Sweet Vixen

by Susan Napier

  'And I've read yours, Mr. Wilde,' she said, imitating his tone.

  'Checking up on me?'

  'It's part of my job to know what's going on.' Perhaps the conversation could be steered on to more conventional lines. She must remember what Julie said about him, albeit in rather exaggerated terms: 'He's life or death for us, sweetie. We don't need the extra aggro that antagonis­ing him could give us. Be nice next time you see him.' Sarah would as lief be as nice to a tiger. This one had intelligence as well as speed and strength; a wicked combination.

  'Then you didn't do your job very well this morning, did you?' he replied, not diverted. 'There were circumstances . . .'

  'Julie explained,' he cut her off. 'What conclusions did you come to then, about me, from your file?'

  'None,' she lied. 'I prefer to make my own judgements.'

  'So do I. That's what I'm doing now.’ Just the kind of remark to set her at her ease! 'Do you like your job?'

  'Yes.' He must know that already if he had listened to her conversation with Tom Forest.

  'Ambitious?'

  'In what way?' she asked carefully. 'How many ways are there?'

  Sarah licked her lips. Why couldn't she treat him as she did any other person showing a casual interest in her job?

  'I suppose I'm ambitious in that I want to be the best at what I do.'

  'That's not ambition, that's human nature. Ambition is needing to be the best. According to Julie you're the best Editorial Assistant she's ever had, and that includes her stints in New York and Paris.'

  His voice was slightly dry and Sarah searched his face for signs of sarcasm. There were none. Mind you, he was only repeating what Julie said, not complimenting her.

  'She demands a lot and usually gets it,' Sarah said, giving credit where it was due. 'Julie's taught me practi­cally everything I know.'

  'I doubt whether modesty was included.' That touched a chord of humour in Sarah but she didn't let herself smile. 'What about writing? If not being a journalist precludes you from editorship—' he had been listening '—do you not feel your job self-limiting?'

  'No. There are other directions. I didn't want to be a writer, I still don't.'

  'No talent?'

  'No inclination.' Annoyed. Writing was like offering up a part of yourself on a platter for the world to pick over. Sarah had never even been tempted.

  'Then you don't have any frustrated ambitions?'

  'Why should I? Ambition isn't everything.'

  'It is if there's nothing else,' he murmured and Sarah met his enigmatic gaze. Once again she had the feeling that for him, for the moment, she didn't exist. Had she imagined that faint bleakness?

  'Well, I suppose wanting to be happy is an ambition, and in that sense everyone is ambitious,' she said slowly, looking out of the window at her elbow. The view was quite spectacular, the city below settling into dusk, lights beginning to prick on in the streets which criss-crossed down to Quay Street and the bright port illuminations. Over on the North Shore, beyond the out-flung arm of the harbour bridge, comfortable suburbia was also lighting up and to her right Sarah could see the shadowy hulk of Rangitoto Island receding into the darkening sky.

  Unconsciously, Sarah's voice had contained the gentle reassurance that she had so often used when Simon was suffering from bouts of inadequacy, real and imagined. It was an automatic response that would have worried and disturbed her if she had realised she was doing it. She didn't, but the man opposite did, and was struck by the irony of this odd, prickly female offering him reassurance. His curiosity was aroused, too.

  'That most difficult of all ambitions to achieve,' he said, prompting softly.

  Yes. And the most fleetingly held. It ran like dry sand between your fingers . . . one moment you had it warm and soft in your hand, the next it was gone. Sarah's happiness with Simon had been like that. And now she had found a new, different kind of happiness. Content­ment. But already she could hear the rustling flurries of a rising wind that threatened to disturb it. Nothing stayed the same, no matter how much you wanted it to.

  'Don't you think so?'

  'I—' With a shock Sarah realised that she had nearly said what she was thinking, spoken the unspoken fear out loud. The shutters dropped immediately and the eyes which had been almost sea-green became hard as pebbles.

  'Perhaps.'

  'Perhaps?' His mouth twisted. 'You don't want to agree with me but you don't like to disagree. I think I preferred it when you were spitting at me, at least you were being honest.'

  'There are times when honesty defers to diplomacy,' said Sarah undiplomatically, still agitated by the way he got under her skin.

  'Fortunately I'm not hampered by any such restriction. Tell me, do you deliberately dress like that or is it merely innate bad taste?'

  Sarah's jaw nearly dropped at his incredible affrontery. New Zealanders were generally a tolerant race with a 'live and let live' philosophy that usually enabled them to accept people as they were. It wasn't often that people remarked on Sarah's personal appearance, other than those who knew her well enough to essay a gentle joke or, like Julie, adopt a maternal exasperation.

  'I'm sorry if the way I dress doesn't meet with your high standards, Mr. Wilde,' she said stiffly. 'But it really isn't any of your business.'

  'I think it is. You work for me, remember? Or you will in a couple of months; and you're a rather poor advertise­ment for a fashion magazine.'

  'I'm not advertising anything. We employ other people to do that. It isn't a condition of my employment that I make the Best Dressed lists. My clothes are perfectly respectable.'

  'Oh, they are,' he agreed pleasantly. 'Respectable" is the kiss of death as far as fashion is concerned. You don't deny, I notice, only defend.'

  'I dress as I please,' said Sarah desperately. She could feel her grip on the conversation slipping.

  'Then you're too easy to please. I'm not. But this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it. I can see your editor looking anxiously over this way. Smile, or she'll think you're saying something she'll regret later.'

  Sarah resisted the urge to look furtively over her shoul­der. He had a nasty habit of springing verbal surprises, the kind that left you hanging over a cliff wondering where the solid ground had gone.

  'Julie knows me better than that.'

  'And knowing you, wouldn't expect you to smile, mmm?'

  Sarah stared at him for a moment, then out of sheer perversity switched on a brilliant smile, the kind that she had seen Julie use on less-than-intelligent men. Except Julie also fluttered her eyelashes slightly and Sarah couldn't quite bring herself to do that. Besides, her soft, natural ones wouldn't be quite as impressive as Julie's artificial abundance.

  'Why, Mr. Wilde, whatever gave you that idea?' she said coyly. If he wanted her to pander to his ego, she would comply, with a vengeance!

  Being more than intelligent he immediately got the point. But his reaction wasn't what Sarah expected. She had half hoped, half feared he would be annoyed, but he wasn't. He showed a very genuine amusement, appreci­ative of the way she had very neatly turned the tables.

  'Touché,' he acknowledged. 'I fear my pique was show­ing. I won't ask you to smile again. I'll leave it to your discretion. You're right of course, a response must be spontaneous to be honest. I believe that a person's instinc­tive reaction to a given situation is a far truer indication of their nature than a modified response, which is a social imposition.'

  Like this morning, for instance, Sarah thought. Is that what he was saying? And just now — that urge to annoy him by simpering like a feather-brained idiot? If so, Sarah didn't agree; social conventions were important, they protected, restrained, aided inter-personal relationships. Following your instincts was dangerous and often wrong. Wasn't her attraction to Simon instinctive? And also her initial reaction to his possessiveness—to be flattered, to baby him out of it instead of standing up for herself?

  Deep, dark thoughts and she resented Max Wilde for
making her think them. A tactical withdrawal was called for. She should have kept her mouth shut from the first. Been nice. Modified her responses. He would have been none the wiser.

  Sarah looked at the dark countenance now in profile. He certainly was a handsome man. No, she corrected herself, not handsome—beautiful, yet in no way feminine. There was a fine-boned, thoughtful arch to the brow and the hard, high cheekbones and hawkish sweep of the nose gave him a touch of nobility. Those strange eyes were fringed with thick, dark lashes and the tanned skin was smooth and finely grained.

  His hair was straight, trimmed just above his collar, jet-black but for the gleam of grey in the short sideboards. The etchings of strain around the features were deepened by tiredness; the cynicism she guessed was habitual. A man of culture, a man of passion . . . The mouth and eyes held sensual promise, a promise that from all accounts had been often made and probably just as often fulfilled.

  Seated, he still retained a grace of carriage and poise that reminded her of a dancer; an alert, controlled, poten­tially explosive strength masked by grace.

  At precisely that point in her thoughts he turned his head, quite casually, and she was caught openly staring. Sarah's throat closed in the grip of an unidentifiable fear and every muscle in her body tensed. The room receded and his image came into ultra-sharp focus, claustrophobically close, and her heart thumped hot and heavy as the moment stretched into eternity.

  Simultaneously, they both looked away and Sarah discovered that she had been holding her breath . . . waiting. For what? She released her breath slowly, care­fully, wondering what he had seen in her face. Had that panicky feeling showed? She glanced surreptitiously at him out of the corner of her eye but the classic profile was unreadable. She was being overly-sensitive, allowing a vague apprehension to run away with her. Everything would be all right tomorrow. She would be back in a familiar environment, on her home ground, when she met him next. And he would have other things to concern him, to draw his attention; Sarah could sink gratefully into the background again. Let Julie answer his questions, deal with his unpredictability!

  Sarah got up, clutching the wooden back of the chair. 'If you'll excuse me, Mr. Wilde, there are several people I should speak to. . .' He looked up again, eyes light and faintly mocking.

  'Of course. I'm sure there'll be plenty of other opportu­nities for conversation.'

  It sounded like a threat, and as he rose Sarah slipped away. She didn't know whether he was watching her, but the back of her neck was prickling like mad as she skirted the couples now discoing on the dance-floor. Once she was screened from him by the crowd she broke for the door.

  'Leaving already, it's only nine?' It was Julie, eyeing Sarah's batik skirt with disfavour.

  'I think I've done my share of flag flying.'

  'Okay; at least you came. Did you tell everyone about tomorrow's meeting?'

  Sarah nodded.

  'Good. Good. Er. . . What did he say?'

  Max Wilde must have been telling the truth about the anxious look. Sarah hesitated. 'That you'd explained about this morning. I think we cleared the air.' She crossed her fingers.

  'Terrific.' Julie beamed. 'He was very reasonable about it, you know, considering it wasn't his fault. We had a little laugh over it and everything was as smooth as apple pie.'

  Had a little laugh about it! Sarah repeated savagely to herself as she rode down in the lift, changing a frown to a polite smile as a clutch of Japanese businessmen boarded at the next floor. Smooth as apple pie! What did Julie know? He hadn't withered her with sarcasm, or snubbed her, or laughed at her! Julie liked him.

  Sarah didn't. Not at all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As the week came to a close Sarah told herself that at least she had tried. Julie couldn't fault her for that. She had attempted to be as pleasant, co-operative and efficient as usual, but the good ship Resolution foundered in the sea of unpredictability that was Max Wilde. Self-effacement didn't work with him, he liked to make waves, get opin­ions—provoke them, if necessary. He certainly seemed to take delight in provoking Sarah out of her cool composure.

  The constricting self-consciousness she felt in his pres­ence got worse. She dropped things, and forgot things, and made stupid mistakes, all of which made her even more nervous. It was a vicious circle.

  Grudgingly she had to admit that as an Executive Editor he knew his stuff. He immersed himself in the job as though it was the most challenging of his career, and in doing so challenged the Rags team to keep up with him. He worked with aggressive speed, absorbing information like a sponge, tapping the minds around him and handling the reins of command with easy confidence. He made himself approachable, yet had sufficient presence to instil respect. And he was a master at the art of persuasive reasoning, the subtle manipulation of argument in his own favour.

  By Friday the tacit agreement was that however dyna­mic a brain he was, Max Wilde wasn't an easy man to work for. He was uncomfortably impatient - smiling one minute and snapping the next. Wherever he went he created a natural surface tension which Sarah found as irritating as it was stimulating.

  After the first burst of hyper-activity he settled down to mere over-activity. Surely he didn't work at this sort of intensity all the time? Not even the devil himself could keep that up, thought Sarah, appalled by his sheer drive. No wonder he had been curious about her ambitions, and so sceptical when she said she hadn't any. Work to him was as natural as breathing and he regarded everything in the light of a debit or credit.

  He was generous with praise where it was due, quick to appreciate a good idea. But he was also extremely caustic in his criticisms, and brusque to the point of rudeness with excuses, however justified. He did not suffer fools gladly and at times used words like weapons, striking straight to the heart of the matter regardless of personal feeling, exposing hidden weaknesses and dealing with them ruth­lessly. It was unpleasantly like a trial by ordeal to be on the receiving end of his critical dissection, as Sarah found out on several occasions.

  It didn't help that he continued to make derogatory remarks about Sarah's clothes or that he seemed to be amused by the references to the manner of their meeting. He may have forgiven, but he wasn't forgetting!

  On Friday morning Sarah arrived at work to find that Julie and Chris, together with two more colleagues, Nora and Mike, were already settled around the big oval oak table in the interview-cum-conference room. Sarah was about to take the seat nearest the door when Marie and Keith arrived and Sarah took a playful swing at the art director with her note pad. He executed a neat side-step and to her horror she ended up hitting Max Wilde himself, who was following close behind. It was only a light tap but it hit him squarely in the chest.

  'Sorry,' she blushed, and hurriedly sat down, trying to avoid seeing Keith's smirk.

  Max Wilde, in a grey suit and shirt but without a tie, looked slowly around the table before uncapping the nib of a silver pen. Like unsheathing a sword, Sarah thought.

  'Let's get straight down to business, shall we? I'm impressed, both by your obvious commitment and by some of the ideas you have put forward for this.' He indicated the artist's board beside him displaying the Rags mock-up. 'However, I have some points to make. The emphasis I question. You're changing masthead, layout, typeface—all the things that are your signature. All right, change the cover to indicate your new affiliation, change the order of your columns and add new ones, but not the type. It's clear, it's clean, it's Rags. Changing it would be too much of a shock for your readers. Certainly we want to startle, to challenge, but not to shock.

  'The content is a different story. You have tried to broaden the base of your appeal, but you haven't gone far enough. You've put in furniture, interior decoration— why not food and wine? They're also part of ambience.'

  'But we're a fashion magazine, a specialist magazine,' Nora interjected.

  'How specialist is fashion? It's custom; not only of dress, but of manners, of tastes in everything—even thought. Th
ink of your name. You're not only Rags you're Riches too. Money and everything that it can buy. In fact, why not have a regular financial column, money from a woman's point of view—how to get it, invest it, enjoy it?'

  That interested Chris, who was knowledgeable about stocks and shares and bought jewellery as an investment. She was always telling Sarah that it was important to make your money work for you. But her advice fell on stony ground. To Sarah money was something you either banked or spent.

  Having tossed his suggestions into the ring, Max Wilde now sat back and watched the dogfights that ensued. The pale eyes followed the rapid exchanges with a piercing intensity and the slim fingers played ceaselessly with the pen. Sarah found her eyes drawn to that little bar of silver as it was twisted and twirled, rolled back and forth and occasionally used to make notes. She had rarely seen him completely still, except just before he pounced on an unfortunate victim of his displeasure, like a predator pausing to judge speed and distance.

  Although she wasn't taking any part in the discussion herself, Sarah listened closely. She had heard these argu­ments many times before faut seldom with the sense of urgency they had now. This time what they said would have meaning and effect, it wasn't just letting off steam, stirring the creative juices with complaint and argument.

  Sarah began doodling on her pad with her very prosaic ballpoint, sketching the man at the end of the table with reasonable proficiency. Simon had been quite helpful when she had mentioned she would like to learn to draw, but his fiercely professional criticisms of her dabblings had defeated their own purpose. The enclosed room was very warm and Sarah blinked hard as she added horns and a tail to complete the picture. For some reason she hadn't been sleeping very well lately.

  'Are we boring you, Sarah?'

  Her pen slid off the paper and she straightened in her chair.

  'Of course not.' The give-away was her voice, squeezed high by the yawning bubble that had frozen in her throat. 'Just making notes.' She tilted her pad sharply away from Keith who was craning for a look.