‘Can I take your portfolio with me?’ he asked, as he drained his coffee-cup and looked at his watch.
Time for my dismissal, she thought wryly.
‘I make a point of never lending it out,’ she said automatically, and he frowned at her.
‘Really? I thought your precious portfolio had only this morning been rescued from a client?’
Christina felt her cheeks go pink. ‘Oh, yes, he was an exception,’ she said hastily.
‘Was he?’ Adam looked at her curiously. ‘Why?’
‘He’s an old friend,’ she mumbled, off the cuff. ‘I often do him favours. I’ve known him a long time. He puts quite a bit of business my way.’
She dwindled off into silence and wondered why she was gibbering on with some fictitious excuse for something that was none of his business after all.
‘You often do him favours?’ He stood up and she followed suit, preceding him to the cloakroom, where he reached for her coat and helped her into it, an awkward exercise which was not helped by the fact that her body was stiff as a board in an attempt to avoid any physical contact with him.
‘What sort of favours?’ he continued, interestedly. ‘And I naïvely assumed that Robinson was the only man in your life for some time.’
Why? she thought. Because I’m plain? Not the sort to be surrounded by a bevy of suitors? A few weeks ago that thought would never have occurred to her—her inherent sense of self-worth wouldn’t have allowed it—and it annoyed her to think that Adam Palmer had chiselled open chinks which had formerly not existed.
‘Thank you for the lunch,’ she said, dodging his question. ‘When do you want me to meet you so that we can take care of the details?’
They were in the road now, and he reached out to hail a taxi, which swerved across to stop in front of them. He leaned in and gave the taxi driver her home address, then he opened the door for her to enter. She slipped past him quickly.
‘Contact my personnel officer tomorrow,’ he told her, slamming shut the door and leaning down to look in at her. ‘She’ll have the contract ready.’
The wind whipped his hair across his forehead and he raked his fingers through it, a casual, unthinking gesture to which she found she was paying an abnormal amount of attention.
‘What will you tell your regular photographer?’ she asked, dragging her eyes away, and he shrugged.
‘That someone else is being brought in to try and provide a change. What else? I don’t intend to beat around the bush on this one. I don’t believe in carrying dead wood. I’m hoping that he’ll derive some inspiration from you, in which case things will carry on as normal next month, but, if I find that he’s become a liability in my organisation, then...’
He let his comment hang unfinished in the air, and Christina shivered. In the tough world of business, there was no room for people who didn’t contribute their way, but it was still a little alarming to see such ruthless power in action.
Adam Palmer, she realised, was not a man to overlook incompetence out of politeness. He would seek to eliminate it.
‘Then you’ll liquidate him,’ she finished, and he gave her a cool smile.
‘I’m not a member of the Mafia. No, he would be financially taken care of, perhaps moved to another department, or sent on some kind of refresher training course. It’s a problem to be faced when and if it arises.’ He slammed shut the door, and gave her a little farewell salute, and the taxi slowly eased its way into the London traffic.
She sat back and stared vacantly out of the window, but her thoughts were elsewhere. It had been a profitable meeting, that much she couldn’t deny. To be able to quote Adam Palmer’s publishing house on her CV would be a feather in her cap. His organisation was massive, highly profitable and extremely well respected. She tried to remember what it had been like when his father was alive, whether in retrospect she could see the tell-tale signs of its gradual failure, but she couldn’t. She had been too young then to pay much attention to such far-off things as companies and their profitability. Little wonder that Fiona had never suspected anything remiss in her parents’ relationship, and Adam was right to withhold the knowledge from her. She was surprised that he had said anything to her about it, but maybe it had been meant to put her in her place rather than as a show of confidence. She dragged her thoughts back to the present.
She had not wanted to accept any sort of job from Adam, but she could see now that any ideas that she might have had about being patronised had been way off course.
In fact she was surprised that that thought could ever have entered her mind. He was simply not the sort to patronise. If he had looked at her portfolio and had been unimpressed, she would be sitting here right now without his lucrative offer ringing in her ears.
Because lucrative it most certainly was. The fee he had mentioned was sizeable, far more than she had been paid by the other magazines she had worked for. And the job was not one which was going to cause her undue anxiety. He had left with her suggestion that the cover represent an aspect of one of the articles rather than another attractive face, and no doubt his decision would be waiting for her in the capable hands of his personnel officer to be imparted when they met the following day.
And that, she thought, would be the end of his involvement with her on this job. She would now be working with a variety of other people, all cogs in the vast wheel that made his organisation run smoothly.
Her spirits were still wonderfully buoyant the following morning when she knocked on the door of the personnel officer.
She had visited Adam’s headquarters only once before, a long time previously when she had arranged to meet Fiona for lunch and was picking her up there. It had not changed very much. It was still an impressive building, not massively large, but with that clinical elegance that often underlay a well-run organisation.
The minute you stepped through the glass doors into the foyer, you had the impression that this was a place where things got done.
She suspected that even the plants would have been coerced into some job or other if Adam had had his way.
A woman’s voice called her in, and Christina pushed open the wooden door and stepped into a plush room dominated by a huge desk, behind which sat a woman in her mid-thirties, in a dark suit and with a friendly but efficient face.
The perfect corporate look, Christina thought with a trace of amusement. Well, at least he did not discriminate against women when it came to his employees. The woman sitting behind the desk with the amicable, shrewd smile on her face was in a very senior position indeed.
Christina accepted the outstretched hand, but before she could sit down the other woman, who insisted on being called Mallory, said without preamble, ‘Before you make yourself comfortable, I might as well tell you that Mr Palmer has asked me to send you up to him as soon as I’ve given you your contract.’ She handed over some official pieces of paper, and Christina accepted them with a puzzled frown.
‘Whatever for?’
‘I presume he wants to discuss a few last-minute details of your job with you.’ She shrugged and smiled with genuine warmth. ‘I’m sure it’s important. He rarely does anything without a very good reason.’
‘I’m sure,’ Christina said, returning her smile with a wry one of her own. She flicked through the document in her hand, which looked straightforward enough, a variation on the many which she had seen and signed ever since she had begun work on a freelance basis.
‘I’ll show you up to his office,’ Mallory said, moving around and walking briskly to the door. ‘He hates being kept waiting. It’s one of the very first things I always tell new employees.’
What are the other things? Christina wanted to know. A few other essential ground rules to avoid antagonising the big man?
They walked towards the lift, and as it whisked them up to the other floor Mallory asked about Christina’s line of work, keeping up an easy banter until they reached the outer office, where his secretary was busily inputting information in
to a word processor.
She raised her eyes for a fraction as they entered and nodded at Mallory.
‘I’ll leave you here,’ Mallory said, shaking her hand firmly. ‘See you soon.’
Then she was gone, and the secretary, a middle-aged woman with a grim set to her features, knocked sharply on the adjoining door to his office.
Christina looked around her. This was unexpected. She felt nervous and taken aback at the prospect of meeting Adam yet again. It seemed that ever since he had burst into her flat on his mad chase after Fiona she had been thrown into his company far too much for her liking.
Now she smoothed her skirt and composed her face as his secretary stood back to allow her entry into his office.
It was huge. The speckled blue of the wallpaper, combined with the very dark wood of the furniture, gave it a peculiarly masculine look. Apart from that, though, there was nothing to indicate what sort of person sat behind the desk, except that it was obviously one who wielded a great deal of power.
No photos on the desk, one very functional plant in the corner, and only one picture on the wall, a vaguely abstract affair that gave no indication of what it was meant to represent.
She would have expected the walls to be lined with framed covers of his magazines, but perhaps he didn’t care for dozens of women’s faces staring out at him every minute of the day.
‘Will that be all, sir?’ the secretary asked from behind Christina’s back, and Adam nodded, before returning his attention to Christina.
He nodded to the chair facing him, an oddly masculine gesture, and she sat down tentatively.
‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked, and she looked at him, bewildered.
‘About what?’
‘The office.’ He gave a broad gesture. ‘I saw you looking at it with an expression of disapproval on your face.’
‘Was I?’ She stared at him, startled.
‘You were,’ he said drily. ‘You have a remarkably expressive face, even though you try so hard to conceal it.’
That made her blush, something she hated doing in his presence because it made her feel vulnerable.
‘I was thinking,’ she responded with deliberate calm, ‘that this office doesn’t give anything away about you. Anyone could work here, sit at that desk.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’ he asked, vaguely amused. ‘Surely you don’t believe that the working area should be cluttered with little stuffed mascots and photos of every member of my family?’
‘I guess not.’
‘They’re unnecessary distractions,’ he said, tapping his fountain-pen on the polished wood of his desk. ‘Although,’ he continued, as if slightly surprised by the thought that had come to his head, ‘the real distractions exist in the mind and not on celluloid.’
‘I presume that that’s a reference to Frances of the English degree?’ Christina said politely, her insides churning at the thought of the other woman possessing the power to distract him, and he gave her a curious look.
‘Who else?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Anyway, moving on to the matter in hand...’
‘Yes,’ she said crisply, ‘the matter in hand. I’m surprised you asked to see me. I thought that we had ironed out quite a few of the details over lunch yesterday.’
‘Quite a few of them,’ Adam agreed smoothly. ‘There are just one or two things which I wanted to discuss with you personally. The first is that I’ve given some thought to what you said about shooting a cover to feature one of the highlights in the magazine.’
‘And?’
‘And I think it’s a very good idea.’ He gave her a dry smile. ‘No need to look so surprised. I can pay the occasional compliment.’
I’m sure, Christina thought, but not to me.
‘So you want to brief me on what I’ll be photographing,’ she said.
He looked at her from under his lashes. ‘And where,’ he said silkily.
She didn’t like that expression on his face. It made her wary.
‘You have a passport, I take it?’ he said, and she nodded.
‘Good, because we’re running an article on carnivals around the world, and as of next week you’ll be in Trinidad. I hope,’ he added, ‘you won’t find that too inconvenient.’
CHAPTER SIX
CHRISTINA sat down and looked at him blankly.
‘Trinidad,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that somewhere in the West Indies? Where, right now, there’s lots of sunshine?’
He nodded and she eyed him warily. ‘Why me? Why not someone more experienced? You’ve never used me before. How do you know that sending me won’t be a waste of your money?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he snapped irritably, and she could see that her reaction was getting on his nerves, ‘do you usually try and dissuade your clients from using your services?’
‘Of course not...’
‘Then why the string of questions? If I didn’t want to hire you, believe me, you wouldn’t be sitting where you are now. And as for not knowing your work—I’ve seen your portfolio. Not,’ he continued, standing up and moving across to the window to stare down, his profile to her, ‘that that was the persuading factor in my hiring you. I’m usually good at judging people, and I trust you to do your job well.’
‘I’m flattered,’ Christina said, wondering whether she should be pleased at that compliment or offended by the image it conjured up of her as predictable and efficient and ever so boring. ‘I had no idea that business tycoons operated on instinct.’
He turned to face her, his arms folded across his chest, and with the cold, bright sun behind him there was something crazily attractive about him. Her heart began to beat a little harder, although the expression on her face didn’t change.
‘Instinct got me where I am today,’ he said without warmth. ‘As I said, my father’s company was dying on its feet when I found myself thrown in at the deep end. Bad management, bad investments—you name it. I had had no idea how bad it all was, because at the time I had been abroad for quite a while.’
‘Would you have returned to England if you had known?’ she asked.
‘Oh, no.’ He gave her a bitter, twisted smile. ‘I couldn’t stomach what was going on between my parents. I certainly wouldn’t have felt inclined to bail the old man out of the mess he’d got himself into.’
‘You mean that you ended up doing it for your sister...’
‘And in the process I discovered that power and success bring their own rewards.’
‘You mean the flocks of women?’
‘If I didn’t know better, I would have said that you were obsessed with my love-life.’ He gave her a lingering, mocking stare that made her flush.
‘You’d be wrong.’
He didn’t comment on that and she was left wondering whether he believed her or not. Why couldn’t she be cooler, more controlled in his presence? The thought of her silly blushes and embarrassed blunders made her wince. There was nothing appealing or attractive about an undesirable woman acting the coy teenager in the presence of a man like Adam. At the very least it was pathetic. She raised her chin, looked him straight in the eye, and said calmly, ‘Now, moving on to the matter in hand...’ She looked at her watch. ‘I have a few appointments to keep, so...’
‘Of course,’ he murmured, over-seriously. ‘You leave in three days’ time. That should get you there with a couple of days to spare before the carnival begins. You’ll be there for two weeks exactly—time to familiarise yourself, do your shoots, and then wind up with a few beach shots of the models for the centre pages. And, lastly, you’ll be staying at the Hilton, right in the heart of things. Any questions?’
‘I shall have to reschedule some of my engagements,’ she said, half to herself, and he frowned.
‘Yes, you will,’ he agreed smoothly, ‘because the time factor here is non-negotiable.’
‘Would it have been negotiable if it weren’t for the carnival?’ she asked casually.
‘No.’
�
�Because you’re the boss and what you say goes, take it or leave it?’
‘That’s right.’
Behind those arrogant good looks, those peculiar, vivid blue eyes, she could see the ruthless businessman. In and out of work, she doubted that anything would be negotiable with him.
They briefly went over a few details and then the telephone rang and she rose to leave, looking at him hesitantly, wondering whether there was anything else he wanted to tell her, but there clearly wasn’t. He waved to her in a gesture that implied that her time was up, but he wasn’t even looking in her direction. His mind was now elsewhere, totally absorbed in whatever was being said to him down the line.
Christina quietly let herself out of his office, pausing on the way out as his secretary confirmed what he had already told her about collecting the itinerary.
She had greeted his proposition unenthusiastically, but later on she began to feel a little spark of excitement. Adam might have employed her, but he wouldn’t be there in Trinidad with her. She would be able to do her own thing, without having to fight that stupid, breathless feeling that seemed to overwhelm her whenever he was around, and what could be more thrilling than a fortnight in Trinidad for the carnival?
She surveyed her wardrobe and then, in a fit of childish glee, she dragged down her suitcase from the top of her wardrobe and began filling it with enough light clothes to last two weeks. There wasn’t a great deal. Some cotton tops and shorts, a couple of dresses, her entire collection of bathing-suits, which amounted to three, and a handful of outfits which she hoped would take her through any night-time affairs. She knew from experience that the crew who worked on shoots tended to be light-hearted and extrovert, the sort who could dig out excitement in the middle of a barren desert. So she very much doubted there would be too many evenings in on her own.
Then the models would be there as well, however many of them Adam decided to use. They probably wouldn’t be a bundle of laughs. In their profession they couldn’t afford too much humour. Bad for the facial lines.
There you go, she told herself severely, being a bitch again. Let’s not forget the blonde bombshell with the brains to match.
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