Million Dollar Christmas Proposal

“My… That I’m a…” She didn’t finish her thought.

Enzu found himself more intrigued than confused. That she was a what?

An idea came to him. One he dismissed almost immediately as impossible. She was twenty-seven, had attended university, and raised her own brother for the past six years.

Still, considering how little information on that front there was in the report, he could not help wondering. He had thought she was simply more private in this area than anyone he’d ever come across. Even himself.

And Enzu made it a policy never to get his name splashed across the tabloids for his sexual liaisons.

There was no evidence of any kind of sex life in the report on Audrey, but that didn’t mean she did not have one. An investigator would find it difficult, if not impossible, to name Enzu’s sexual partners in the past year.

“Your discretion in that area bodes well for your ability to maintain my confidences.”

Enzu had no intention of telling his wife sensitive information, but living together in the same house for at least two decades risked her being exposed anyway.

Audrey was back to blushing and looking into her teacup as if it held the secrets of the universe. “I am a very private person.”

“I had surmised that.”

“But it’s not so much a matter of discretion as there being nothing to be discreet about,” she admitted, almost as if she was embarrassed by that fact.

He was glad to hear she wasn’t promiscuous, but he did not want her to think he expected her to have no past sexual experiences. He was not a Neanderthal.

“I find sex a satisfactory stress-reliever but, like you, I do not indulge as often as some might expect.” Enzu wasn’t celibate by any stretch, but he was not and never had been a player like his brother, either.

He worked sixty-hour weeks, rarely taking days off—even on the weekend; Enzu didn’t have time for a lover, or even frequent hook-ups.

Audrey winced, cherry-red washing over her cheeks. “I don’t indulge at all.”

“Not at all?” he asked with some measure of disbelief.

“Not ever,” she admitted, as if it was painful to do so. “I’ll understand if you want to end the interview right here. It was a reasonable assumption that I would have at least some experience.”

He wasn’t sure why she thought he’d want to cut short the interview, but he was a lot more interested in her claim of total inexperience than just why she thought he would see it as a strike against her.

Strangely, the urgency of his physical attraction to Audrey only increased at the knowledge of her innocence.

“You’re saying you are a virgin?”

“Yes.”

“But you were engaged.” The relationship had ended shortly after Toby moved in with his sister. A formal retraction had even been printed in the paper.

“We were waiting until our wedding night.”

“People still do that?” he asked, bemused.

“To hear my parents tell it, anyone with a conscience does.”

“They seem to be rather narrow-minded.”

“You think?” she asked with some sarcasm. “They’re also hypocrites. My oldest sister was born seven months after their wedding day. And she was not a preemie, no matter what my mom claimed later.”

Enzu laughed cynically. “While your virginity comes as a surprise, your parents’ double standard does not.”

Audrey nodded and then rose gracefully to her feet. “Right. I appreciate you considering me. I hope you find someone suited to both you and the children.”

He stood, too, coming around his desk and blocking an easy exit from his office. “This interview isn’t over.”

“It’s not?” Her forward momentum had taken her to within inches of him before she stopped.

Her scent, a soft floral fragrance, teased his senses. Arousal spiked through him and he had to control the urge to reach out and touch. “No. Surely you realize that it is my responsibility to determine when this interview is over?”

“Yes, of course.” She stepped back.

He followed her.

Chocolate-brown eyes widened, but she didn’t try moving back again. Perhaps she realized to do so might well trip her backward into her chair in a less than dignified manner.

“I have several more things to discuss with you.”

She swallowed, her gaze stuck on his mouth in a gratifying way. The attraction was not one-sided. He smiled.

She inhaled sharply and then shook her head, like she was trying to clear it. “But I thought…”

“It would take an insecure man to be intimidated by a lack of experience in his possible future sex partner.”

“Oh.”

The breathy little sound went straight to his sex. “Do you think I am insecure man, Audrey?”

CHAPTER FOUR

“UM, NO.” HER gaze strayed up to his and then back down to his lips, as if she couldn’t help herself.

Would it be so bad to include a kiss as part of the initial interview? This position was hardly typical, or covered under usual human resources procedures.

It was only the fact that the interview had already gone so far awry from his prepared agenda that kept him from giving in to further modification to the plan. He was still in control of this meeting. And himself.

“Do I seem intimidated?” he asked, driving the point home.

Audrey licked her lips and gave a small laugh. “Definitely not.”

“Then it appears this interview is not over.” He gently but firmly grasped her shoulders and guided her back to her seat. “I will tell you when we are finished, sì?”

“Yes. Okay. That would be good.”

Forcing h

imself to release her, he stepped back. “Sì.”

“You were born here in the U.S., weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So why do you say sì sometimes?”

“I’m not sure. I grew up visiting Sicily every summer and we did not speak English at home.”

“Is your mother of Italian descent as well?”

“No. And our family is Sicilian.”

“Isn’t that the same?”

“Not to a Sicilian.”

She grinned. “I see.”

“Bene.” He used the Sicilian for good just to make her smile again.

It worked and he was inexplicably pleased.

“So, your mother learned Sicilian?”

“Not well, but then my parents were rarely home.”

“Your grandparents raised you?”

“The answer to that question is complicated.”

“Do I get to use that reply?”

“No.”

She looked at him patiently but with clear purpose.

“You are stubborn, I think.”

“Maybe.”

There was no maybe about it. “My grandmother was from the Old Country. By the time I was born she spent most of the year visiting our family in Palermo. My grandfather ran the bank.”

“So, you’re saying no one really raised you at all?”

He shrugged. “It was better for Pinu.”

“Because you tried to help raise him?”

“For all the good it did. I could not give him a loving mother, or a father…just a bossy big brother.”

“You’re determined his children will have a better childhood than he did,” she said with uncomfortable insight.

She realized he wasn’t trying to improve on his own childhood, only on what he’d been able to give Pinu.

“Sì.”

“I think it’s a good thing.”

But he saw doubts in her eyes. “You still do not believe I can hire a woman to fulfill that role?”

“You’re wrong.”

“Oh, am I?” he asked, in a tone his senior management would recognize as dangerous.

“Yes. I have no doubt you can entice a woman to marry you and play the role of mother to Franca and Angilu, especially with the remuneration you are offering—”

“But?”

“But, as I told you last week, I question whether that woman will offer them genuine affection. Children know the difference.”