiness in the main office fool you. Culp and Christopher is as good as it gets. The trick desks are just for fun. Ah, here it is.’
She fished out a battered A4 folder. Zoe put the brochures she had harvested down on the desk and accepted it.
‘Now, where are you going to sit? Probably not the boardroom; you never know who’s going to use it. Um—what about Jay’s waiting area?’
Zoe nodded obediently and settled into carved oak chair that looked at least four centuries out of step with the rest of the decor. She resisted the temptation to put her feet on a carved chest of similar design that served as a coffee table.
The folder proved to contain what looked like the draft material for a profile of Culp and Christopher Public Relations. Zoe looked at their client list with interest—she had worked for at least three of the large public companies who figured on it. But what was really intriguing was the staff—former newsmen, sports stars, politicians, even a token aristocrat.
Above all the stuff about Jay Christopher, Olympic medallist, adviser on track and field sports to a series of government bodies and all round public relations guru, made compelling reading. Hermann had said he was running with the great and the good, Zoe thought. Now she saw what he meant.
‘Coffee?’
She looked up and found that Blonde Mark II was standing beside her, waving a glass jug. It steamed.
‘Thank you,’ said Zoe, surprised. Jay Christopher’s PA ought to be too senior to get coffee for an incoming temp.
Her hostess fished a tall thin mug out from a disguised cupboard in the coffee table chest.
‘Jay drinks the stuff by the tanker load. If you get desperate there’s always coffee brewing in here.’ She poured dark fragrant liquid into the futuristic crockery. �
�He’s passionate about it. If you give him half a chance he’ll give you a history of coffee-drinking from the year dot.’
Privately Zoe doubted that the great man would give his new temp thirty seconds of his valuable time. Her father was a busy and ambitious man. On the whole it was a type she was not keen on.
‘Milk? Sugar?’
Zoe shook her head.
Poppy did not disguise her relief. ‘Good. Jay takes it black, no sugar. There are packets around here somewhere, but I can’t always find them.’ She poured some for herself and perched on the edge of the chest. ‘Find anything interesting in there?’
‘Well, now I know what a public relations company does, I think. And what a big cheese Jay Christopher is.’
‘Well, that’s an improvement,’ said a cool dark voice from the doorway.
Zoe rocketed to her feet, spraying coffee widely. Poppy was unmoved. She got up more slowly and kept her cup horizontal.
‘Hi, Jay. This is—’
‘We’ve met,’ he said crisply.
This morning he was wearing a soft dark suit even more beautifully cut than Isabel Percy’s. The shirt underneath was imperial purple.
More silk, thought Zoe, eyeing it with mixed feelings. On the one hand she always wanted to touch silk, let it run through her fingers. On the other, she really, really did not want to touch Jay Christopher.
He was still tall, dark and handsome. Sexy as hell. And mad as a hornet?
He strode through the foliage to a door so discreet it was nearly invisible. ‘Bring in the life-giving, Poppy, my love. And we’ll see what Zoe has to offer Culp and Christopher. Other than her assessment of my place on the cheese index.’
Face rigid, Zoe followed.
He flung a small document case across the room so that it landed neatly on a glass coffee table and turned to her.
He was exactly as she had remembered, Zoe thought. In the light of day she could see that his skin was an even golden ochre and his eyes a strange greeny-hazel. But for the rest he was exactly what her nightmares had told her: too tall, too sleekly dark, too handsome. He even had a haughty nose and beautifully kept hands, which she had passed over on her last inventory of his assets. Well, face it, she had not got further than that controlled and passionate mouth.
The Millionaire's Virgin (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 38
