‘Excellent.’ There was a brief pause. ‘I don’t stand on formality, by the way. It will be Blaise and Kim unless there are clients or other personnel present.’

She didn’t think she would ever be able to call him Blaise.

‘The person or persons who prompted you to apply for the job…I trust they’ll be hearing the good news tomorrow?’ he continued.

‘What? Oh, yes,’ she said quickly, surprised he’d remembered.

‘Then savour the moment, Kim,’ he said softly. ‘There won’t be too many of them in life, which makes the ones that come along all the sweeter. Goodnight.’

She heard the phone click even as she murmured, ‘Goodnight, Mr West,’ back.

She thought of Blaise the next day. As luck would have it, she arrived at the office building just as Kate and one of her entourage walked in and they followed her into the lift. She nodded at them but said nothing, but after a moment the girl with Kate glanced at her leader before saying to Kim, ‘You won’t get it, you know.’

Kim had heard her quite clearly but raised her eyebrows, her tone cool as she said, ‘I’m sorry? Are you talking to me?’

‘The job as Blaise West’s personal assistant. You haven’t got a hope. Kate knows someone at Head Office and they said all the other applicants had qualifications coming out of their ears. It was a fluke you got an interview in the first place if you ask me.’

‘I didn’t.’ Kim smiled sweetly. ‘But thanks for the concern.’

‘No, well, just don’t get your hopes up, that’s all.’

Her manner had clearly deflated the other girl. She again glanced at Kate, who, just as the lift came to a halt, said coldly, ‘Personally I’d prefer to avoid the humiliation of an interview where I was clearly out of my depth.’

‘Then it’s fortunate you didn’t get that far when you applied, isn’t it?’ Kim’s heart was pounding like a sledgehammer at the overt aggressiveness but it didn’t show. As the lift doors opened she turned to Kate’s crony, keeping her voice pleasant as she said, ‘Anyway, don’t worry about me. Mr West phoned last night and offered me the job, so all’s well that ends well.’

She sailed out of the lift, knowing she would remember their expressions for the rest of her life. Blaise West was right. Such moments were sweet.

Kim had to keep reminding herself of that over the weekend as she oscillated between moments of euphoria and blind, unadulterated panic. She hadn’t hyped anything up, she told herself umpteen times an hour. Blaise West knew exactly what he was getting. She definitely didn’t have qualifications coming out of her ears, just a fairly respectable 2:1 degree in business studies and some years of experience. She had been honest and straightforward, even to the point of telling him she had taken business studies at university because at the time she hadn’t had a clue what she wanted to so with her life and it seemed a safe option.

‘Safe option?’ he’d drawled. ‘I don’t see you as someone who would settle for the safe option.’

She had thought about that for some moments before she’d said, ‘That was seven years ago.’

‘Ah…’ Just one syllable but she’d had the feeling he’d understood more than she would have liked.

Her mother had been cautiously enthusiastic when she’d told her parents the news over Sunday lunch. ‘That’s nice, dear, but don’t let the job become the be-all and end-all,’ she’d said carefully. Kim knew exactly what she meant. You came so close to being a normal woman and having a husband and family; don’t let it all be for nothing.

Her father was great. ‘Well done, sweetheart,’ he’d said bracingly. ‘I knew you’d get it and this’ll be the start of something good, you mark my words. I feel it in my bones.’

Whether her father was right or not, on Sunday night—when her bed was piled high with clothes and she still couldn’t come to a decision as to what to wear the next day—she told herself enough was enough. No more panicking, no more dissecting, no more thinking.

She hung the clothes away, tidied her shoes and bags and climbed into bed. She would pick the first clothes that came to hand in the morning and be done with it.

She was free of Kate Campion and her waspish companions; life could only get better.

At eight-thirty the next morning Kim was reminding herself of this was she stood in Pat’s office, listening to Blaise’s secretary outlining the normal procedure that occurred before the rest of the office staff arrived.

Blaise was already in his office. Pat admitted she didn’t really know what time their boss got to work, but in the five years she’d been working for him she had never arrived before Blaise once. He was a self-confessed workaholic, she ventured, but he never asked more of any employee than he was prepared to give himself.