‘Woman?’ Andreo was asked blankly and he had to point her out in the photograph before his companions made the necessary leap in understanding.
‘Oh, you mean…Pippa!’ a Venstar executive finally exclaimed as though challenged to recognise the reality that the senior staff actually harboured a female in their ranks. ‘Pippa’s our assistant finance manager—’
‘You don’t tend to think of her as being a woman…has a brain like a calculator. An academic high-flyer who thinks of nothing but work,’ a director proclaimed with appreciation. ‘She’s absolutely dedicated. She hasn’t taken a single holiday in three years—’
‘That’s unhealthy,’ Andreo cut in with disapproval. ‘Stressed and exhausted employees operate below par and make mistakes. The lady needs a vacation and HR should have a word with her about smartening up her slovenly appearance.’
Jaws dropped. Paunches were sucked in and jackets smoothed down for none of the men was quite sure which imperfections might put one at risk of attracting the clearly very dangerous label of being ‘slovenly’. An uncomfortable silence fell. Slovenly? Was Pippa slovenly? Nobody had ever really looked at Pippa long enough to have noticed one way or the other. That she was an economics prodigy and very efficient was all anybody had ever cared about.
Still scanning the picture to note the level of personal care as displayed by the male contingent of the line-up, Andreo found yet more scope for censure. ‘I don’t believe in the concept of dressing down because it doesn’t impress clients. I don’t want to see jeans in the office. A smart appearance implies discipline and it does impress. This man here could do with a haircut and a new shirt.’ He pointed out the offender in an impatient tone. ‘Attention to self-presentation is never wasted.’
Almost every man in the room decided to go on a diet, get a haircut and buy a new suit. Andreo, all six feet five inches of him, after all, could be seen to practise what he preached. Lean, mean and undeniably magnificent in a to-die-for Armani designer suit, Andreo was an impressive enough sight to inspire the younger men with an eager desire to emulate him. Ricky Brownlow, however, who was far too vain of his blond good looks to believe himself in need of either a diet or a haircut, concealed a self-satisfied smile. He had just worked out how he could promote his current lover over Pippa’s head without attracting undue criticism.
‘The HR department also needs to set new targets. I want to see a very rapid improvement in Venstar’s abysmal record of promoting women to executive level,’ Andreo concluded.
When her immediate superior, Ricky Brownlow, invited her into his office and broke the bad news, Pippa was betrayed into a startled exclamation. ‘Cheryl…is going to be the new finance manager?’
Ricky nodded in casual confirmation as if there were nothing strange about that development.
Cheryl Long? The giggly brunette who currently acted as her junior was now to become her boss? That bombshell sent Pippa into severe shock. After all, she herself had been Acting Finance Manager for almost three months and she had had high hopes of the position being made permanent. Until that moment she had had no idea that Cheryl had even applied for the job.
‘I thought that I should let you know before HR informed you through official channels,’ Ricky added in the tone of a man who had gone out of his way to do her a favour.
‘But Cheryl has hardly any qualifications and only a couple of months of experience in the section…’ Pippa was quite unable to conceal her astonishment.
‘New blood keeps the company fresh and sharp.’ Ricky Brownlow frowned at her in reproof and a painful flush lit her fair skin.
A slender young woman with shaken blue eyes and vibrant auburn curls scraped back from her brow and held tight by a clip, Pippa walked back to her desk. She could have taken losing out to a superior candidate, she told herself urgently. But was she just being a bad loser? Shame at the fear that she might be that petty consumed Pippa, who suffered from a conscience more over-developed than most. Self-evidently, she decided, Cheryl Long had talents that she herself had failed to recognise.
The animated buzz of dialogue around Pippa reminded her of the party being held that evening to welcome Andreo D’Alessio and she suppressed an exasperated sigh. She had never liked parties and she liked work social occasions even less. However, now that she had been turned down for the job that she had naively assumed was in the bag, she had better make an appearance at the celebrations lest other people start thinking that she begrudged Cheryl her good fortune.
Cheryl was about to become her boss. Pippa swallowed the thickness building in her tight throat. For goodness’ sake, had she screwed up somewhere so badly that she had blown her own promotion prospects right out of the water? If that was the case, why hadn’t she been told and at least warned of her mistake? Cheryl was going to be her boss. Cheryl, whom Pippa had had to be rather stiff with on several recent occasions for her incredibly long lunch breaks a
nd shoddy work? Cheryl, who seemed to spend half the day chatting and the rest of it flirting with the nearest available male? Cheryl, who was mercifully on leave that day…
Pippa sank deeper and deeper into shock. Hothoused as she had been from preschool level right through to university, and always expected to deliver exceptional results, failure of any kind threw her into an agony of self-blame and self-examination. Somehow, somewhere, she was convinced, she had fallen seriously short of what was expected of her…
‘I wish he was more into publicity and we had a better photograph of him,’ one of the project assistants, Jonelle, sighed in a die away voice that set Pippa’s teeth on edge. ‘But we’ll see if he lives up to his extraordinary reputation when we see him in the flesh tonight—’
Her companion giggled. ‘He’s supposed to have bought his last girlfriend a set of diamond-studded handcuffs…’
Pippa had no need to ask who was under discussion for Andreo D’Alessio’s exploits as an international playboy, business whizkid and womaniser were very well documented for a male who went to great lengths not to be photographed. Her soft full mouth curled in helpless disgust. The man that offered her diamond-studded handcuffs as a gift would find himself skydiving without a parachute. But then no man was ever likely to offer her diamond-studded sex toys of any description, and very grateful she was too not to be the type to attract that kind of perverted treatment! Just listening to another female agonise in fascination over a male set on reducing her sex to the level of toys for fun moments made her feel ill.
‘I bet he’s an absolute babe.’ Jonelle had a dreamy look on her pretty face. ‘Hot stuff—’
‘I bet he’s small and rather round in profile just like his late father,’ Pippa inserted with deliberate irony. ‘And the reason that Andreo D’Alessio doesn’t like publicity is that he loves the rumour that he’s much bigger and better looking than he really is.’
‘Maybe the poor guy is just sick of being chased for his mega-millions,’ Jonelle opined in reproach.
‘And maybe he wouldn’t be chased at all if he didn’t have them,’ Pippa mocked.
Mid-morning she was called to an HR interview. Informed for the second time that her application to become Finance Manager had been unsuccessful, she felt grateful but still a little surprised that Ricky Brownlow had been kind enough to forewarn her of the disappointment coming her way. When she asked if there had been any complaints about her work performance, the older man was quick to reassure her.
‘And that’s very much to your credit when one considers events in recent months,’ the HR director continued in a sympathetic tone.
Picking up on that oblique reference to her father’s death in the spring, Pippa paled. ‘I’ve been lucky to have my work to keep me busy.’
‘Are you aware that you haven’t utilised your holiday entitlement in several years?’