Gray Quinn's Baby(21)

'I was trying to warn you,' Nancy explained discreetly as Quinn went into his office and shut the door.

Could the girls hear her heart hammering? Magenta hoped not. It was  crucial that they still believed in her or those typing-pool partitions  would soon be up again. 'I'm going in to see him now, to convince him  he's made a mistake and needs us on board. I had a word with him after  the meeting, but I was too angry to think straight, and so of course  Quinn took advantage.'

'That's not such a bad thing, is it?' Nancy said, injecting some  much-needed humour into the tense mix. 'We've all seen the way Quinn  looks at you.' Nancy glanced around the other girls for confirmation.

'Please stop.' This was absolutely the last thing Magenta wanted to  hear. 'I can assure you there is nothing going on between Quinn and me.'  Not any longer there wasn't-nor was there ever likely to be again.  'We're as different as two people could be.'

'We all saw the way he touched you just now,' Nancy argued. 'And you  never know when a hand on your arm leads to a night on your back,' she  added, which made the other girls laugh.

Magenta blushed furiously as the girls continued to tease her, but she  was glad they were laughing again. 'Quinn's probably watching us,' she  warned. 'We'd better get back to work. We don't want to give him any  reason for complaint. Just pick up where you left off,' she said,  exchanging meaningful looks with the girls. 'We're not going to give up  on this.'

Playing by Quinn's rules, Magenta took him his morning coffee and  remained calm as she shut the door. But the moment he looked up at her  all her protective instincts for the girls rose up and poured out.  'You've made a mistake cutting the girls out of the equation.'

'Well, thank you for your opinion, Magenta, but I've made the right decision-and you've just proved it.'

'What do you mean?'                       
       
           



       

'There's no place for emotion at the office, and if I encourage women to seek promotion it would open the floodgates.'

'To feelings?' Whatever she said now would influence every woman's  future at the company. 'Isn't that exactly why my team's ideas are more  likely to connect with the public than yours? Or do you really think the  market deserves another macho ad-campaign dreamed up by men?'

'There's nothing wrong with passion.'

'But no to emotion? How does that work, Quinn?'

'Magenta.' He sighed. 'I have work to do.'

'Allow the girls to work on their projects without consulting the men at  every turn and they'll work faster,' she pleaded with him. 'Let them do  that, and then you judge which campaign you prefer. Or is that too big a  risk for your male ego to take?'

There was a glint in Quinn's eyes as he leaned back to stare at her.

'This is all about you running a successful business, isn't it?' Magenta  continued. 'Or did I miss something? And there is one question I would  like you to answer.'

'Which is?' Quinn's eyes turned hard.

'What difference does gender make to a successful team?'

He relaxed, making her wonder if Quinn had expected her to attack him on  the personal front. 'That's for you to prove and for all of us to find  out,' he said.

'We still get our chance?' She kept the pressure on. She had no  intention of walking away from this and making things easy for him.

'Don't push me, Magenta.'

'So, that's a yes?'

'That's a maybe,' he corrected her.

She counted it as a victory-however small-and, knowing she'd pushed  things as far as she could, she turned to the subject of the end-of-year  party. How many more of these cold-blooded meetings with Quinn could  she take? It was better to get through as much as she could now, Magenta  reasoned.

Quinn was looking at her as if assessing how much she could take on. 'It  will be held at the end of this week, well before Christmas,' he said.  'Not much time for you to arrange things, but that suits my schedule  better. Well? Don't you have work to do?'

Magenta's head was reeling with all the things she had to do. Quinn had  just brought the party forward with no warning at all. She could throw  up her hands and admit defeat, or …

'If you can't handle it,' he said, 'just let me know.'

'I can handle it,' she assured him.

'Do you have a theme?'

Did she have a theme?

'If it's good enough, it might buy your team a second hearing.'

In that case, she definitely had the theme. 'I've got the theme.'

Well, she would have in a minute.

'I'm listening.'

'The theme is … ' She had to come up with something mildly original or go  to the bottom of the class, risking the girls' opportunity to advance in  the business in the process. 'Back to the future,' she said as  inspiration struck. Okay, it was not so original, but Quinn wouldn't  know that. 'It can be interpreted any way people like-but, as we've had  the first man in space, and the race is on to land a man on the moon … '  Ideas were tumbling over each other in her brain.

'Could be different,' Quinn admitted.

'Could be fun.'

'Could be.'

'I'm interested to see how you interpret it. And Magenta?'

'So … ?'

She turned at the door.

'I'm going to trial some of your ideas.'

'You are?' All her personal battles with Quinn were put on hold. She  felt like hugging him. Fortunately, after what had happened, she had  more sense.

'Tell your team to get back to work on the ad campaign right away.'

'They never stopped working on it,' she said quietly.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN




'WHAT are you complaining about?' Magenta heard one of the men, who  she'd heard others address as John, taunting Nancy in the main office as  she closed Quinn's door. 'You've still got a job, haven't you?'

The men hadn't waited long to resume their bullying tactics, Magenta  reflected angrily. It was vital the girls won this battle or there would  always be conflict between the sexes in the office. But at least Quinn  had agreed to give them a chance. She had even persuaded him to let them  use the old boardroom as their temporary campaign-headquarters, and  she'd planned to call an emergency meeting there now. But overhearing  the exchange between Nancy and their male colleague reminded Magenta how  far they had to go-that and the fact that she could wake up at any  moment, leaving her new team in the lurch.                       
       
           



       

'It's tradition,' John was saying. 'You women are supposed to make all  the homey, holiday preparations. Just because you have a few letters to  type, that's no excuse. We need our mince pies and treats while we  handle the real work around here.'

If any useful work was going to get done, they all had to calm down.  'I'm afraid the girls won't be free to run errands for you,' Magenta  explained, shooting a warning glance at Nancy.

'Oh?' John demanded. Glancing at his cronies, he sat back, staring at  Magenta as if he were a headmaster forced to deal with a child he  considered very much his intellectual inferior.

'We're all going to be busy, because we're all back in the race,'  Magenta explained. 'Quinn is going to judge both campaigns and choose  the one he prefers.'

'But we've got all your ideas,' John said with a laugh in his voice as he traded smug glances with his friends.

'It's what you do with what you've got that makes the difference,'  Magenta argued, stealing a glance at Quinn through the office window.  'Girls, follow me to our new headquarters.'



They worked until the end of the day on finessing their campaign, and  then the girls insisted on staying behind to help Magenta plan the  Christmas party.

'Quinn had a few stipulations to make. Beyond that, we're free to interpret the theme any way we choose.'

'Within a tight budget?' Nancy guessed shrewdly.

'This is hardly the best time to go overboard,' Magenta agreed. 'But I'm  happy to cover any shortfall.' Though quite how far her office  manager's wage packet would stretch …

'Am I right in thinking you have come up with an idea?' Nancy prompted.

'I have,' Magenta confirmed, revealing her theme for the party.

'But no space-food,' Nancy insisted. 'The only thing I'm prepared to drink through a straw is a cocktail.'

'You don't have to follow a space theme at all,' Magenta explained. 'All  I'm suggesting is that each of us interprets the future as we see it.'

'No long hair, caftans, beads or beards!' Nancy exclaimed with relief.

'Not if you remember to shave,' one her friends added with a laugh.

'But the food stays how we like it,' another member of the team  insisted. 'All the usual, with my favourite, cheese-and-pineapple on  sticks. I'll even volunteer to cover the cabbage with foil.'

'Hang on,' Magenta protested. 'I'm good with cheese and pineapple, but  since when do we eat cabbage at a party unless it's in a bowl of  coleslaw?'

'We don't eat it,' Tess said, giving Magenta a sideways look. 'We cover  the cabbage in foil and stab sticks loaded with the cheese and pineapple  into it. Surely you've seen a finished hedgehog before?'