Yes! Had she been on her own Magenta would have punched the air in triumph. ‘Of course,’ she answered calmly instead, hoping she didn’t look too desperately relieved.
She was still trying to keep her concentration on what they were saying, and to stop herself grinning from ear to ear, when a knock had her gaze swivelling across the large modern office to the tall man in an immaculate dark suit who was striding in.
Andreas! Magenta tried to force his name past her lips but no sound came out.
What was he doing here? she wondered, aghast. And why had he barged in dressed like that, as though he had every right to?
‘Mr Visconti...’ The older woman, looking surprised, was getting to her feet, but a silent command from him had her subsiding back onto her chair. ‘This is Miss James,’ she explained. ‘We were just about to wind up her interview.’
‘I know.’
The deep voice was calm. Matter-of-fact. But he hadn’t yet looked her way and Magenta guessed that he hadn’t connected the name with her or realised that it was his ex the woman was referring to, now sitting there in a state of shock.
‘That’s why I came in.’
The impact of his sudden entrance had made her go weak all over, she realised, and then he suddenly glanced her way and his intensely blue eyes met the stunned velvety-brown of hers.
‘Mr Visconti is our Chief Executive,’ her principal interviewer was telling Magenta, through what seemed like a thick and muffling fog.
Chief Executive? How could he be? she wondered when she finally managed to grasp what the woman had said.
‘He’s the man we’re all ultimately answerable to,’ said Lana Barleythorne, who seemed to be having difficulty keeping her eyes off him. ‘He has the last word on whatever changes might be taking place throughout the chain.’
‘And I’m afraid this position has already been filled.’
He took his eyes off Magenta only briefly, to direct a glance towards the people she now realised, staggeringly, were his employees.
‘But we thought—’ piped up Lara, his clearly adoring fan.
‘It’s Miss Nicholls—the last candidate,’ he stated tonelessly, and in a way that imparted to anyone who might dare to challenge him that his decision was final and no one else had the authority to question it. ‘I’ve already spoken to...’
Numbly, Magenta only half heard him saying that he had spoken to his marketing manager and she was happy to take the other candidate on.
‘I see.’ The woman who was obviously the spokesperson for the three sounded surprised.
And all at once, through her shock and mounting dismay over losing a job that had not only been within her grasp but which she had been counting on to get her out of financial deep water, Magenta began to see things as they really were.
He had known she was in here. Probably from some list he had vetted before coming in. Which was why he hadn’t shown any sign of surprise or shock when he had seen her. Because he had already decided—even before he had opened that door—to snatch the chance of that job right out of her hands!
‘Miss James...’
The woman Magenta knew she had won over from the start made a futile little gesture with her hands.
‘What can I say? Except that I think we owe you an apology.’
For what? Magenta thought, hurting, angry. For building up her hopes? For making her think she could be out of the woods with her finances and her barely affordable flat? For throwing her back into the never-ending queue for far too few realistically paid jobs? Perhaps they didn’t have bills to pay and debts to settle, but she did! And now, just because she’d walked into a company controlled by this man with an obvious score to settle, none of those bills were ever likely to be paid!
Not caring any more about what impression she created, she leaped up from her chair and, in response to the woman’s suggestion about owing her an apology, uttered, ‘Yes, I believe you do! I’ve had to take a whole morning off work—without pay—to enable me to come to this interview today, and I think that the least you could have done in return would have been to get your facts straight! It might not be any skin off your noses to drag people here under false pretences, but if this is the way your company operates then I hope your paying customers don’t arrive at their hotels only to find the previous guests still occupying their beds!’
She felt sorry for her interviewers—particularly the woman who had shown such enthusiasm for her capabilities before their cold and calculating boss had walked in. Her venom was directed solely at Andreas. She hadn’t wanted to show him up in front of his staff, but if she had, she thought fiercely, then after what he had just done it was no more than he deserved!