‘But I know what Sandra and Robert had was real, that’s all.’
She couldn’t read the expression on his face now, but as he opened his mouth to speak Robert chose that moment to open the door of his office, his face breaking into a warm smile as he said, ‘I thought I heard voices out here. Come on in, Matt. There’s just a couple of points I’d like to discuss before we leave.’
Whew! As the door closed behind the two men Georgie slumped in her chair for a moment, one hand smoothing a wisp of silky hair from her flushed face. Something gave her the impression this was going to be one of those days!
She had been banking on using the time the office was quiet with Robert on site to organize the arrangements for the twins’ birthday party. She and Robert had suddenly realised the night before that the children’s birthday was only a couple of weeks away and neither of them had given it a thought. Sandra had always made a big deal of their birthday and Georgie wanted to keep everything as normal as she could in the circumstances, so—Robert being unable to face the thought of the house being invaded by family and friends and loads of screaming infants—she had thought of booking a hall somewhere and hiring a bouncy castle and a magician and the full works.
The buzzer on her desk interrupted further musing. ‘Georgie?’ Robert’s voice sounded strained. ‘Could you organise coffee, make it three cups, would you, and bring in your notebook? I want you to sit in on this.’
What now? Georgie thought as she quickly fetched out the best mugs and a packet of the delicious chocolate caramel biscuits her brother loved. He had lost a great deal of weight in the last months and she had been trying to feed him up since she’d come home.
Once the coffee was ready she straightened her pencil-slim skirt and demure, buttoned-up-to-the-collar blouse and steeled herself for the moment she faced those piercing grey eyes again. Since her first day of working for Robert she had always dressed well, bearing in mind that she was the first impression people received when they walked through the door, but today she had taken extra care and it was only in this moment she acknowledged the fact. And it irritated her. Irritated and annoyed her. She didn’t want to care what Matt de Capistrano thought of her. He was just a brief fleeting shadow in her life, totally unimportant. He was.
The brief and totally unimportant shadow was sitting with one knee over the other and muscled arms stretched along the back of the big comfy visitor’s seat in Robert’s office when she entered, and immediately her body’s reaction to the overt male pose forced her to recognise her own awareness of him. Georgie was even more ruffled when her innate honesty emphasised that his flagrant masculinity was all the more overwhelming for its casual unconsciousness, and after serving the men their coffee and offering them the plate of biscuits she sat down herself, folding her hands neatly in her lap after placing her own coffee within easy reach. She was not going to fidget or gabble or react in any way to Matt de Capistrano, not if it killed her.
‘So…’ Robert’s voice was still strained. ‘To recap, you feel Mains and Jenson will have to go?’ he said to Matt, referring to the two elderly bricklayers who had been with Robert since he first started the firm fourteen years ago.
‘What?’ Georgie forgot all about the non-reaction as she reared up in her seat. ‘George and Walter?’ She had known the two men even before she had come under Robert’s wing and they had always treated her like a favourite granddaughter, as had their wives. The first summer she had come to live with Robert and Sandra, when she’d been bitterly grieving for her parents, Walter and his wife had taken her away to France for two weeks to try and take her mind off her parents’ untimely death and they had been utterly wonderful to her. ‘You can’t! You can’t get rid of them.’
‘Excuse me?’ The steel-grey eyes had narrowed into slits of light and he was frowning.
‘They’re like family,’ Georgie said passionately.
‘Family’s fine,’ Matt said coolly. ‘Inefficient employees are something else. Walter Jenson is well past retiring age and George Mains turned sixty-five a year ago.’
‘They are excellent bricklayers!’ Her green eyes were flashing sparks now.
‘They are too slow,’ he said dismissively, ‘and this is not a charitable concern for geriatrics. Your brother must have lost thousands over the last few years by carrying men like Mains and Jenson. I’ve no doubt of their experience or the quality of their work, but Jenson was off sick more than he was at work over the last twelve months—severe arthritis, isn’t it?’ he asked in a brief aside to Robert, who nodded unhappily. ‘And Mains’s unfortunate stroke last year has slowed him up to the point where I believe he actually represents something of a danger to himself and others, especially when working on scaffolding. If you drop something from any sort of height you could kill or maim anyone beneath.’
‘I don’t believe this!’ She glared at him angrily. ‘They are craftsmen, the pair of them.’
‘They are old craftsmen and it’s time to let some young blood take over,’ Matt said ruthlessly, ‘however much it hurts.’
‘And of course it really hurts you, doesn’t it?’ Georgie bit out furiously, ignoring Robert’s frantic hand-signals as she jerked to her feet. ‘Two dear ol—’ She caught herself as the grey gaze sharpened. ‘Two dear men who have been the rocks on which this business was built just thrown on to the scrap heap. What reward is that for all their faithfulness to Robert and this family? But faithfulness means nothing to men like you, does it? You’ve made your millions, you’re sitting pretty, but you’re still greedy for more and if more means men like Walter and George get sacrificed along the way then so be it.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ He was still sitting in the relaxed manner of earlier but the grey gaze was lethal and pointed straight at Georgie’s flushed face. ‘Then sit down, Miss Millett.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Sit down!’
The bark made her jump and in spite of herself Georgie felt her legs obey him.
‘Firstly, your brother has made it clear just what he owes these two employees and they will be retired with a very generous package,’ Matt ground out coldly. ‘I think, as does Robert if he speaks the truth, that this will not come as a surprise to them; neither will it be wholly displeasing. Secondly, you talk of sacrifice when you are prepared to jeopardise the rest of your brother’s employees’ livelihoods for the sake of two elderly men who should have retired years ago?
‘It is human nature for the rest of the men to tailor their speed to the slowest worker when there is a set wage at the end of each week. Your brother’s workers have been underachieving for years and a week ago they were in danger of reaping their reward, every one of them. If Robert had gone bankrupt everyone would have been a loser. There is no place for weakness in industry; you should know that.’
‘And kindness?’ She continued to glare at him even though a tiny part of her brain was pressing her to recognise there was more than an element of truth in what he had said. ‘What about kindness and gratitude? How do you think they’ll feel at being told they’re too old?’
‘They know the dates on their birth certificates as well as anyone,’ he said icily, ‘so I doubt it will come as the surprise you seem to foresee.’
He folded his arms over his chest, settling more comfortably in his seat as he studied her stiff body and tense face through narrowed eyes.
Georgie didn’t respond immediately, more because she was biting back further hot words as the full portent of what she had yelled at him registered than because she was intimidated by his coldness. And then she said, her voice shaking slightly, ‘I think what you are demanding Robert do is awful.’
‘Then don’t think.’ He sat forward in his seat, draining his mug with one swallow and turning to Robert as he said, ‘I’d suggest you take this opportunity to change the men over to piece work. With a set goal each week and good bonuses for extra achievement you’ll soon sort out the wheat from the chaff, and