Tempting the Billionaire (Love in the Balance 1)

When she opened them she saw Shane had backed away some, either to give the semblance of privacy or because he feared she would burst into tears and blow her nose on his expensive jacket. She could choke Sadie for bringing her out tonight.

Come to the club, Sadie had said. It’ll get your mind off of things, she’d insisted. But it hadn’t. Even when faced with a very good-looking, potentially helpful man, she was wallowing in self-doubt and recrimination. She could’ve done that at home.

“What experience do you have, Crickitt?” Shane asked, interrupting her thoughts.

She tipped her chin up at him. Was he serious? Either his half smile was sarcastic or genuinely curious. Hard to tell. The temptation was there to dismiss him as just another jerk in a club, but she couldn’t. There was an undeniable warmth in his dark eyes, a certain kindness in the way he leaned toward her when he talked, like he didn’t want to intimidate her.

Maybe that’s why she told him the truth.

“I’m great with people,” she answered.

“And scheduling?”

She considered telling him about the twenty in-home shows she held each and every month for the last seven years, but wasn’t sure he wouldn’t get the wrong idea about exactly what kind of in-home shows she’d be referring to. “Absolutely.”

“Prioritizing?”

Crickitt almost laughed. Prioritizing was a necessity in her business. She’d been responsible for mentoring and training others, as well as maintaining her personal sales and team. It’d taken her a while to master the art of putting her personal business first, but she’d done it. If she focused too much on others, her numbers soon started circling the drain, and that wasn’t good for any of them.

“Definitely,” she answered, pausing to consider the fire burning in her belly. How long had it been since she’d talked about her career with confidence? Too long, she realized. By now, her ex-husband would have cut her off midsentence to change the subject.

But Shane’s posture was open, receptive, and he faced her, his eyebrows raised as if anticipating what she might say next. So she continued. “I, um, I was responsible for a team of twenty-five salespeople while overseeing ten managers with teams of their own,” she finished.

She almost cringed at the callous description. Those “teams” and “managers” were more like family than co-workers. They’d slap her silly if they ever heard her referring to them with corporate lingo. But if she had to guess, Shane was a corporate man and Crickitt doubted he’d know the first thing about direct sales.

“You sound overqualified,” he said.

“That’s what I…wait, did you just s-say overqualified?” Crickitt stammered. She blinked up at him, shocked. She’d fully expected him to tell her to peddle her questionable work background elsewhere.

Shane reached into his pocket and offered a business card between two outstretched fingers. “Even so, I’d like to talk to you in more detail. Are you available for an interview on Monday?”

Crickitt stared at the card like it was a trick buzzer.

“I’m serious.” He dropped the card on the bar. “This isn’t typically how I find employees, but”—he shrugged—“I need a personal assistant. And someone with your background and experience is hard to come by.”

She blinked at him again. This had to be some elaborate scheme to get her to bed, right? Isn’t that what Sadie told her to expect from the men in these places?

“How about one o’clock, Monday afternoon? I have meetings in the morning, but I should be done by then. If the job’s not a good fit, at least you looked into it.”

Well. The only interview she’d managed to arrange since her self-inflicted unemployment was for a thirty-thousand-dollar salary and involved her working in a government office. And she’d lost that job to a kid ten years her junior. She’d be stupid to pass up the opportunity for an interview with this man. Even though part of her couldn’t imagine working for someone as put together as Shane. But he didn’t seem demanding, or overly confident, just…nice.

Which brought about another niggling thought. This was too easy. And if she’d learned a lesson from recent events, wasn’t it to be cautious when things were going suspiciously well? And this, she thought, glancing in his direction again, was going a little too well.

“What do you say?” he asked.

Then again, as her dwindling savings account constantly reminded her, she needed to find some sort of viable income. And soon. If the interview turned out to be a sham, the experience would still be worthwhile, she thought with knee-jerk optimism.