Starr Fated (12 page)

Three more
boards showed all the combinations she had come up with.

“However, I
didn’t dismiss these out of hand. The final phase of the process
was to combine any of these fonts, according to the preferences of
the client, with an element of the star logo. A small, discrete,
but unmistakably original and unique branding.”

She held up
the final three boards. They had Starr Capital Ventures in a bold,
thick, clear font, but with the initial letters made up of tiny
stars. Then she had broken down her proposals into many different
options, with different letters made up of stars, various size and
fonts, some were black, some were silver - there were endless
possible variations.

“From this
platform any variation is possible regarding sizing etc., once the
initial concept has been accepted. Different options could be used
for different products. It’s stylish and if kept to the simple
monochrome theme, it’s not too colourful or garish, which I agree
would not be appropriate for SCV. I think this option gives very
clear and bold branding, but with an original twist. Therefore this
is the option I would recommend.”

I took the
final board from her to study it more closely. She was right. It
was different, it was slightly quirky but it was not tacky. It was
clear and easy to read. I could see immediately that it would work.
Hard for me to believe, but I instantly knew that I fucking loved
what she’d come up with. It was just what the kind of thing I
wanted.

“I think maybe
we could work with this, Miss Jones. I’d need some time to go over
it with you to decide on all the finer details, but I like the
overall concept that you’ve come up with.”

“You do?” she
asked incredulously.

“What’s the
matter? Surely you have confidence in your proposals?”

“Well, yes, of
course, but I thought you’d dismiss them out of hand because of the
star element.”

“You’ve
convinced me to open up to mind to other concepts, Miss Jones, so
congratulations. You have succeeded where many others have failed.
But what’s this here? This tiny angel’s wing down in the bottom
corner?”

“Oh, that’s my
own personal logo, my own trade mark if you like. Of course I’ll
remove it from your final designs, Mr. Starr.”

“Why an
angel’s wing?”

“My name,
Seraphina, comes from ‘Seraphim’, who were the most powerful
fiery-winged angels,” she explained.

I smiled. So
she was a fiery angel. That about summed her up, really. And that
must explain the little wing shaped earrings that kept catching my
eye as she was talking. Angel wings.

As I looked at
those earrings, I couldn’t help noticing that although she’d tried
to restrain her hair, little curly tendrils were escaping, and for
some reason, I found myself having to resist the impulse to tuck
them out of the way behind her ear. I put it down to my tidy
nature.

“I think
you’ve earned the right to keep your tiny logo, Seraphina. As it’s
very discrete, you can leave it on the designs. Now, please collect
up all your work to bring into the office. We have a very tight
time frame to work within.”

“I’m afraid I
can’t really work on it at the office, Mr. Starr. I use a much
older versions of Photoshop and illustrator than you have at the
office. Your team work with Adobe Creative Suite 3 and the two just
aren’t compatible.”

“Well, can't
you just put what you have onto our systems at SCV?”

“I could, but
it would mean basically starting all over again, and with your
tight deadline, I think it makes far more sense for me to continue
on my version. You see at this stage, everything is in lots of
different editable layers, but once the designs are finalised, they
can be saved as flat images to hand over to your team for
completion. It’s not a problem - I can continue working on them
here at home, once you’ve decided on all the finer details of what
you require.”

“Work from
here?” I looked round at this cold, cramped room. She couldn’t be
serious. Produce the image for my multi million pound empire from
this dump, using out of date technology on the very basic cheap
laptop that I'd noticed on her desk?

“Why not? I’d
be more than happy to. I like working here.”

“You like this
room?”

“Yes, I love
it, actually. It’s by far the best room, in by far the best house
I’ve had since I’ve been a student,” she insisted.

“What do your
parents think of it?” I couldn’t imagine they’d be very happy about
it.

“My parents
have both passed away, Mr. Starr. I support myself,” she quietly
informed me.

“Oh, right,
yes I seem to recall Jamie mentioned something about that.” It
explained a lot.

“So, shall we
go through the various options now, or would you rather have some
time to think about it?” she offered.

“Let’s work
through them this afternoon, make the necessary choices to enable
you to make a start. But first I need to make a few phone calls.
How about we go down to the kitchen to warm up and have that coffee
you mentioned earlier?” I suggested, as I headed for the door,
remembering to duck my head this time. I reached for my phone from
my pocket.

“Andrew? Liam
here. I’ve got some very urgent repairs I want sorted as soon
possible…”

~*~

Seraphina made
us some lunch, and we sat together with Jamie to eat it in the
kitchen. Adam also wandered in when he realised there was food
going, and she just quietly made extra for him too. He looked
surprised to see me, but didn't speak or ask why I was there, he
just looked over nervously at me.

“Are we still
on for our house meal on Thursday, Sera?” he asked, as he wolfed
down the tuna mayo roll she passed to him, without so much as a
thank you, I noticed. For fuck’s sake, she wasn't the boy’s mother
was she?

“Yes, although
it’ll probably have to be something quick this week as it looks
like I'm going to be kept pretty busy,” she replied, as she glanced
at me.

“You’re always
busy anyway, Sera. I don't mind, whatever you make always turns out
great. And thanks for the personalised birthday card you designed
for Chloe. She really liked it.”

“That’s okay.
It was my pleasure. I enjoy doing things like that.”

“Cool. Worked
out well, didn’t it? I got an original card to impress my
girlfriend, and you got your ink cartridges for your printer. They
were the right ones, I hope?”

“Yes, Adam,
they were perfect. Thanks.”

It seemed
Seraphina swapped her creative skills in return for supplies, and I
found myself impressed that she showed initiative in finding
solutions to get round her lack of funds.

“You haven’t
forgotten about changing your shift at the restaurant so you can
come to the Spring Ball with me have you, Sera?” Jamie asked her
next.

“No, I haven’t
forgotten. Don’t you remember, I told you I’d managed to get Maggie
to swap, so that’s why I'm working tonight, even though it means
missing my yoga class this week,” she smiled briefly at him. “And
I’ve borrowed a dress from Abbey, one of her more conventional
designs rather than anything too wacky or extreme, so I should
merge in with your lot.”

“Great. So
umm…don't forget to pack your overnight bag, will you?” Jamie
murmured as he came up behind Seraphina. He put his arms around her
as he kissed her neck.

“Jamie, I told
you…I’m still not sure…” she muttered. She blushed furiously,
glancing quickly over at me as she pushed him away. So she was
still stringing him along. I knew my brother was pinning all his
hopes on this date, but by her lukewarm response, I’d say his
chances of bedding Miss Jones this weekend weren’t looking that
great. For some reason this rather pleased me. Probably because it
would hopefully prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back,
and my brother would finally come to his senses about this girl.
Although to be fair, she wasn’t what I’d expected at all, and I was
quickly revising my opinion of her. It seemed, much to my surprise,
that she was actually a very hardworking and talented young
woman.

As we were
finishing our lunch, there was a knock at the front door. Both the
lads just lazily sat there and ignored it, so Seraphina went to
answer it.

“Hi. Is Mr.
Starr here?” I heard Andrew’s unmistakeably gruff Scottish accent,
so I got up and followed Seraphina out into the hallway.

“Err, which
one? There are two here,” she was explaining as I caught up.

“Andrew. Glad
to see you. Take that straight up to the top floor attic room,
please. And put it on maximum, get some heat going in there,” I
ordered, as I saw he’d brought a heater as I’d requested.

“Of course,
Mr. Starr. And I’ve organised a heating engineer to come first
thing in the morning to overhaul the entire system and authorised
him to fix whatever problems he comes across, as well as a glazier
to mend the window as you requested.”

“Couldn’t you
get anyone in this afternoon? I did say it was extremely
urgent.”

“Best I could
do at such short notice, Mr. Starr. But this will do the job nicely
until the heating gets fixed,” he said, then headed off
upstairs.

“What’s going
on? Who is he?” Seraphina quizzed me.

“That’s
Andrew, my facilitator. He organises all the maintenance for my
properties.”

“But that
heater…the cost of running it…all these repairs…I don't want to run
up huge bills,” she protested.

“Don’t worry
about that. I’ll cover the costs. I am the landlord, after all. And
as your employer, there are Health and Safety standards I have to
conform to. If you’re going to be working for me from here, then
it’s my responsibility to ensure the temperature is above the
required minimum. Now, how about we get on with selecting the
options for all these proposals?”

~*~

We spent a
good part of the afternoon going through all the options. I found
myself impressed by how much she’d already produced on her own. As
we worked, she carefully listened to me, took on board what I
specified, but wasn’t afraid to challenge me, as she clearly
spelled out what she felt would work and what wouldn’t. It was
actually a pleasure working with her, although it certainly wasn’t
a pleasure working in that cold, damp, cramped room. At least the
heater did improve matters somewhat.

Finally we
reached a suitable stopping point.

“I’ll continue
on with this until it’s time for me to leave for work,” Seraphina
promised. “Then I’ll get cracking on it again first thing tomorrow
morning.”

“But you’re
working for me now,” I frowned.

“I might be
working for you, but it’s unpaid and I still have bills to pay,”
she stated.

Oh yes. I’d
insisted her internship must be unpaid, hadn’t I?

“Well, I think
we need to revisit the terms of your contract, Seraphina.” She
looked startled by my use of her Christian name. But I rather liked
it. Fiery angel. It suited her.

“I don't
actually have a contract. It was just a casual arrangement, if you
recall, Mr. Starr.”

Shit.
Horrified, I suddenly realised that no contract meant that she
could walk out at any time and leave me high and dry in the middle
of this revamp. I’d insisted we go that route so we could easily
dismiss her if she’d turned out to be troublesome in any way. Now
it seemed the boot was on the other foot. I needed her to work for
me for at least the next couple of weeks, as it seemed she had more
talent in her little finger than most of the team I currently
employed. I’d have to get my HR team straight onto it.

“Where do you
work? Can’t you cancel? Blame the strike for having to work late or
something?”

“I work at a
place called ‘Cafe La Divina’ and no, I can't let them down at the
last minute. Frankly I'm surprised you would even suggest such a
thing, Mr. Starr, as you were so disappointed by your own employees
who failed to turn up this morning,” she told me rather
cheekily.

“I suppose you
have a point,” I reluctantly conceded. “So what hours do you
work?”

“Six till
around eleven, but sometimes it’s nearer midnight, if we have
customers who linger.”

“And how do
you get home at that hour? Taxi?”

“Taxi? Hell
no! That would be a large chunk of my wages gone straight away on a
taxi fare. Sometimes I get the bus if one turns up, but usually I
just walk back rather than wait around for one.”

“By yourself?
At that hour? Isn’t that a bit dangerous? Doesn't Jamie come and
get you?” I always ensured my lady friends went home by taxi if
they didn’t drive themselves, and I hated the thought of this
vulnerable young woman walking home alone at that hour, in that
rough area. Didn’t it bother my brother too?

“Why on earth
would I need Jamie to do that?” she retorted. “I’m perfectly
capable of getting back on my own. I can take care of myself.”

Jamie is meant
to care about her. He should be looking after his girlfriend,
protecting her, I thought to myself. So before I left, I made a
point of speaking to my little brother.

“
You
told me
I had to pay for
everything if I called Andrew out, which I told you I couldn’t
afford. I tried my best to fix the radiator myself, but I'm not
very good at that kind of thing,” I protested, as I hastily clicked
down the porn I'd been viewing on my lap top, and quickly shoved
some books over the Xbox game that I’d been going to play
afterwards. Liam had just come storming into my room, and he was
clearly in a foul mood.

“For fucks
sake, Jamie, I expected you to have got all this sorted out long
before it got to this stage. I thought if I stood back, it might
force you to take responsibility, show just a little bit of
initiative maybe. But it doesn't even seem to have occurred to you
that if you were short of funds, you could have actually gone out
and got a job to earn some money for yourself, instead of just
sitting back and waiting for your next allowance from me. But, no,
as usual, it’s left to me to clear up your mess, while you’re too
lazy to even get your selfish arse out of bed at a decent hour.
Didn't it occur to you that your girlfriend, the one that you’re
supposed to care so much about, must have been freezing her fucking
socks off all winter up there? Or was that your plan, your way of
getting her into your bed because she’d be desperate to get herself
warm with some of your own fucking personal central heating?”