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The spark of temper in his eyes showed he knew she was baiting him. ‘I’ll have something if it will hurry you up finishing your own breakfast and getting on with work,’ he said.
He put a couple of croissants on a plate and took one of the cups of coffee.
Barbara swivelled in the big leather chair. Around and around. ‘What a marvellous chair,’ she remarked on her fourth time around. ‘Do you ever do this?’
‘No,’ said Charles.
‘Too busy,’ said Barbara, rotating again. ‘Too important. Things to do, people to see. Got to set a good example for the staff.’
She put a foot down to stop the chair so that it faced the window. It was only seven-thirty, and the street was still fairly empty—but people were coming down it in ones and twos, a briefcase in one hand, a gym bag in the other, and all these early risers were disappearing through the doors of the Mallory Corporation building. No doubt the effect of Mr Mallory’s good example. There was something depressing about it.
‘Dictations to dictate,’ she added flippantly. She gave the wall a kick with her foot to start the chair around again.
It swivelled perhaps three inches, before coming to an abrupt stop. Barbara found that she was now looking up into the thunderous face of the good example to his staff. She was about to protest indignantly when the Great Motivator took hold of her arms and pulled her roughly to her feet.
‘Don’t you think it’s about time you grew up?’ Charles was speaking through clenched teeth. She must have hit a sore spot. Well, it was good to know there was a chink in his armour.
‘I am grown up,’ said Barbara. ‘I don’t personally call not swivelling in chairs the benchmark of maturity—’
‘Neither do I,’ Charles agreed drily. ‘I was thinking of a few other things, such as doing something with the talents you’ve been throwing away ever since I’ve known you. You should have people to see and things to do yourself. You should have a company of your own, damn it. You could do anything you want—’
‘I was doing exactly what I wanted before you interfered,’ said Barbara breathlessly.
He was still holding her arms; the brilliant eyes blazed down into hers. Unbidden, the thought came to her that he might have held her just so if he’d meant to kiss her. It was something she’d imagined about five thousand times, at a conservative estimate, and this was as close as she was ever likely to get: Charles glaring down at her for not wearing shoulder pads and running a boardroom.
A sardonic eyebrow shot up. ‘The ambition takes my breath away.’
Her eyes fell to the firm, sensuous mouth, now curved in something uncomfortably like contempt. What would happen if she kissed him instead? At least she’d know what it was like...
‘I don’t know why you’re complaining,’ she said, dragging her eyes back to meet his. ‘I thought you needed a multilingual secretary. Where would you be if I weren’t?’
‘Struggling along somehow, I imagine.’ He shook her impatiently. ‘We both know you’ve a good mind. I don’t underestimate myself and, unless yours has mysteriously deteriorated since the age of eleven, I’d say yours is as good as mine. What do you expect me to think when I see someone as good as I am making silly jokes and swinging in my chair like a pretty fool with straw for a brain? Do you think it makes it better that you’re not a man? You should be ashamed of yourself.’
Barbara stared into his eyes. How beautiful they were—the green iris rimmed with black, the lashes thick and long, and then above, the black slash of brow... She zeroed in on the essential element in the lecture.
‘Do you really think I’m pretty?’ she asked.
Charles ground his teeth. He dropped his hands from her arms in disgust. ‘This is a waste of time. I’ve got work to do. Forget I said anything. Do whatever you want with your life as long as it includes typing up dictation for an hour before the meeting.’
‘Yesterday you said I was beautiful,’ said Barbara. ‘Did you mean it?’
He flicked her a glance. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Can we get back to work?’
‘But,’ said Barbara.
‘But what?’
‘Nothing,’ said Barbara. She had the feeling that if she said anything she would say something so stupid it would permanently destroy his flattering estimate of her intelligence. She could almost hear herself blurting out, ‘If I start my own company will you kiss me?’ Bad idea. ‘If I win a Nobel prize, I mean just supposing, would you maybe just for one night—?’ No. No. No.
It was getting up so early that had thrown her off balance. There was something about this queer inhuman hour that did something to your inhibitions. Maybe it was because it all seemed so dreamlike. She dreamed about Charles sometimes, and he was always much nicer in her dreams than he was in real life, so that in the small hours of the morning—around eight, say—Charles would kiss her or she would kiss Charles and she would try as hard as she could not to wake up.
He ejected a tape from the recorder and handed it to her. ‘Get started on this and see how far you get. I’ve just given the names and the gist. You can flesh out the letters and I’ll vet them when you’re done.’
This was the genuine Mallory mode. For some reason it was only now that he’d reverted to type that she was struck by how completely out of character his outburst had been. At the time it had seemed just another case of Charles ordering people around. But...
She stared down at him, ignoring the tape in the peremptorily outstretched hand.
Since when had Charles ever been interested in anyone but himself? At seventeen he’d been self-centred and lazy; now he was self-centred and driven. And since when had he been so completely inconsistent? Last week she’d just been a cog he wanted in his machine, and he’d gone about getting it with his usual ruthlessness. Yesterday he’d been just the same. Now it seemed no sooner had he got her than he was telling her ruthlessly that she was wasting her life as a humble cog.
What was going on?
She’d once had a dream in which it turned out that Charles had been in love with her all along. Unfortunately, she’d never been able to have it again, and it didn’t look as though life was going to improve on the dream—it wasn’t exactly likely that Charles, who was confidence personified, would keep his feelings to himself. But in that case... Well, was it just something left over from his days as honorary older brother?
‘Do you think I should start a company?’ Barbara asked.
He glanced up at her, his expression unreadable. ‘Do whatever you like.’
‘Do you think I could?’ she asked.
‘Considering that you say you get bored with anything that lasts more than a month, I’d say almost certainly not.’
Barbara felt that she was somehow not getting to the bottom of this, but she didn’t know what else to ask. She took the tape from his hand; as her fingers brushed his an electric shock seemed to travel from his fingers to hers and up her arm. She snatched her hand away, watching him covertly to see if he’d noticed anything—or perhaps felt it too. But Charles was already slotting a new tape into the recorder.
She took the cardboard tray, with its one remaining coffee and a few stray pastries, out to her desk and turned on the computer. None of the other secretaries on the floor were in yet, but more people were turning up with briefcases and the ubiquitous gym bags.
Some of them seemed to be in fairly good shape, but none seemed to have emerged bristling with energy like Charles. In fact, Barbara thought, some of them looked almost haggard. Charles drove people hard, she knew, and she knew it often had the effect of galvanising them to achieve things they couldn’t have otherwise. But should they really all look so tired?
Her forehead creased in a slight frown. Soon she’d forgotten the problems, however, and was deep into turning Charles’s cryptic comments into courteous, businesslike letters.
CHAPTER FIVE
TWENTY Eastern European businessmen sat around a large conference table, making important-looking notes on yellow pads. Sometimes one would say something in German, and someone else who was lucky enough not to know the language would give Miss Woodward a winning smile and ask her to translate. ‘It will be easier if you sit beside me, yes?’ he would say, and nineteen envious pairs of eyes would follow the dazzling redhead as she made her way around the table.
Well, he’d be envious too if he didn’t know her better, Charles thought wryly, watching Barbara slip into a chair with a charming smile. In fact, if he didn’t know her better he’d definitely want to know her better, he thought, his eyes lingering, in spite of himself, on the vivid face. Just as well he knew what an obstinate, crossgrained, exasperating—He remembered suddenly that he’d as good as held her in his arms that morning. He might as well have kissed her for all the good talking had done.
He saw in his mind’s eye the sleep-drenched blue eyes, the soft, full mouth, and in his imagination his head bent and—No. Charles brought his imagination under control with an effort.
He couldn’t afford to think that way. The meeting was actually going well. Now that Barbara was there at least they weren’t glaring at each other with the look that said, I have no idea what you’re talking about but I don’t care because I don’t like you. He needed a permanent secretary. He was about to pay a lot of money to get Barbara to keep the oils wheeled for the next year. He couldn’t afford to even think about jeopardising that by even thinking about what it might be like to... With more effort he brought his imagination under control again.
Another speaker started talking in English. The man to Charles’s left directed a charming, helpless smile at Miss Woodward and asked her to translate. The nineteen envious pairs of eyes followed Barbara as she walked back around the table and took a seat between Mallory and the man who was lucky enough not to know English. Charles suppressed a smile as Barbara bent towards the visitor and murmured something in the visitor’s language of choice.
She should really stop wasting her talents one of these days, he thought. He should have another talk with her about that, he thought, and remembered again his last talk with her, about wasting her talents, and remembered that he couldn’t afford to think that way.
‘Well, I think we’ve reached an agreement in principle,’ he said. ‘Let’s move on to the next question.’
Barbara translated in a low voice for the man beside her. The meeting didn’t seem to be going too badly, she thought. It was hard to stay on top of everything because as well as translating she was also trying to take notes, and as well as trying to take notes she was also trying not to notice Charles. Well, she thought she was doing all right with two out of the three. Part of her mind was taken up with turning English into serviceable German, part was engaged in the fraught task of transcribing the rather heated discussions and part watched Charles, effortlessly dominating the room.
Her confrontation with him that morning seemed to have made her even more acutely aware of him. In spite of herself, her eyes were drawn to the hard, clean line of his jaw, the fierce nose, the eyes as bracing as cold seawater.
What it would be like to go through a year of this she couldn’t imagine.
On the other hand, she reminded herself, she had permission to start work at nine. She wouldn’t be seeing Charles alone at a time when they should really both have been in bed. She would just have to avoid seeing him at odd hours, and maybe everything would be all right.
A week went by in which Barbara thought she could follow this resolution. Charles continued to come in at a time which was really late the previous day and he usually left around nine for a dinner date. Barbara came in at nine and stayed until ten or eleven or twelve, and she kept meticulous records of every extra second of her overtime. During the day there was so much work she was able to keep her mind off handsome, horrible Charles for five or even ten minutes at a time. He didn’t make any more comments on her looks. He didn’t tell her to start a company. Everything was going to be just fine.
But nothing could ever be fine around Charles for long.
As well as making an assault on Eastern Europe, the company was still expanding aggressively within the UK. It was making a bid to develop a highly dedicated version of Mallory software for one of the biggest corporations in the country, along with a comprehensive set of training materials, and the bid had been delegated to one of Charles’s brilliant, hard-working subordinates.
Mike Carlin was also in charge of developing potential Polish clients, a brief which had turned out to be bigger than they’d expected. On Monday afternoon Charles called him in to check progress. Barbara sat, taking notes. Mike looked hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, but Charles didn’t seem to notice anything. He kept pelting him with questions which the younger man answered somehow.
Finally Charles said, ‘Well, everything seems to be going in the right direction. I don’t need to tell you that time is of the essence.’ He grinned. ‘Speaking of which, Barrett have just called to say they want to move things up by two weeks. It should still leave plenty of time for fine-tuning, but you’ll need to get a move on. How’s the bid coming along?’
Mike looked so tired he couldn’t really have looked worse, but Barbara could have sworn he turned pale. He stammered, ‘Well, it’s getting there.’
‘Getting pretty close to the wire now,’ said Charles. ‘I’d like to see what you’ve got so far.’
‘It’s...it’s...it’s in half a dozen different pieces. You can’t really get an idea—’
‘Well, whatever you have,’ said Charles. ‘Look, I’ll have your secretary bring the stuff up.’
He picked up a phone and dialled an extension.
‘Mallory here. Look, could you dig out the Barrett files and bring them up? Mike’s going to walk me through them. The Barrett file. Barrett. That’s right, and don’t take all day, will you? Thanks.’
He hung up and began to take Mike over some points relating to the Polish clients.
About fifteen minutes later a secretary came into the room, carrying a single slim file.
‘I’m afraid this is all I could find,’ she said apologetically.
Charles took it and leafed through. It was just a few sketches of proposals.
‘This must be the preliminary file,’ he said impatiently. ‘I want the more recent stuff. Mike, why don’t you bring it up for me?’
Barbara saw the look of desperation on Mike’s face. Impulsively she said, ‘I haven’t sent it back down yet, Charles. Sorry, I hadn’t quite realised what you were talking about.’
Both men stared at her blankly.
‘I did a couple of extended assignments at Barrett as a temp,’ Barbara said fluently. ‘They have some pretty rigid ideas of how they like things done. Mr Carlin gave me his drafts, and while they looked attractive in themselves there were some things which wouldn’t go down well with their head of services—and at the end of the day that’s who will probably have the deciding vote. I said I’d go through and make suggestions.’
‘Well, let me see what you’ve got,’ said Charles.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ Barbara said firmly, while Mike and his secretary stared at her in awe. ‘You’ll have to see them anyway after my suggestions have been processed; there’s absolutely no point in wasting time looking at them twice. You’re much better off looking at something that has the responses to company policy in place—otherwise you could end up just changing things that would change anyway.’
‘Tomorrow, then,’ said Charles.
‘They’ll be ready Friday,’ said Barbara.
‘I’d like to see what you’ve got tomorrow,’ said Charles.
‘I’ll be happy to see what I can do,’ Barbara said pleasantly. ‘I take it you won’t be needing me for the rest of the day.’
‘I can’t possibly spare you for the rest of the day,’ said Charles. ‘I’ve got a stack of things that got put to one side because of this meeting which have got to go out today.’
‘Fine,’ said Barbara. ‘I’ll get the Barrett proposal to you on Friday, then.’ She smiled at him angelically, then added, ‘I have a few questions for Mr Carlin so I’ll just follow him down to his office, if that’s convenient.’
She raised an eyebrow at the hapless Mike, who nodded weakly.
Downstairs, with his door closed, he collapsed at his desk and held his head in his hands.
‘Thanks for coming to my rescue,’ he said, ‘but he’ll have to know sooner or later. There’s no way I can do it in time. Better he should know now...’
Barbara had opened the slim folder. There were a few sheets of paper, not much more than random jottings.
‘Hasn’t the company made any other bids?’ she asked.
‘Sure, but nothing this size, and anyway there just isn’t the time. If I dropped all the Polish stuff and did this I’d just end up dropping all the balls.’ He closed his eyes, succumbing for a moment to the tiredness which had been sapping his strength for weeks.
‘You’ve got some material from Barnett, presumably?’ said Barbara, ignoring his defeatism.
‘Yes, but you don’t seem to understand.’ His voice sharpened at last in exasperation. ‘There simply isn’t the time—’
‘For you to do it,’ said Barbara. ‘Of course I understand that. But it’s not too late for me.’ She smiled at him encouragingly. ‘I really did work for them once, you know. I think I know how to package it so they’ll like it. I’ll throw together a rough draft. Once he’s got that you can just tell him you think the Polish side needs a hundred per cent attention. Tell him the groundwork’s been done on Barrett and he should get somebody else to polish it up.’
He looked at her dully. ‘Pass off your work as mine?’ he said. ‘I couldn’t do that.’
Barbara shrugged. ‘You know you do good work.’ she said. ‘Next time you’ll stand up to Charles, instead of letting him give you more than you can reasonably handle. So in the long run the company’s better off. Isn’t that the main thing?’
He frowned, drumming his fingers on the desk. ‘I don’t know...’ he said. ‘I know Mallory says you’re brilliant, but—’
‘He says what?’ said Barbara.
‘Have I got this wrong? He told me some story about the Vendler Morris report on the single currency...’ His eyes closed briefly, then opened wearily again. ‘Typical Vendler Morris fiasco. They kept putting people on it and then taking them off whenever a major client asked for them—whole thing a shambles, serial nervous breakdowns among the secretaries. Then they got in a temp who turned out to be some kind of crazy linguist with a head for numbers and was on the project, unlike their own staff, for three consecutive months...’
Barbara suppressed a shudder. She’d been lured into the assignment with an iron-clad assurance that it would be for no more than three weeks. She’d gone into it with the plan of going off to Crete at the end of the three weeks. She’d been given one of the documents as a simple proofreading job, but had seen problems with the numbers and had started cleaning things up.
Before she knew it the three weeks had become four, then five, then six, and still Vendler Morris and the agency had insisted that if she could just stay ‘one more week’ they’d have everything under control. She hadn’t realised Charles knew about it, but he’d developed some software for Vendler Morris a few years back—he must have heard about it then.
Carlin looked at her sceptically. ‘Well, we’re not talking three months—we’re talking a couple of days.’
‘Yes,’ said Barbara, ‘but in this case I really do have some idea of what you’re up against. At least it’s worth a try.’
He didn’t really look convinced, just too tired to argue the point any longer. ‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind...’
‘I’ll probably enjoy it,’ Barbara said truthfully.
She took the materials away with her, and for the first time since she’d started working for Charles she deliberately took a lunch-break away from her desk.
Barbara went to the cafeteria and loaded her tray with a slice of chocolate cake, a slice of cherry cheesecake, a slice of peppermint white chocolate mousse cake and a cappuccino. There was nothing like dessert for stimulating the mental processes—unless it was three desserts.
She went to a corner of the cafeteria and looked through the previous bids and the materials they’d been sent from Barrett. Then she closed the files and forced herself not to think about them. She let the information percolate through her mind while she finished the last of the cakes, and for the rest of the afternoon, while she rushed through six simultaneously top-priority jobs for Charles, she let the Mallory bids and the Barrett materials glare at each other deep in her subconscious, shouting, ‘Mutually incompatible, hate at first sight.’
Charles went off for a dinner date at nine. Barbara always knew the names of Charles’s dates—they were scrawled on the pages of his desk diary in his bold, careless hand, and sometimes crossed out, too, with the same careless hand. Tonight was Karina. As always, Barbara had to force herself not to form a mental image of the woman. She’d only end up tormenting herself, picturing the beautiful image in Charles’s arms.
As soon as Charles was out of the office Barbara whipped out her materials. Her desk was crowded with the word processor, letter trays, stationery drawers, Rolodex and other paraphernalia of secretarial existence—there was really no place to work. Luckily an office with plenty of work space had just been vacated. Charles had his own monumental desk, of course, and he also had a table for smaller meetings.
The table, in Barbara’s opinion, was just what the doctor ordered for this ailing project. She went into Charles’s office, spread out her files and surveyed them glumly.
The problem was that she was faced with not just two but three philosophies of business, the world and life.
The philosophy of the Mallory Corporation was that ten thousand years of human evolution had been heading, with many a false turn and blind alley, for the last, greatest and most glorious monument to the human spirit—the computer. Hardware was lovely and software was lovelier and there was no problem that could not be solved by a combination of the two. The materials for previous bids dazzled the reader with glossy coloured pages, bursting with tables and pie charts and imaginative templates, and apparently they’d been persuasive: Barbara gathered that the bids had been successful.
The philosophy of Norman Barrett, seventy-two-year-old founder of the Barnett Corporation, was that a manual typewriter and a competent typist were all that any business really required to function efficiently. He was suspicious of gimmicks; he was suspicious of three-colour printing and glossy paper because the bottom line was that at the end of the day he was the one who’d be footing the bill for all that unnecessary folderol.
The philosophy of the head of services at Barrett was in its way more progressive. The HOS did not want to go back to the Stone Age; up-to-date technology was, in his view, essential to the competitiveness of a business. The HOS, however, believed that a software package should be capable of performing complex tasks, while at the same time removing all scope for initiative from the support staff actually using it.
Secretaries should be like trains, speeding along predefined tracks of templates and macros and strictly forbidden to venture cross-country, exploring all the ingenious inventions of the Mallory whizkids.
On the other hand, a bid should make clear that the ingenious inventions would be available to the select small number of personnel who could be trusted with them. It should also be visually appealing as a matter of pure professionalism. A bid was supposed to look impressive—it was the contractor’s chance to show off its stuff, and if it didn’t dazzle it couldn’t be worth much.
Barbara contemplated this intractable problem. It had been stewing away in her mind all afternoon, but it still looked intractable. Well, maybe she should let it percolate a little more.