A pinch of resentment nipped at me and I tried to brush it off. So, she was starting work here today too. I wonder who the successful candidate was? Where had she worked before? Well, wherever that was and whoever she might be, Athena had considered her better suited for the job. It did still smart, but oh well. There was diddly squat I could do about it now and at least I had a job, even if it wasn’t the one I had been hankering after…

“Leonie. Are you listening?”

I jumped, bashing my knees against the underside of the glass table. Shit!

Athena was talking to me now. Colour clawed at my cheeks as everyone turned to look at me. I pulled my notebook closer to me. “Yes. Absolutely.”

She frowned. Great. I’d been here all of five minutes and managed to irritate my new boss already.

I risked a look at the other faces surrounding me, then wished I hadn’t. Trixie with her Rapunzel extensions; Cole and his biceps; Ursula sporting a withered expression; and Dyson, who finished examining his manicure, to give me a cool once-over. It was like they were a bunch of schoolkids who had captured a rare insect and were peering it. Guess who was the insect?

“As I was saying,” began Athena again with added emphasis, “now that we have a new beauty writer here in Leonie, we can return to our original feature plan.” She paused for effect. There was a ripple around the table. “So, Leonie, your fist assigned feature is to arrange the biggest and most prominent beauty feature we have seen here at Goddess.”

My mouth began to slip open in panic.

“We have signed the three top models of the moment – Esther Drew, Dante, and Carina Salazar – to appear in this feature for our Christmas issue. They will be wearing the latest Avanti cosmetics. I wasn’t happy with your predecessor’s ideas for location and theme for this. Suggestions, Leonie?”

My heart took off at a gallop. Talk about being thrown into the thick of it. I blinked as a tide of panic threatened to engulf me. Images of the three well-known models paraded in front of my eyes. So, no mentoring period for me then. No induction.

My mouth popped open and closed a few times. The gazes of my fellow magazine colleagues burned into me. Good grief! What was I supposed to say? This was my first morning working here and I was sitting here doing a wonderful impression of a gasping trout. I had to say something. “You mean, you would like some ideas now?” I croaked.

Athena managed to hitch one expectant brow at me, which was a feat in itself. “Yes.”