“Well, it’s nice to be needed.” She takes another heaping bite of the roll and lets out a moan of pure bliss.
“Stop that. We’re having breakfast before an important interview, not recording adult audiobooks here,” I snarl.
Lucy and Ida share a laugh.
“And what would you know about erotic audiobooks, Mr. Burns?” Ida asks.
“Not enough to play into anything that would invite the ire of corporate harassment policies,” I say.
“Is that why everyone loves these things so much? They’re better than sex?” Lucy twirls the last knob of her roll in her hand, staring at it.
Her words are jumbled because she’s still chewing. She swallows loudly.
I don’t dignify her musings with a response.
Thankfully, Anna Patel walks in a second later. My marketing head wears her usual bright colors like she just stepped out of a van Gogh painting. Today, it’s a vivid yellow dress. Exactly the person I need to whip our focus back on business and not on erotic cinnamon rolls or whatever the fuck.
“Good morning.” She hands me and Lucy a copy of the resumé in question before she sits beside Lucy. “I have a good feeling about this candidate, Mr. Burns. She could be the one.”
I scan the resumé. The name jumps off the page.
Dakota Poe.
I snort.
“Any relation to Edgar Allan?” I mutter out loud, looking up. I haven’t read any of his morbid classics since I was in high school, but you never forget one of the few authors who made sophomore English class interesting. “Did Mr. Poe give up his stint in poetry for a junior level copywriting position?”
Everyone groans.
Apparently, they like my audiobook jokes better.
I’m not nearly as impressed as Anna with the prospect, either. Hell, this is probably one of those social media hotshots who legally changed their name to make themselves look more appealing. I don’t need gimmicks. I’ll even take solid work over experience at an alphabet company.
“She is quite good at copywriting, though it looks like she dabbles in poetry too.”
I meet Anna’s eyes.
“So, Poe’s a woman? How do you know?”
“I checked out her website. She’s done rather nice work for smaller companies. I don’t think she’s worked with an organization this large before, but if she brings the same creativity here that she’s shown in her portfolio, she could freshen up the big campaign.”
My brows pull down, my skepticism growing by the second.
“How many other candidates are there?”
“Well...I got about a hundred resumés, but only three candidates worth talking to. If the three musketeers don’t work out, the only thing I can think of is sending the job requisition back to HR and having it reposted.”
“I can repost it if we need to,” Ida says.
Lucy sighs. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. We need someone now. The clock is ticking to get them trained in.”
She points at her bulging belly. The other women laugh.
That’s the God’s truth and I hate it.
“Good help is damnably hard to find. We’ll work with the three you’ve narrowed down and hope one of them can hack it,” I tell them.
“The sooner we get started, the better,” Anna says.
“With the earnings potential of this line, I agree, Miss Patel.” Maybe I’ll catch a lucky break today. I can’t afford more delays.
The receptionist peers into the open door. “Your nine o’clock is here.”
“Send her in,” I say immediately.
She disappears and comes back a second later with a striking green-eyed blond whose black dress fits her like a glove. If this is Miss Poe, she has a ravenesque figure, everything except for the stark white-gold hair that almost reminds me of—
Wait.
Hold the fucking phone.
It’s not that she looks familiar.
The realization feels like a bullet between the eyes.
What the hell kind of sick, psychotic joke is this?
I whirl around in my chair, glaring at my staff one by one, already trying to suss out the traitor. Only, nobody’s hiding a red-faced laugh at my expense behind their hand.
Anna stands, completely normally, and holds out her hand.
“Anna Patel, I’m the marketing director. Nice to meet you.”
The green-eyed, pastry-thieving witch flashes a wide smile. “Dakota Poe. It’s great to meet you.”
Fuck.
Her name was Dakota, wasn’t it?
Ida shuffles out of her chair and moves behind me to shake Dakota’s hand. “I’m Ida, the HR director.”
I can’t even bring myself to look at her.
I have no intention of shaking this woman’s—anything.
This will be a short interview, and the poor girl doesn’t realize it. She hasn’t made eye contact with me yet.
Lucy grasps the arm of her chair and launches herself—baby belly and all—out of her seat. After the Herculean effort, it would be ridiculous of me not to stand, I suppose.
Biting my tongue, I try not to roll my eyes out of my head as I scramble to my feet woodenly.
Lucy holds her hand out next.
“Lucy Smith, I’m EA to our CEO, Lincoln Burns, but I pretty much run the show around here,” she jokes.