Almost absently, she flicked invisible lint from her brightly colored suit, its rich African patterns reproduced in silk, rather than plain and ordinary cotton, and shook back over her shoulder three solid feet of intricate braids, most of them her own. Ronisha favored four-inch spike heels to go with her African textiles and elaborate coifs. She hadn’t yet met the man she couldn’t intimidate, given half a minute’s time and a chance to crush his fingers in a handshake while she outmaneuvered him at his own game—whether that game involved matters of the bedroom or the boardroom.
Ronisha Azzan was deeply proud of her Masai heritage and at the moment, that heritage was very nearly her only weapon. The Masai were famed as lion hunters. And the biggest, nastiest man-eating lion in the universe had just strolled into her kraal. Ronisha smiled, not at all nicely. As Shangri-La Station’s Deputy Manager, Ronisha Azzan was nobody’s assistant anything—a fact Senator John Paul Caddrick had yet to learn. If she could manage to keep her knees from shaking visibly while she taught him.
Granville Baxter stared hard at her for a long moment, brows furrowed. Then her meaning struck home and he started to grin. A weak grin, given what they had yet to face, but a grin, nonetheless. “Woman, you are wasted in station management. You ought to be a tycoon someplace, rolling in money.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Somebody’s got to do this job.” The elevator doors opened with a faint ping, disgorging a cluster of reporters, most of whom stared up at her for a long, disconcerted moment. Newly arrived from up time with the senator, they hadn’t yet met her. She rose from her half-leaning seat against the corner of Bull’s desk.