Boardrooms of Power. Heidi Betts

notice. She was too busy frowning and trying to work out why he had invited her out if the work issue could have been solved by way of a note on her desk.

      ‘You could have told me that in the first place, Gabriel!’

      ‘True,’ he was quick to admit. ‘But I really wanted to discuss the matter of your temporary replacement with you.’

      ‘I won’t be starting my course until September, in all probability! There’s no urgency for the interviewing process to begin as yet! We’re only in May.’

      ‘The end of May,’ Gabriel said darkly. ‘Before you blink, we’re in July and you know how normal life stops in summer with people clearing off on holiday. After the fine examples of the possibilities on offer, I would say that the interviewing process needs to begin sooner rather than later.’

      Rose released a frustrated sigh.

      ‘Have you a problem with that?’

      ‘No. Not at all. You pay my salary. How can I have a problem with that?’ She smiled to make a joke of it, but there was no answering humour in his eyes.

      ‘In other words, what I pay you buys your compliance even if you don’t agree with what I’m asking you to do.’

      His remark was so close to what she had only been thinking herself minutes earlier that she blushed and looked down, to see where his foot was firmly planted.

      ‘I’m beginning to think that all this talk about wanting to move forward your career and being held back professionally by working for me is just so much nonsense…’He wedged his foot a little more firmly through the doorway and leaned against the door frame, arms folded, his expression one of calculating suspicion. ‘I smell mutiny in the ranks and experience has taught me that mutiny usually arises from personal grounds…’

      ‘You’re being over-imaginative, Gabriel…’ She licked her lips nervously and wondered where he was going with this one. ‘If I had…any personal problems with working for you, I would have told you…’

      ‘Would you?’ He pushed himself past her, taking her by surprise. ‘Money can buy loyalty, but loyalty that’s only skin-deep, and that’s no good to me.’ He turned to her and Rose was forced to marvel at the speed with which he had managed to get inside her house and was dwarfing its small confines.

      ‘Can we discuss this in the morning?’

      ‘Why? You know, it’s actually only a little before nine. You’ll recover from jet lag quicker if you try and maintain your normal waking times. And anyway, if there’s an underlying problem I want to hear about it.’

      ‘I told you…’ She hoped that she was the only one who could detect the desperation in her voice.

      ‘I would never have stopped you from saying what you thought…’ Gabriel said slowly, his eyes raking over her embarrassed face. ‘And I’m insulted that you would think me such an autocrat that you might be scared to voice your opinions in case I sacked you…or cut your salary…’

      ‘Of course I didn’t think that!’

      Gabriel could spot a sincere answer when he heard one. Anyway, he was pretty sure she knew him better than to think that he might really try to control her with her pay cheque, but she had given him pause for thought. Starting with her letter of resignation and ending with remarks which, in a way he couldn’t put his finger on, carried the ghost of criticism in them. Something in the tone of her voice and the lowering of her eyes had pricked his curiosity. Curiosity was an untapped emotion for Gabriel. The frenetic pace of his work life got his adrenalin flowing but he had been in the game long enough for uncertainty and nerves to have disappeared. He ran his empire with the confident hand of a master horseman controlling the reins of his animal. And there was no woman who incited his curiosity. Interest, yes, lust, definitely, but curiosity, not at all.

      So he was like a dog with a bone now, especially since he had long ago formed very preconceived notions of his efficient secretary, notions which were in the process of being dismantled.

      ‘Why don’t you make us both a cup of coffee…?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘Because underneath all the yes, sirs and no, sirs and three bags full, sirs you can’t really stand to be cooped up with me for any length of time?’

      That was so far from the truth that Rose burst out laughing and after a while Gabriel grudgingly allowed his bunched muscles to relax.

      ‘Okay. Maybe a quick cup of coffee. I wouldn’t want to keep your driver waiting.’ She headed towards the kitchen, mentally adding another first to the stack already piling up. A first for Gabriel coming inside her house. She knew that he had gone outside to tell his driver that there would be a wait. She intended to make it a short one. By the time he came back, the coffee was made, black, no sugar, as he liked it.

      Rose was sitting at her kitchen table and had placed his mug conveniently at the opposite end.

      ‘So, talk to me,’ Gabriel commanded, sitting down.

      ‘When do you want me to start interviewing for someone? Would next Monday do? Or sooner?’

      ‘Explain your remark about obeying me because of the money.’

      ‘I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it.’

      ‘How long have you thought that way? Since you started working for me? In the last few months? Only since you got back from seeing your sister? When?’

      Rose nearly groaned aloud. ‘It doesn’t matter, Gabriel.’

      ‘It does to me. Now tell me what it is that you have disagreed with? You can talk to me. You’ll find that I can be very sympathetic. I don’t want to lose you and if you’ve been harbouring any grudges about the way I run things, then now is the time to get it off your chest.’

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE restaurant in the glass office building, like everything else, was fairly spectacular. It was one of the invisible but very handy perks that came with working for Gabriel. It was open all day, served a staggering choice of first class food and was so heavily subsidised that loose change could buy a hefty enough breakfast to last the day.

      Every so often Gabriel, when he wasn’t entertaining clients or being entertained by them, would emerge from his glorified sanctum and stroll down for lunch. He did it to touch base with his employees. Rose always smiled at that because touching base with his employees was a pretty ridiculous notion when it came to Gabriel Gessi. He chatted to them, invited their ideas, and they chatted back. But scratch the surface and it was easy to see the awe that controlled their replies. He wasn’t just rich and powerful but he looked the part and that in itself was enough to make most of his employees break out in a light nervous perspiration.

      Right now, at two-thirty in the afternoon, the lunch time stampede had come and gone. Over by the windows were two small groups of people—three girls from the kitchens, who were having cups of coffee and doughnuts, and a couple of men who were talking animatedly over sheets with graphs and figures.

      Aside from that, it was empty. Perfect conditions for Rose to sip from her mug of coffee and morosely mull over events of the night before.

      He had asked her for her opinions and to start with she had had no trouble resisting the invitation. Four years of habit had come to her rescue, saving her from succumbing to the novelty of their situation and behaving in a way that would have been out of character. She had looked at him quizzically, lowered her eyes and paid a lot of attention to her cup of coffee.

      He, on the other hand, had stared at her over the rim of his cup, in no particular hurry to go. Then, changing the subject, he had quizzed her about what sort of course she was interested in doing, what qualification would she achieve at the end of it, would she want a job supervising other people or working primarily on her own? Harmless questions that were just what an interested boss would ask, nothing to set her antennae