Page 93 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

He smiled, and bent down to kiss my nose. “Then it’s a date.”

The sheer sweetness of those words left me floating through Sunday in a happy haze. On Monday, though, work happened to me. I honestly hadn’t expected Poppy to say yes, since all we’d discussed was the interview. But she did—as long as I was still involved. And from then on everything became a flurry of agents and publicists and contracts and ahhh. It took most of the week, untold emails and even a couple of conference calls, all of which felt way above my pay grade. Especially because I didn’t have a pay grade.

But, somehow, by Thursday, it had all come together. And, with the end in sight, an email plinked into my inbox that was only to me. It was from Mara Fairfax, the editor of Milieu, and it said: “Do come along to the office. This afternoon. 2?” Nine words and the world’s most unconvincing question mark—as impenetrable as a text from someone you fancied when you weren’t quite sure if they fancied you back. Was this a casual visit? A job interview? Did they just want to look at me like I was a monkey at the zoo?

Still, at least I didn’t have long to fret about it. A little before two, I’d navigated a receptionist and was ascending to the appropriate floor of a moderately ugly, portico-fronted office block off Hanover Square. A woman, a leggy brunette in pearls and ballet flats, was waiting for me at the far end of a long, white corridor, where the words MILIEU, EST 1702, was picked out in gigantic, shiny letters on the wall.

“You’re Arden, aren’t you?” she said, stepping forward. “I’m Tabitha. Tabitha England-Plume and, yes, I’m a real person and that’s my real name. You can look me up if you like. I’m in the Bible.”

I shook her hand dazedly. “Were you begat?”

“The other Bible. Debrett’s.”

“Oh. The thing is, I haven’t actually…”

“Don’t worry, Mara’ll give you a copy. It’s all terribly silly really.”

She led me under the Milieu sign and into the office itself. I was braced for the full Devil Wears Prada but, actually, it was kind of banal. Plainly decorated, with computers tucked into cubicles, it could have been the admin block for almost anything. The Wernham Hogg Paper Company. Maybe half of the workstations were occupied. All of them frighteningly tidy.

“Mara’s nuts about clutter-free working,” said Tabitha. “This way.”

I hurried after her down another corridor, this one lined by framed Milieu covers. Things gradually got shinier—through their glass walls, I caught glimpses of fancy meeting spaces and rooms so full of clothing racks you could barely have wriggled inside.

Mara’s own office, when we finally got there, was large, but not swaggeringly so. It was clean and bright, austerely decorated with a few black and white prints, and what I took to be a personal photograph of a laughing girl and a horse. There was room for a sofa and glass-topped desk, and a large table, currently strewn with photographs, which was where the action seemed to be happening.

A woman, who I thought was Mara Fairfax, was leaning over the images, studying them with a focus bordered on ferocity. Her colleague, probably the photographer, had her hips braced against the edge of the table, one foot—in a perfectly polished Oxford—swinging idly. She was pretty much the picture of glamorous nonchalance, in high-waisted pinstriped trousers held up by braces over a low-cut white shirt, but then she reached out to Mara and tucked a strand of her honey-brown hair gently behind her ear. Which Mara herself hardly seemed to notice.

“Well,” she said, “I think any of these three could be a cover. Or maybe just these two. I like her face in this one—there’s a softness there, almost a whimsy, which isn’t a side of her we usually see. But this one, the shape of her body”—her hand traced a curve—“it’s pure Kate.”

The photographer tapped the second. “This is it, I think.”

“Let’s try it.” Mara straightened up. And then, with a wave of her hand, “Come in, you two. Have a seat.”

“Um. Hello.” I perched on the edge of one of the chairs in front of Mara’s desk.

“I’m Mara Fairfax. And I’m sure you’ll have heard of George, here.”

Was this a test? There was really only one notable George in the British magazine photography. I’d seen what I’d assumed to be his name credited on so many fashion and editorial shoots. Time Out. Skin Two. Vogue. Milieu. “George…Chase? You’re George Chase?”

“It’s so convenient when one’s reputation precedes one.” She reached into the pocket of her trousers and pulled out a card case. Flicking it open, she extricated a business card and held it out to me between two agile, knotty-knuckled fingers.

It was matte black, faintly textured under my thumb, a barely visible circular pattern that suggested the shape of a lens. All it said was GEORGIA CHASE: LIBERTINE, ROUÉ, PHOTOGRAPHER. And then a website.

“Anyway,” said Mara, effortlessly reclaiming my attention, “thank you for coming in, Arden. You’ve sent us some quite interesting pieces.”

“I have? Gosh. Thank you.”

Mara Fairfax wasn’t what I’d expected. But then my expectations had probably been thrown off by too much Meryl Streep. She was about five years older than George, maybe more, not exactly beautiful, but classically English: all strong bones and clear skin, and the sturdy athleticism of having spent most of your life on horseback. “Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?”

I glanced from Mara to George and back again, still not entirely sure what was happening. After a dithery couple of moments, I decided to risk a direct approach. I mean, what was the worst that could happen—apart from excruciating personal embarrassment, that is. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why am I here?”

“I’m deciding whether I like you.”

“And what happens if you do?”

“Then I offer you a job.”

I successfully managed not to fall off my chair. Go me. “At Milieu? OMG. I mean…uh…holy shi—that would be a dream come true. But I should tell you, I…I just got my degree results and I sort of…I got a 2.2.”

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