Past Passion. PENNY JORDAN
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most alert, her most efficient, her most impressive. The one thing she had heard about the new man was that there was no room in his organisation for the unproductive or uncommitted worker. He had very high standards, apparently, and expected those who worked for him to match them.
Needless to say there had already been a ground swell of mutterings among the workforce about the potential havoc he could wreak.
Nicola didn’t need anyone to tell her that the firm wasn’t very productive, that its profits were very, very small indeed; or that its workforce was not efficiently deployed...that the foreman in charge of the men often turned a blind eye to certain malpractices which were expensive to his employers. The only reason they were still in business was really because in this rural area they were the only reasonably large builders around.
Their small market town served a large country area, and until very recently there had simply not been the business potential to attract any competition.
Now, though, things were changing; people were moving into the area and buying up old property, empty farms and barns, and Nicola suspected that, if they had not been taken over, a rival firm would soon have set up in business, putting them into liquidation.
Many of the other employees, though, either failed to accept or did not want to accept this, and consequently the fact that the firm had been taken over was a cause of much resentment.
The new man had been described to Nicola as ‘full of himself, a real townee, smart as paint’.
Only a couple of her co-employees had had anything good to say for him; one of them was her assistant, a pretty eighteen-year-old fresh out of college, who had told her enthusiastically that Mr Hunt was really good-looking for someone so old, and that, if it wasn’t for her Danny, she might have quite fancied him.
Nicola had laughed a little at this. She knew from what Alan had told her that Matthew Hunt was, in fact, not yet thirty-five years old.
Not just what one would expect, was how Alan had described him. ‘A shrewd businessman, but unconventional...’
He certainly was shrewd. Her own father had confirmed that. He was in banking in the City, preferring to commute to and from his office rather than to live somewhere more urban, and it had been he who had filled Nicola in with all the background details of her new employer’s professional life. Not much was known about his private life other than the fact that he wasn’t married.
One of her own married friends had teased her about this, remarking, ‘Well, he can only be an improvement on Gordon. Heavens, Nicki, love! He’s so boring it just isn’t true. I mean, these days we all know that there’s more to a good and enduring relationship than world-shattering, exciting sex. Real reliability is one thing, but Gordon is another. And as for his mother...’
Nicola had been forced to laugh. Anna wasn’t known for her tactfulness, and tended to say what she thought. Nicola hadn’t been offended; she knew that her friend meant well although, as far as she was concerned, the idea of her new boss as a possible source of new romance in her life was completely out of the question.
And anyway, from what she had heard about him, he was the kind of man who no doubt liked the women he dated to be of the high-profile, physically attractive type, which she most certainly was not.
As she hurried into the cloakroom, she gave her reflection a hasty, disapproving glance in the small mirror.
She wasn’t very tall, five feet four, with a slender frame, delicate wrist and ankle bones. From her mother she had inherited her fine pale skin and her dark hair, and from her father her surprisingly deep blue eyes.
It was an unusual combination, and one which, together with the delicacy of her facial bone-structure and the soft, feminine fullness of her mouth, earned her second and even third glances from appreciative males.
Those members of the male sex who knew her, though, soon learned that the apparent sensuality of her face and figure were not borne out by her manner.
‘Repressed’ was how some of the more unkind ones described her, generally after their advances had been rebuffed. Others, less critical and without a wounded ego to add malice to their comments, said she was rather quiet and withdrawn.
Nicola knew quite well what men thought of her. She didn’t mind, though; in fact, she preferred them to think of her as prim and unavailable...
Once things had been different. Once she— She swallowed hard, snatching up her bag and heading for the door. It was five to nine and she had far more important things to worry about than the past.
* * *
LATER SHE WAS to wonder if she might not in some odd way have been touched by precognition—by an awareness that logic and reason had refused to allow her to entertain... But that was later, when it was much, much too late for her to take evasive action...for her to listen to the warnings the airwaves were carrying to her.
Although all the legal requirements of handing over the business had now been satisfied, Alan, her boss, was actually physically handing over control to Matthew Hunt this morning.
There was going to be a small, brief ceremony when he introduced him to the rest of the staff, and this ceremony was scheduled for ten o’clock.
It had been her suggestion, and one which had caused Alan to ponder and consider before agreeing that it would perhaps be a good idea.
When she opened the door to the small office she shared with Evie, the younger girl was already seated at the switchboard. She smiled warmly at Nicola when she walked in and, jerking her head towards the inner door, told her, ‘Alan arrived a few moments ago. He doesn’t look too good. I offered to make him a cup of coffee, but he refused.’
Unlike her, Evie was wearing a brilliantly coloured T-shirt teamed with a pair of equally bright shorts. Her blonde hair was caught up on the top of her head in a cluster of untidy curls, and the bright fuchsia plastic earrings she was wearing clashed horrendously with her scarlet lipstick.
The two of them could not have presented more of a contrast, Nicola recognised wryly.
Evie at eighteen looked as bright and colourful as a parrot, while she, at twenty-six, in her plain navy suit, her crisp white blouse, her neat beige tights and navy pumps, her hair cut in a classic shiny bob, looked as dull and plain as—as a secretary ought to look, she told herself firmly, ignoring the faint lowering of her spirits that comparing herself with Evie suddenly brought her.
‘He hasn’t arrived yet,’ Evie told her conspiratorially. ‘I wonder what kind of car he drives... Something big and posh, you can bet—probably sporty, too. He’s certainly going to perk this place up a bit... Danny was saying last night that we’ll see some action now.’
Danny, Evie’s boyfriend, worked for the firm as well, as a trainee carpenter. His clothes were almost as colourful as Evie’s, although, like her, he was an enthusiastic and hard worker.
Collecting the post, and pouring Alan a cup of coffee from the jug which Evie had just made, Nicola walked through into her boss’s office.
Her heart sank as she saw him. These last two years since his son’s death had taken their toll. He looked what he was—a man who had lost all purpose and motivation in his life. Nicola also suspected that he had begun to drink more than was good for him. There was a drawer in his desk which was always kept locked, and sometimes when she walked into the room there was a sour sharp smell of alcohol on the air.
She felt heartsore for him, only able to guess at how it must feel to have suffered that kind of tragedy.
Tom, his son, had been twenty-two years old and just on the point of leaving university. He had been an intelligent and well-liked young man, and the accident which had killed him had been so meaningless that it was no wonder Alan was even now unable to accept what had happened.
The driver of the other car had been drinking...had crossed the centre of the road, to plough right into Tom’s car, killing both Tom and himself outright. There was no easy way for any parent to accept