“Why?!” she gasped, once again, dramatically throwing her delicate hands up in the air. “Why can’t you just take a day off and…” she gestured toward the mountains. “Just go have a picnic! Luxuriate in the beauty around you! Take a bubble bath or drink some wine!”
“You want me to take a bubble bath?” he teased. Gianna didn’t understand that he was teasing her and her disgust escalated. Which only amused him further.
That hand waved in the air in his general direction. “You’re such an American! You take everything so actually!”
“Literally,” he corrected in what he hoped was a gentle tone.
“Exactly!”
He didn’t bother to explain that he was correcting her word usage. Why bother? He actually liked it when she messed up a word or phrase. He thought it was adorable, just like the rest of her.
“So you want to go on a picnic?”
She swung around and he once again had to stifle a laugh when she glared at him. Obviously, his intimidating nature didn’t affect her in the same way it affected the rest of his staff. The woman was courageous, he’d give her that much.
“A picnic would be lovely, but it isn’t the only thing that would brighten a day!”
He rubbed a finger over his mouth. Damn, he loved it when her accent deepened. He could always gauge her emotions by the intensity of her Italian accent. Right at this moment, she was angry, but even that turned him on.
Ignoring his body’s increasing reaction to her lush figure and sparkling, dark eyes, he lifted an eyebrow. “Other suggestions?”
She glared at him, her hands coming to rest on her round hips. “You are mocking me.” With a sigh, she looked up at the ceiling, then back at him. Thankfully, he was able to bring his eyes back up to hers before she realized that he was surveying her breasts. Apparently, the dress wasn’t made of silk but of some sort of stretchy material because it was literally straining at the seams as the material tried to keep all of her lush curves encased.
“I’m not mocking you Gianna. Your father asked me to take care of you.”
Her glare intensified and he wondered what she would do if he lifted her into his arms and…oh, a lot of ideas popped into his mind.
“My father asked you to employ me for this next year.”
“And take care of you.” He only said that to irritate her further. And yeah, he liked it when she wiggled like that. Brant struggled, and failed, to keep his eyes on her face. But what was a man to do when she moved like that? Did she have any idea of how erotic it looked when she shifted her body in that way? Everything moved! Every sensuous, gorgeous, sexy part of her figure drew his attention! And yeah, his eyes drifted lower, taking it all in. He was only human after all.
“No! No man takes care of me! One takes care of babies and children! I take care of myself! I refuse to allow any man to take care of me!”
He ignored her assertion because Brant had conversed with Gianna’s father every week since she’d arrived two months ago. The man was worried about his daughter and demanded updates on her welfare from Brant.
“Are you finished with the report I sent to you yesterday?” he asked.
She shrugged dismissively. “Yes. Your sales are down in the West Coast by two percent but up dramatically in the East Coast,” she explained. “Eleven point one percent actually.” She swung around to look at him. “The trainer on the east is good. Selena trained that team good and they know how to suggest individual products more better.”
Brant leaned back in his chair, enjoying the errors in her language as well as the accent. He listened to Gianna recite specifically which products were more closely aligned with another and lended themselves to upselling. It was an easy, service oriented way of selling more by simply suggesting to the client to purchase mascara remover whenever they came in for mascara. Or suggesting makeup primer when they wanted foundation. It was simple to explain how primer allowed a customer to use less makeup and have it last all day, thereby saving them money in the long term. And Gianna’s lilting accent only made the recitation even more interesting.
Gianna, with her brilliant mind and impressive ability to recall even the smallest piece of data, knew the figures for each section of the country and profit margins for each product right off the top of her head. So not only had she done the research, she knew exactly how to improve top-line revenue for the areas that had lower sales. Her analysis wasn’t just numbers deep. It was extraordinary!