At the Boss's Command

by Darcy Maguire

‘Oh, I’m so sorry to be so late,’ she panted, trying to keep up with his pace as he steered her through the crowds. ‘My flight was delayed and then—’

  ‘I know all about your flight,’ he cut in. ‘Take my advice and don’t use that particular airline again. Their planes are old and they don’t pay their ground crew enough.’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to meet me in person!’

  ‘There’s nobody but me, Worthington,’ he retorted.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s Sunday morning,’ he said. His strong hand was in the small of her back, pushing her relentlessly onward. ‘I expect my staff to work hard six days a week. I don’t ask anybody to work on a Sunday.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she babbled. ‘I really didn’t mean to cause you so much inconvenience—’

  ‘This is where we have to leave your trolley.’ With effortless strength, he scooped up her bag and abandoned the trolley in his wake. ‘Please don’t get your coat caught in the escalator.’

  She snatched her trailing coat up hastily as they got onto the escalator. ‘Mr Zell, I do apologise for all this—’

  He turned to her. His eyes were a deep cobalt blue. Their gaze hit her like a jolt of electricity. ‘You have apologised four times now,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think that’s enough?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Zell.’

  ‘Then stop.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Zell.’

  She studied him covertly as the escalator rumbled upward. He looked formidably fit, broad-shouldered and flat-stomached in his casual silk shirt. And she thought she agreed with Vogue—he was probably the handsomest man in the world by a long way. His eyes and mouth were devastatingly sexy. He was in his early forties, and silver had appeared at his temples, but the rest of his hair, neatly cut— but not slicked back in approved zillionaire style—was black as jet.

  Nor was there anything about his clothes that suggested he was fabulously wealthy and powerful. His watch was a steel sports model. No diamond glittered at his neat ears and his lean, tanned fingers were bare. The most expensive thing about him seemed to be his phone, a hi-tech titanium wafer into which he was now talking, telling his driver to meet them at the main entrance.

  He snapped the phone shut, then turned to meet her eyes. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘I—I understood you were only going to be in Hong Kong for a day. I hope you didn’t have to change your plans on my account.’

  ‘I’m planning to fly out to Sarawak this afternoon at two,’ he replied. ‘I’d like to get this interview over with.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’re going to go to the office to do it.’ He raked her with an up-and-down glance. She was suddenly acutely aware of the crumpled state of her clothes; her fawn trousers and jacket had been elegant when she’d set off, a lifetime ago. Now they proclaimed that she’d slept in them, woken in them, writhed in them, squirmed in them, wrestled a bear in them.

  God alone knew what her hair looked like.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not very smart for an interview!’

  ‘I’ll make allowances. Do you insist on changing? Want to go to your hotel?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, thank you,’ she said quickly. Her heart was pounding hard. She could not believe her luck. She was going to do the interview after all! She was getting a second chance!

  ‘How about breakfast?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mr Zell.’

  ‘You’re not hungry?’

  ‘Breakfast is for wimps,’ she said bravely.

  ‘Many people consider me a monster,’ he said curtly. ‘Would you want to work for a monster, Worthington?’

  ‘No, Mr Zell.’

  ‘I am not a monster. If you are hungry or thirsty, please feel free to say so.’

  ‘Well, actually—’

  ‘Come.’

  That powerful hand in the small of her back drove her out through the doors into the full, humid heat of a Hong Kong morning. A sleek black limousine nosed through the traffic and headed purposefully towards them. A chauffeur in a green uniform jumped out and hefted Amy’s suitcase into the boot. Anton Zell propelled Amy into the interior.

  The door thumped shut, cocooning her in a world of opulent luxury. Every surface was upholstered in cream leather and smelled delicious. She sank into her seat, blissfully feeling the air-conditioning starting to soak away the muggy heat.

  Opposite her, Anton Zell was talking into his phone again. ‘I’m running late, Lavinia,’ he said in a clipped voice. ‘A small but unavoidable calamity. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.’

  The limo oozed out of the parking bay. ‘To the office, Mr Zell?’ the driver asked over his shoulder.

  ‘Yes, Freddie. Stop at Choy Fat on the way.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The partition slid shut, sealing them in privacy.

  Zell snapped his phone shut. His hands were strong and fine, she noticed. ‘So what brings you to Hong Kong?’ he demanded of Amy.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Why do you want this job?’ His deep blue eyes were piercing hers. The abrupt questions were unsettling her. She tried not to stare at him like a hypnotised rabbit.

  ‘Is the interview starting now?’ she asked.

  ‘It started yesterday at noon,’ he retorted. ‘Aren’t you happy at McCallum and Roe? Do you have some trouble there?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘“Of course not”? Then why have you flown all the way to Hong Kong to look for another job?’

  ‘Because I’m capable of very much more than McCallum and Roe ask of me,’ she replied.

  ‘Does that mean you expect me to pay you very much more than McCallum and Roe pay you?’

  ‘It means that I need a greater challenge in my work,’ she rejoined. ‘I’m not the sort of person who likes to coast along, doing the minimum. I like to be stretched. I need to feel that I’m always giving of my best. At the end of each week I want to look back and see that I’ve broken new ground, achieved things of substance—not just kept a chair warm.’

  He watched her carefully as she spoke. ‘Are you a risktaker?’

  The question flummoxed her for a moment. ‘I am not a reckless person,’ she replied slowly. ‘But I am prepared to take risks when the reward seems worthwhile. And where what is risked is mine, and not someone else’s.’

  ‘You enjoy responsibility?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said candidly, ‘I do.’

  ‘Can you deliver projects on time?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said decisively.

  ‘But you couldn’t deliver yourself to this interview on time,’ he pointed out silkily. ‘You’ve arrived—’ he checked his watch ‘—exactly nineteen hours late. You chose a flight that gave you too little margin for delays, Worthington. You took a risk. But what has been lost is mine, not yours. My time. People who take risks with my time do not last very long in my employment.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said in a low voice, stinging from the rebuke.

  ‘Do you know why I need a new PA?’

  ‘I have heard that your old PA had a sudden illness.’

  ‘Marcie developed a heart murmur. She didn’t tell me the full truth. She was trying to keep going until I found a replacement, but she collapsed,’ he said. ‘She only got out of hospital yesterday. Right now, I need someone urgently.’

  Amy tried to smile. ‘Well, here I am, Mr Zell.’

  His answer was a grunt.

  They had been driving along a freeway towards the stupendous collection of towers that was Kowloon. The driver now took an exit and entered a road that ran alongside the harbour. The blue water was crowded with boats, from huge cargo vessels to small shabby junks with their characteristic bat-wing sails. The quayside was strewn with piles of crates, coils of ropes, huge mountains of rusty chain and forests of multicoloured barrels. It was an exotic, chaotic world.

  The limo pulled up at the kerb opposite a mooring where a large, dun-coloured houseboat was crowded in among smaller craft. On the c
ongested deck, a family had set up a food stall and were serving a group of longshoremen. A smiling boy ran up to the car. Anton Zell slid the window down, letting in a fragrant smell of cooking.

  ‘Boiled or crispy?’ he asked Amy.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You wanted breakfast,’ he replied patiently. ‘In Hong Kong that means noodles. Do you like them slippery or fried?’

  ‘Crispy,’ she said determinedly, trying not to notice just how shabby-looking the junk was. It was probably unwise to look surprised at anything Mr Zell came up with, no matter how freakish. He gave the order to the boy, who scampered back to the boat.

  ‘You come highly recommended by Jeffrey Cookson,’ Anton Zell went on, studying her with his penetrating gaze. ‘But then, he is your uncle.’

  ‘He’s been very kind to me,’ she replied.

  ‘So it seems. Apparently he brought you up after your parents died.’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘So we should not be surprised that he thinks the world of you,’ he concluded drily. ‘But he is not the only one. Your first employers, Charteris Industries, gave you a glowing commendation, too.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that,’ she said stolidly.

  ‘So did McCallum and Roe. But people with glowing commendations are sometimes being hurried from job to job because they’re unemployable.’

  ‘That isn’t the case with me,’ she said.

  The boy returned to the limo with two china bowls of noodles and two sets of chopsticks. Amy took the bowl gingerly. It was scaldingly hot. Praying she would not end up with strands of fried noodle hanging off her buttons, Amy dug the chopsticks into the food. It was surprisingly delicious.

  ‘This is wonderful!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘These people are Hakka—boat people. They’re good cooks. You looked as though you thought I was trying to poison you.’

  ‘I thought it might be part of the stamina test,’ she said innocently. ‘Make the interviewee eat street food and see if she dies of dysentery.’

  ‘You think you’re too good to eat street food?’ he asked, lifting one black eyebrow.

  ‘Not at all,’ she replied hastily. ‘But in my experience it’s unusual for multimillionaires to eat breakfast with stevedores.’

  ‘Nothing in life is free,’ he replied calmly. She studied his face as he ate. All faces, in her experience, no matter how beautiful, had their weak points, angles from which they lost their beauty. But not Anton Zell’s. No matter what angle you took, he was perfect. And the photographs had not even begun to show the vivid life that animated his expressions. ‘But some of the best things are very cheap,’ he went on. ‘The food is good here and the view is wonderful.’

  She had to agree. The view across the bay to the sky-scraperscape on the opposite shore was magnificent. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ‘So you have already left McCallum and Roe?’

  ‘I’ve been with them for four years. I never took any leave in that time. I had twelve weeks’ accumulated leave built up. I asked if I could take that. It seemed an ideal way to go job-hunting.’

  ‘Young Martin McCallum has something of a reputation with female colleagues.’

  Amy felt her face flush. She swallowed a mouthful of crisp fried noodles. ‘Yes, that’s true.’

  ‘Is that why you’re so eager to leave?’

  ‘No, it isn’t, Mr Zell. And I resent that implication,’ she added angrily.

  His eyelids drooped slightly. ‘You’re a beautiful woman, young and single. Are you telling me that Martin McCallum failed to notice these things?’

  ‘He noticed,’ she said shortly. She had had her share of that particular problem. Female employees who had affairs with the boss’s son and heir were not unknown. ‘I have no problem keeping my private life and my job separate.’

  ‘Did he make a pass at you?’

  She was on the point of telling him that was none of his business; but a glance at those dangerous eyes warned her not to avoid the issue. ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘And how did you deal with it?’

  ‘I told him I wasn’t interested.’

  ‘I hear that’s not so easy.’

  ‘I managed.’

  ‘What would you do if I made a pass at you?’

  She felt her stomach swoop, the way it had done in the plane coming in to land. His eyes were holding hers inexorably and she would have given anything to know the thoughts that lay behind them.

  ‘I would turn you down, too,’ she heard herself say.

  For a moment there seemed to be a gleam of amusement in his eyes, but the passionate, deeply chiselled mouth did not smile. ‘Why?’

  ‘I told you, Mr Zell. Because I know how to keep my private life and my work separate.’

  ‘What if the two were the same?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Ever heard the expression “Sleeping your way to the top”?’

  ‘If I thought you were that kind of man,’ she said coldly, ‘I would not have come all the way to Hong Kong for this job.’

  ‘So what kind of man do you think I am?’ he asked.

  ‘I only know what I’ve heard.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘That you’re one of the most dynamic, creative men in your business. That working for you is an unparallelled opportunity to learn and grow. I know nothing about your private life, Mr Zell. That doesn’t interest me.’

  At last he broke the eye contact and finished off his noodles deftly. ‘People on my personal team don’t have a private life, Worthington. There isn’t time or space for one. As my personal assistant, you’d be at my side for days at a time, weeks at a time, sometimes in very remote places. If you have a family, they will suffer. If you have a boyfriend, he will leave you. You will certainly learn and grow. But you won’t have a private life.’

  ‘Not even on Sundays?’ she asked bravely.

  ‘What?’

  ‘At the airport you said you didn’t expect your employees to work on Sundays.’

  ‘You are not applying to become an employee,’ he said. ‘A personal assistant is not an employee.’

  ‘What is she, then?’

  He laughed softly and she saw that his white teeth were like everything about him—beautiful. ‘You ought to know. You’re applying for the job.’

  ‘Well, I know that I’m to have no private life and no Sundays off. And your previous secretary was driven into the ground by overwork.’

  ‘You’re getting the picture. Now, let’s see if we can build up a picture of you.’ He rapped on the partition. ‘To the office, Freddie.’

  Chapter Two

  THE blue glass tower which she had glimpsed from the plane was infinitely more impressive from the ground. No logo was emblazoned on the exterior to proclaim that it was the headquarters of the man beside her, but its unique architecture had made it famous.

  Freddie, the chauffeur, drove them down into an underground parking area beneath the building. Apart from uniformed security guards at the booms, the cavernous space was empty.

  They got out at the brushed-steel doors of an elevator. Anton Zell entered a code on the key-pad and the doors opened. They went in, Anton carrying her bag. As the elevator whooshed upward, Amy felt her stomach dip for the third time that morning. A sense of unreality came over her. Whatever she had expected from this interview, the last thing she’d anticipated was spending a whole morning with Anton Zell himself!

  They went right to the top floor and emerged from the elevator into a plushly carpeted reception area. This level, too, was eerily deserted. The doors to all offices stood open; in some, computer screens glowed and machines hummed, but not a human presence stirred. From this height, the views from the huge windows were astonishing, taking in the sprawling city below and the dazzling blue of the harbour.

  Amy had expected he would lead her to his office. However, the room he led her into looked like the sickbay. Glass-fronted cabinets with medica
l supplies inside, a large double sink and a high steel couch completed the image of a doctor’s surgery.

  ‘Why are we here?’ she asked.

  ‘Your medical,’ he replied succinctly. ‘You signed the forms.’

  Her jaw dropped. Of course she had signed the forms, agreeing to undergo a medical examination as part of the job interview—it was pretty much standard procedure for a job with this level of confidentiality.

  ‘There’s nobody here!’

  ‘Except me. How observant of you.’

  ‘You’re going to do it?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said with a glint in his eye that might have been amusement.

  ‘But—but that was supposed to be conducted by a doctor,’ she gasped.

  ‘By a Zell Corporation medical officer,’ he corrected. ‘Glynnis Prior. She’s not a doctor, she’s a nurse. And right now, our Glynnis is in Singapore, visiting her married daughter there. She was here yesterday—when you were supposed to arrive.’

  ‘You’re not qualified to do a medical on me!’ she said, her face scarlet.

  ‘I’m not going to give you a kidney transplant,’ he said. ‘Anyone with first-aid training can conduct the test. And I have plenty of first-aid training. I’ve done everything that’s needed here many times. Of course, you can refuse to take the tests,’ he added, watching her from under those formidable, dark eyebrows.

  ‘And what would happen if I did refuse?’

  ‘It would be taken as a sign of bad faith. That you have something to hide. The interview would end immediately and you would not be considered for the job.’

  Grimly, she stared back at him. ‘You mean—I would just go home?’

  ‘At your earliest convenience.’

  She thought furiously. She had not come all this way to back out now. But everything in her rebelled at the thought of letting Anton Zell perform a medical examination on her!

  As if reading her thoughts, he picked up the blood-pressure cuff. ‘None of it is a big deal, Worthington. Let’s start with your blood pressure, shall we?’

  Reluctantly, she rolled up her sleeve and sat on the couch. He wrapped the cuff around her arm and secured it. At the first sign of any funny business, she decided, she would walk out of here.