“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.
He’d been hard almost the entire time they’d talked last week and it looked like he was going to experience the same phenomenon again. He couldn’t remember reacting like this to another woman in years. If ever.
Either he’d allowed too much time to pass since practicing that particular stress-reliever, or this woman was something special. Cynicism directed he lean toward the former.
Audrey moved with an unconscious grace he liked and Enzu allowed himself the minor pleasure of simply watching her finish her journey across his intimidatingly large office. It was one of the many calculated ways he used to establish his dominant role in any meeting that occurred in this room.
Audrey did not appear intimidated.
He found that reaction, or rather lack thereof, intriguing.
S
he stopped in front of his desk. “Good morning, Mr. Tomasi.”
Enzu did not reply immediately, his brain fully engaged with controlling his body’s unholy reaction to this woman.
“Thank you for considering me for this position.”
Typical, well-used words in an interview, and yet Audrey’s sincerity inexplicably touched him.
Her voice was soft, arousing. Not weak.
The subtle strength of a woman. His many summers in Sicily had taught him to appreciate it and never to underestimate the steel that ran through the spine of a woman who had learned to sacrifice for her family.
Unlike most of his Sicily-based family, Enzu had never once heard his great-aunt raise her voice. But there had never been any doubt in his mind who ran the family. His great-uncle could yell with amazing volume, even at eighty. And yet it was the old man’s wife whose quiet orders no one in the family dared to disobey.
Enzu’s silence must have lasted too long for Audrey’s comfort.
Uncertainty glowed in her chocolate gaze as it flicked between him and Gloria, who remained near the door, an assessing look in her pale eyes as she watched the exchange in silence.
Enzu forced himself to speak, allowing none of his response to this interesting woman to show in his voice. “Have a seat, Audrey.” He indicated the chair she’d occupied the week prior.
She nodded, silent, and then sat down in a rush as if her legs didn’t want to hold her up. The evidence of nervousness on her part surprised him.
“I assume you understand why you are here?”
“You want to interview me for the position of mother to your children?” she asked, her tone implying she found that particular eventuality very difficult to believe.
“Yes.”
A sound escaped her. “Oh. Okay.” She seemed to relax, though Enzu could not have identified exactly what gave him that impression.
He was as much an expert at reading body language as any psychologist with a PhD. It was a little unnerving to realize he could not pinpoint the change in hers that indicated her more relaxed state.
It occurred to him that this woman would be a challenging adversary across the boardroom table. He would do well not to forget it, either.
“You are still interested in the position?”