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“And yet, by all accounts, she was not a loving mother.”
“You investigated my family?” he asked dangerously.
“Are you kidding?” she asked, with a genuine laugh he found altogether too charming. “I’m a senior specialist in your customer service department; I’m hardly in a financial position to hire a private detective. Johana’s exploits were tabloid fodder as much after she became a mother as before.”
He could not deny that. “What is your point?”
“She had to know that you would pay her handsomely to be a more involved parent.”
Both his brother and sister-in-law had known that, but they’d refused his offers of increases in their allowance in exchange for a quieter lifestyle. “She and Pinu saw no point in having access to money if they couldn’t spend it on the lifestyle they enjoyed.”
“Exactly.”
“Whatever you may think of me, I am not an idiot. I have no intention of bringing a woman like that into the children’s lives.”
“I do not think you’re an idiot at all, just maybe na?ve.”
“I am far from na?ve.”
“Oh, you are very worldly and brilliant about money and business...”
“But?” he prompted, knowing that was not all to her assessment of him and inexplicably unable to let it lie.
“But you don’t understand emotion.”
“Emotion is a weakness I cannot afford.”
“That might be true, but do you really want to withhold it from Franca and Angilu?”
“I will give them everything they need.”
“You will try. But if you hire them a mother, you are almost guaranteeing the best they will ever know is kindness born of duty to the job.”
“You came here to apply for that job you are so disparaging of. Are you trying to convince me you wouldn’t be doing it for the money?”
“No.”
“Exactly,” he said, with much less satisfaction than he should have felt at her admission.
“But I am also offering to love your children, not just treat them lovingly out of duty.”
“You cannot promise to love them.”
“Of course I can. They are innocent children, left without their parents. How could I not love them?”
He stared at her, incomprehension washing over him. She believed what she was saying, and yet... “You claim another woman would not do the same?”
“I am not other women. I am me. Sure, there are women out there that would love them, too, but would they be the women your PAA finds to offer as candidates?” There could be no question that Audrey didn’t believe it.
“Why?”
Audrey’s head went back, an impatient sound coming from her. “I’ve tried to explain it. You and Gloria, you’re approaching this whole thing without any emotion. That’s almost a guarantee that the women she puts forward and the one you eventually choose will be every bit as emotionless.”
“I still do not see the problem with that.” Emotion was volatile, impossible to predict with consistent accuracy.
“No, I don’t suppose you do.” She stood. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“On that at least we can agree.”
This time Audrey’s shoulders slumped and the wince was more pronounced. Without another word she turned toward the door and crossed his office, an air of defeat surrounding her as she made the long trek.
She stopped with her hand on the door handle. “Do I need to start looking for another job?”
“No.”
She turned the handle.
“Audrey.”
“Yes?” She didn’t turn.
“I assume you had more reasons for believing you were an appropriate fit for the position than your self-proclaimed affinity for emotion?”
She tensed, but nodded. “I meet the requirements.”
“Tell me how you know what those requirements are.”
She just shook her head, and he got the impression that even if he threatened the job she clearly wanted to keep she wouldn’t give in.
Gloria had to have shared her assignment with Audrey in a moment of indiscretion, but the younger woman wasn’t about to throw his PAA under a bus. He had to appreciate the loyalty.
“I will not tell anyone about this discussion,” he offered.
She had been misguided, but he had no wish to see her pay with her livelihood for what he was certain was an honest attempt to protect his children.
“Thank you.” Her voice was flat, lacking the passion that had infused her arguments for her point of view during their conversation.
She went to leave, but he said her name again.
She stopped without replying.
“Look at me,” he ordered, unwilling to be ignored.
She turned, her face as blank as a statue. No weakness, no emotion showed there, and he couldn’t help but respect that. She had to be disappointed, even a little afraid that he would go back on his word and get her in trouble with her divisional supervisor.
“It was a pleasure to meet you.” They might not agree, but he’d found talking with her more invigorating than with any other woman in a very long time.
“Thank you.”
She left, with the door closing quietly behind her, as he tried to make sense of the fact he was more than annoyed she hadn’t returned the sentiment. He was bothered.
Gloria checked in when she returned a few minutes later. Their afternoon went much as he had planned for it to. Enzu would have been surprised if it didn’t.
But throughout his meetings and other work parts of his discussion with Audrey kept popping up to distract him. The way she’d looked when she said she shouldn’t have come to his office, like she was disappointed. In him.
It was not a reaction he was used to. That had to be why he couldn’t put it out of his mind.
And it had nothing to do with him putting a note with Audrey Miller’s name on Gloria’s desk before she left for the evening. Audrey had claimed she fit all of his requirements. If that was true, it would be a poor business decision not to include her in the pool of eligible candidates.
His PAA looked up at him quizzically. “What’s this for?”
“I want her on the list.”
“List?” Gloria asked.
“Women who would make a suitable mother to Franca and Angilu.”
Comprehension dawned in Gloria’s pale grey gaze. “That list. Will do.”
“I expect dossiers for a minimum of six women with complete background checks on my desk next Friday.”
“That kind of rush on the background investigation is going to cost.”
“And?”
“Nothing. I just didn’t want you having a fit when you saw the expense report.”
“I do not throw fits,” he said with great dignity.
“Call it what you like. So long as you don’t have one of them when you see how much this little plan of yours is going to cost.”
“Fine.”
“If you don’t mind me asking...?” Gloria said before he could return to his office for an evening of work.
“Ask.”
“Who is Audrey Miller?”
“You do not know?” Suddenly the sinister implications of Audrey knowing what she did were at the forefront in his mind. “She does work here?”
“She might very well. I don’t know every employee of Tomasi Enterprises. Even I am not that efficient.”
“Look her up in the employee database.”
Gloria gave him a strange look, but did as he asked. An employee file popped up on her screen. The picture wasn’t all that recent, and there were shadows of fear in the young woman’s eyes that he had not seen today, but it was the same one.
He didn’t let his relief show.
She’d been hired six years ago by the bank for their call center. That explained how young she looked in the picture. She’d been twenty-one, which made her twenty-seven now. So, she did fulfill that particular requirement.
But how she knew about them was still a mystery.
“You don’t know her?” he asked Gloria again.
“No. She doesn’t even look familiar. But she works on the third floor.”
And employees on the top floors rarely interacted with those on the lower floors.
He opened his mouth to demand how Audrey knew about the position if Gloria hadn’t told her, but snapped it shut. That question would lead to more and reveal Audrey’s visit to his office, which he’d promised not to do.
Enzu didn’t consider a security breach. Like all cautious men in his position, he had his office scanned for listening devices on a weekly basis by a security team he trusted implicitly. No business rival was getting sensitive information from Enzu’s own lips.
Gloria must have told someone and that someone had to have passed the information on to Audrey. He would look into it further after his search for a wife...and mother to his children...was over. Someone had shown an egregious lack of discretion, but that could be dealt with later.
After he’d made his choice about the woman he would marry.
He ignored the way his mind returned again to Audrey Miller. She would be one of several candidates, not the candidate.
Even if his libido might demand otherwise.
CHAPTER THREE
DUMBFOUNDED, AUDREY HUNG up her phone and took off her headset. Someone else could take the next few customer service calls.
Mr. Tomasi’s PAA had just made an appointment with Audrey to meet the CEO for an interview the following morning.
It had to be for the job of mother to Franca and Angilu. But the way he’d acted he couldn’t be interested in her for the position, could he?
Only tomorrow’s appointment said otherwise.
* * *
Gloria ushered Audrey Miller into Enzu’s office.
He flicked a glance to the Rolex on his wrist. Exactly on time.
He mentally marked a tick on this positives column for the customer service specialist who had shown the courage to approach the CEO of her company in an unconventional way in order to apply for an equally unconventional job.
“Ms. Miller, sir,” Gloria said.
As if Enzu would forget who the woman was after little more than a week. “Thank you, Gloria.”
He eyed Audrey as she crossed the office on unhurried feet, showing more aplomb than most of his upper level managers when called to Enzu’s office for a meeting. She wore a knockoff black sheath dress and an open cropped white sweater with black swirls. The pearls around her throat were no doubt faux, but they did not look gaudy. Modest heels raised her average height less than two inches.
It was an elegant if inexpensive outfit. Not a sexy one. But Enzu’s body reacted like she’d walked into his office wearing nothing at all.
A curse rose to his lips but he bit it back, swallowing the gasp of shock at his immediate physical response just as quickly.
