‘The do kicks off at eight. Meet me in the bar here at seven-thirty. We can have a drink first and then get there around eight-thirty.’
Because, she sniped to herself, the great man could arrive late if he wanted. Forget about currying favour with the person whose company you wanted to buy! Currying favour was something only lesser mortals did! Gabriel Cabrera didn’t feel he had to do that, so he didn’t.
‘And will we be doing any work before we leave?’ she asked with wooden politeness.
‘It’s Saturday. I think I can spare you.’
‘Fine.’ She galvanised her legs into action and walked towards the door. She would have a shower, unpack some of her drab grey clothes to wear out and then she would hit the shops and spend that money he had made no bones about telling her she should spend—so that she could get herself up to scratch and blend in! ‘I’ll see you in the bar at seven-thirty. Perhaps you could let me know if there’s a change of plan.’
She let herself out of the room without a backward glance. She had over-reacted, she knew that, but she had just lost her cool at the sheer arrogance and superiority of the man.
She showered quickly, barely paying any attention to the stunning bedroom she had been allocated, which was a mirror reflection of his, then out she went.
He wanted his drab secretary to do something about her appearance so that he didn’t flinch when he looked at her?
Well, she would make sure she did her very best to do as he had asked!
CHAPTER FIVE
ALICE HAD NEVER, ever had anything that could possibly be called an unlimited budget when it came to buying clothes. Or buying anything, for that matter.
Growing up, her father’s job had been good enough. He’d been a middle-management man who had paid the bills, given his wife just enough to get by and spent the remainder on pleasing himself. Holidays had just not happened. Or maybe they had, in the early days before she had come along, and perhaps when she had been a baby, too young to remember them. Maybe they had happened when her parents had been a happily married statistic instead of two opponents fighting their private cold war.
Pocket money for clothes had been thin on the ground. Her mother had passed her some, whatever was left from the housekeeping money at the end of the month, but Alice had never known what it was like to spend cash on things that weren’t strictly necessary.
So it took her a little while to get her head round the fact that that was exactly what she had now been ordered to do.
She had brought a little pocket guide-book with her and, instead of rushing instantly to the shops, she took the limo to the Champs-Elysées, which was hardly necessary, considering how close their hotel was to it.
She wandered. She mingled in the glorious weather with the rich fashionistas. She walked past the expensive restaurants and cafés. There was no time to visit any of the museums but she could admire the architecture of some of the grand buildings and submerge herself in the airy affluence. She stopped to have a coffee and a croissant in one of the cafés and sat outside so that she could people watch.
In her head, she replayed every word Gabriel had said to her and relived the hurt she had felt at being dismissed as someone inferior. It didn’t matter whether he praised her work skills to the skies. It didn’t matter if he complimented her on her initiative in digging out bits of useful information on companies he was interested in acquiring. It didn’t matter if he now trusted her to flesh out reports which he gave to her in skeleton format.
She was the drab, grey little person who didn’t know how to dress.
She had a flashback of Georgia in the office, in her tight red dress and her high, high shoes, with her dark hair everywhere and her long nails painted scarlet.
There was no way that Alice would want to replicate that look. As far as she was concerned, the other woman had embodied everything that was obvious and way too out there.
But she wasn’t going to be a mouse.
It took her a little while, but by the time she hit the fourth shop she was in her stride. She cruised through all the designer shops, growing in confidence as the afternoon wore on, and by five o’clock she returned to the hotel clutching several bags. She could have summoned the limo again but the walk had been tempting, if tiring.
And what better place to soothe a weary body? She dumped the bags in her bedroom, inhaled the gorgeous opulence of a hotel room the likes of which she would never stay in again for a few heady minutes and then phoned through to make an appointment at the hotel pa.
By six-thirty, Alice was fully rested and relaxed. Back in her room, she looked at her nails, her feet, her hair.
Vanity had never been a problem for her. As a teenager, when all the other girls had been preening in front of mirrors and whispering about boys she had been busy keeping her head down, studying and wondering what the following day would bring; wondering what sort of mood her mother might be in or whether her father might be on one of his many ‘time out’ trips.