There was a time, over two years ago now, when a writer started a story… and then went to sleep on it. I can only apologize to all the lovely readers out there who gave this new story their time, and to my reviewers so far, you thrilled me with your words and your support and I am sorry I repaid that so badly.

I am here now to make amends and to hopefully properly embark on this venture. Thank you for giving this another chance. If you are a new reader, a sincere welcome. I will endeavour to post fortnightly, as I am also trying to reengage with several of my other stories as well. Hopefully the chapters will get progressively longer too!

I look forward to connecting with all my reviewers personally and sorry I haven't yet done so. This will absolutely happen before the next chapter.

With love

MrsVonTrapp x

Chapter Three

Satan's Mistress

NEW YORK

FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AGO

Margaret

Inevitably, she made them cry. She was sure there were entire office polls dedicated to the timing and circumstances of this event. It was not as if she scheduled her day around the possibility of another doe-eyed assistant falling into a quivering, querulous, sobbing heap at her Jimmy Choo-shod feet, and it was not something she relished. But she didn't get to be the first female Editor-in-Chief at Colden Books, New York (the new name plate still a shiny calling card on her desk) on the strength of tea and sympathy.

Coming up the ranks was of course a different story. She had been charming, courteous, laser-focused, obliging, outstanding… and overlooked. She saw the likes of entitled, incompetent men – so many men – come after her and still advance before her. She languished as a junior assistant for so long that she could have made more money – and had better hours – waitressing like her friend who shared their tiny apartment in Brooklyn.

Had she really come first in her class at the University of Toronto for this?

The first time she had comprehended the power of unpleasantness has been when their building's work-avoiding, snail-paced super had come to collect their monthly rent, and all the frustrations in her life had bubbled up like day-old champagne; flat and bitter and showering him with sarcastic venom, on everything from their leaking tap to the noise from upstairs and the rickety deadbolt on their door that offered less security than superglue. His mouth remained agape until her acid tongue had virtually propelled him downstairs, shocked and scared into action.

She tried out her newfound superpower on cashiers in grocery stores, on taxi drivers, and finally, on her immediate bosses, demanding an overdue promotion and raise in the one package, rattling off both her accomplishments – and their failures – and how not only was her own career being stymied by their negligence and incompetence, but the publishing house was being jeopardized because of it, and she would have no compunction in also telling the men upstairs so.

Within three days, she was a full assistant to one of the most senior editors, and eighteen months after that, she became an editor herself, and her career began to soar.

Her secret was in making herself indispensable, particularly to authors, but in never giving too much of herself in the service of others; by her very own unique brand of sarcasm and intimidation, wrapped in an uncompromising gaze or a coy smile; and by being so far beyond all others in intelligence, drive and determination, that she naturally left the hopeless minions in her wake. And, having no life or family outside of work, meant her work was her life and her life was her work in a simpatico alliance that became an all-consuming mantra all others in her orbit had to live by as well.

As she remodelled her career, so too did she her very existence; she soon outgrew her college friend and the confines of their tiny apartment, moving to a series of subsequent addresses inching closer and closer to her desired destination of Central Park West, and in her grooming and wardrobe began to emulate the professional, elegant women on the streets she saw and admired, until she had become one of them.

Colden Books came calling in her third year as editor for her publishing house, mostly because she managed to poach several authors from under their noses, giving them a mighty scare with the remainder. She was developing a reputation as a shark scenting blood in the water and preparing for the kill before others even knew they were bleeding. She crossed over to Colden with both fanfare and a fanatical desire to climb the very last rung of the ladder; fending off lazy, entitled - and self-serving – Bob Spaulding to become Editor-in-Chief a mere seven months later, her meteoric rise helped along by the overdue retirement of the previous incumbent, and she stood on top of the mountain breathing in the view.

But every mountaineer who scaled Everest needed their sherpa.

Andrew

He had heard the horror stories about her, naturally. He didn't live under a rock, although it may have offered more room and comfort than his tiny studio apartment. The publishing grapevine was alive and well and most informative, and the attitude and exploits of Margaret Tate soon became legendary. Colden Books was also one of the granddaddies of publishing in New York and the waft of old money and new opportunity was something he inhaled deeply every time he passed their building.

He had been in New York for over a year, in the tiny office of the first assistant's job he had landed, coasting along on chutzpah and charm, when he saw the advertisement on their website. Surely it couldn't be real? He checked the date but it certainly wasn't April 1st. And yet here it was, a call for an assistant to the Editor-in-Chief, his eyes widening to know he was short on experience but ticked all the other boxes.

And it was Colden Books.

It was a further shock to get an interview, and more shocking still to not go along and be vetted first by some bored woman in HR, but to give his name at the front desk and take the lift all the way up to the open plan floor with its hive of busy worker bees, and the Queen herself sitting in her large, light-filled office with its accents of orange, calming waiting to eat him alive.

"Ah… Miss Tate?"

A polished, unreasonably beautiful brunette folded her manicured hands on the large desk and assessed him with a cool look.

"Were you expecting someone else?"

"No… no, Miss Tate."

"And are you Andrew Paxton?"

He gulped. She had the ability to make him question his own name.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then it might be advantageous for you to sit down so I can interview you."

He obeyed without demur, and she viewed him sharply before glancing down at his CV and then back up again.

"Do you cry easily, Andrew Paxton?" was her opening gambit.

He cleared his throat. "Excuse me?"

She pursed her lips. "I'm presuming you won't collapse in tears every time I'm disappointed in you, which is sure to be often."

"I have a father who is already disappointed in me, so I think I can take it."

Her lips twitched at that; too begrudging to be called a smile, but there was the glimmer of something that might have grown into amusement f it had been allowed.

"Would you feel threatened working for a woman?"

"Not at all."

"And you're prepared to work the hours I do, which won't mean much in the way of free time?"

He'd had oodles of free time this last year, enough to take several chunks out of the Big Apple, and found his belly was still hollow with a hunger for something more. He hadn't come all this way to coast along, but to be challenged…and maybe to challenge himself.

"I would consider it to be my job to facilitate yours and to work twice as hard as you do, so…"

"That is a given, Andrew Paxton. But can you deliver on all these promises?"

His charm wouldn't work here, but a little bravado might.

"I guess there's only one way to find out, Miss Tate," he smiled gamely.

Notes

In the time between now and my last post the world lost the incomparable Betty White – how poorer we all are for her passing and yet how much richer to have enjoyed her comic genius for so long. Her mock behind-the-scenes shtick with Ryan Reynolds and 'America's Sweetheart' Sandra Bullock is a clip I'm sure all readers will know, love and laugh over!

Therefore it's only right that this chapter title again belongs to Gammy – 'Now do you prefer being called Margaret or Satan's Mistress? We've heard it both ways.' You are missed, Betty x