by Timms, Lexy
But somehow, he managed to continue to do his work and grow his company in ways that his father had never been able to. I had studied some of his business decisions in my final year of school, and I had quickly come to think of him as brilliant. Some of the things he did didn’t seem to make any sense whatsoever...only then, things would turn out in his favor and you’d suddenly realize the plan he’d had all along.
A job as his advisor, helping him make all those crazy plans? That would honestly be a dream come true. That sort of a job would challenge me in ways that none of my previous positions had been able to do. And not only that, but I was sure I could rock that job like nobody’s business.
The trouble was, it would be working under Daniel McGregor. I thought back to what I had said to Leanne before, about the women who went home with a man like him. In the business world, you were very much judged on who you associated with. Did I want to spend the rest of my life being judged on my association with McGregor? Hell no. He might have incredible business sense, but it was too often overshadowed by his personal dramas.
But it would be such an interesting position. I kept circling back around to that. And besides, it wasn’t like I had any other real prospects at the moment. I was beginning to feel disheartened at my inability to land a position. Not only that, but I’d been out of work for long enough that I was beginning to go a bit crazy not having any real schedule or anything important I needed to do with my time.
Maybe I should give this opportunity a chance. At least go through the interview process and see if someone like Daniel McGregor would even hire me.
I doubted he would. There were rumors that although he kept around all the guys his father had hired into the company, the latest newcomers to his company were all attractive enough to have been models in another lifetime. Me with my curves, I knew I didn’t fit that bill. If he was looking for eye candy, I wasn’t the person he’d choose.
I didn’t agree with the idea of doing business that way, besides. McGregor and I couldn’t possibly have enough common ground that I would fare well as an advisor for him.
“Are you going to at least apply?” Leanne asked.
I frowned and then shrugged. “Why not?” I asked, taking a picture of the ad with my phone and making a note to get back to the application that afternoon.
Leanne grinned at me. “If you get to meet Daniel, make sure to take a picture for me,” she said.
I snorted. “Yeah, because that wouldn’t be awkward at all,” I said jokingly. I paused and shrugged. “I doubt I’ll meet him, anyway. Even if I make it through to the interview stage, I’m sure he’s the kind of guy that’ll have someone else handling the interviews for him. While he goes and...” I trailed off and flipped back to page one, gesturing to the image of McGregor with a woman under each arm.
“Just see how it goes,” Leanne said. “That would be so cool if you got to meet him.”
“I’ll see how it goes,” I promised, keeping my negative thoughts to myself. If she wanted to moon after celebrities, then that was her deal. As for me, I was just looking for a decent job.
Chapter 5
Daniel
BY WEDNESDAY, I WAS inundated with applications for people who thought they could replace Gerrard as my financial advisor. There were so many of them who thought they were such hotshots. As though because they had studied business in college, they must know everything about the way that the business world worked. Or there were people who did have experience in the business world but who were just, well, stodgy.
I was looking for someone who knew what they were talking about, but also someone who could be a little innovative in their position. What was the point in having an advisor who wanted to do things by the books? I could advise myself in that, if that was all that I was looking for.
I had brought a couple people in for interviews, but I wasn’t thrilled with any of them. This morning’s interview had been a total dud.
I rubbed at my temples. My lunch break was almost over, and I was already dreading this afternoon’s interviews. Maybe I should just cancel all of them. Send everyone home and declare the whole thing a lost cause. Not for the first time, I wondered if I should have just overlooked the fact that Gerrard was selling information about me to the press. The paparazzi were going to find me with or without his tip-offs. I should have just kept my advisor with me no matter what.
It was a matter of principle, though. I knew that. And I hated that I was even considering hiring him back. At the same time, I wished these dreary interviews were over.
Erin, my assistant, knocked on the door and peeked inside. “Are you ready for the next applicant?” she asked sweetly.
“Send her in,” I sighed.
She gave me an encouraging smile before beckoning to the next candidate. The woman, Kara Michaels according to the resume in front of me, came into the office with a smile on her face. She was dressed to impress in a fitted navy suit and cream-colored blouse with ruffles down the front. I glanced down at the file Erin had put together for me. The woman was thirty years old and honestly was pretty cute, but she dressed like she was twice her age. Sure, it was a business and we didn’t do casual here, not even on Fridays. But she didn’t need to look quite so formal.
“Have a seat.” I sighed, gesturing to the chair across the desk from me.
Her grin didn’t falter as she did just that. “It’s such an honor to meet you, Mr. McGregor,” she gushed. “I have a feeling that you and I will work really well together.”
I chose to ignore her assumption that she was automatically going to get this job. “What makes you say that?” I asked instead.
“We’re just so similar,” she assured me. “I’ve read everything that I can about you, and let me tell you, I would have made all the same decisions that you made for this company. All of them. And having lost my parents as well, in a car accident when I was three, I know what it must have felt like for you to lose your father.”
She prattled on and on and on, and I fought the urge to round the desk and strangle her. To be honest, my anger was mostly held at bay by how incredulous I felt that she would bring up any of those things during a job interview. I glanced over her resume as she continued to talk about how similar she and I both were, even going so far as to mention that she had seen a photo of me in some magazine once, eating a sesame seed bagel, and how those were her favorite bagels too.
Not only that, but: “You’re even hotter in person,” she confessed.
I knew that some people got nervous during interviews, but this was insane. She had pretty decent references on her resume too. How could someone have possibly hired her, when she didn’t seem to know a single thing about interviewing?
“You’re good friends with Greg Anderson?” I finally cut in. He was listed as her first reference, and as well-known as he was in the business world, I would be surprised if he vouched for someone like this. But if he did, if he could give me a valid reason to hire her, maybe I would, just to get the whole interview process over with.
But Kara smiled brightly at me. “Greg’s the best, isn’t he?” she asked, not answering my question.
“How did you come to meet him?” I pressed.
“Well, I haven’t actually,” Kara said. “I mean, I did an interview with someone in his company, and they said that I could contact them anytime.”
“But you didn’t actually work for him,” I said flatly. It wasn’t a question, and I wasn’t going to be calling her “references” to see what, if anything, they had to say about her. I had heard enough. Half the resume was probably made-up, or at least heavily exaggerated. Half these women just wanted to meet me.
I should restrict the interviews to guys, I thought savagely. But I knew that I couldn’t be seen to discriminate against women, or else someone was bound to find out and I would find myself stuck with a stupid lawsuit. I had interviewed a few guys that morning, and none of them had been quick-witted enough to keep up with me, let alone advise
me. Now, I had to interview at least one or two women, even if they were just making shit up so that they could brag to all of their friends that they had been in the same room with me and had a conversation with me.
I stood abruptly. “Unfortunately, the position for my advisor has already been filled, but thank you for your time,” I told Kara, even though it wasn’t true. Maybe I wouldn’t hire anyone. Maybe the position of my advisor no longer existed.
“If I’m not going to be working for you, then maybe you and I could go to dinner sometime?” Kara exclaimed. “You know, because there wouldn’t be any sort of reason that we couldn’t. No professional conflicts or anything.”
I stared at her, not even sure how to counter that. Finally, I just shook my head. “I have your number,” I told her. “I’ll call you when I’m free.” She beamed at that, as though she had just won a prize. I was never going to call her, but crazy as she seemed to be, I had no idea what she would do if I told her that to her face.
I ushered her out of the office and then beckoned at Erin.
She came into my office looking puzzled. “Are you all right? You look pale.”
“I’m starting to get a migraine,” I told her. “Cancel the rest of this afternoon’s interviews. I don’t want to be disturbed by anyone.”
Erin frowned. “Are you sure?” she asked. “There’s only one more interview today.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure,” I told her. She shouldn’t have questioned my decision to begin with, but I didn’t have it in me to rebuke her just then or remind her of her place. I certainly wasn’t going to fire her, not if it meant I had to interview for a new assistant as well as a new business advisor.
But Erin continued to linger. “I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for in an advisor, but this woman seems like she might have potential,” she said. “She got here twenty minutes early, and she’s been waiting patiently. We chatted a little, and I don’t think she’s here just to meet you; I think she actually wants this job.”
I stared at Erin, not sure whether to be frustrated that she would step so far out of line or amused that she, too, realized that most of these women weren’t here for the job but rather to meet me. She thought this last candidate had potential, though, did she?
I went over to my desk and flipped through the file on Abby. Her resume wasn’t particularly impressive. She’d worked for some decent companies in the industry, but all of her positions had been relatively short-term. That wasn’t necessarily negative, but I was looking for someone who would stick by my side for the long run. Seeing how these interviews were going now, I really hoped to never be in this position again.
But on the other hand, maybe she was just looking for the right position and hadn’t found it yet. I wouldn’t know that until I interviewed her.
I wondered if there was a reason why she wasn’t “just here to meet me.” Maybe she was ugly. Maybe she was desperate for a job since it had been almost a month since she quit her previous one. Or maybe she was just the kind of woman who really didn’t care about the celebrity gossip.
I snorted quietly. I wasn’t sure that kind of woman actually existed, so it was probably one of the former. But either ugly or desperate, I didn’t really care at this point, as long as I knew she could do her job well. And Erin seemed to think she had potential.
“All right, send her in,” I finally conceded with a sigh. I sat behind my desk, rubbing at my temples. This was the final interview of the day, at least. Unfortunately, I had another seven interviews scheduled for the following day, plus a meeting with one of our oldest clients.
Erin slipped out, and a couple of moments later, there was a light knock at the door, followed by the entrance of the latest applicant. I stared at her, hoping my surprise, and lust, didn’t show in my face. She was definitely not ugly.
Her black suit was cut to accentuate her curves, but it was the bright blonde hair and arresting green eyes that captured my attention first. She had an adorable sprinkling of freckles across her nose, and there was clear determination in her eyes. Maybe Erin was right.
I let my eyes trail down her body, taking in her round breasts where they were visibly peeking out of her cherry-red top. She had a narrow waist and wide hips, and I had a sudden image in my head of stripping her down and running my hands down her body. I shook that thought away for now, but I couldn’t help thinking that maybe if she didn’t have potential as my advisor, I could at least take her to dinner. It might not be the most professional thing to do, but hey, no one thought of me as the most professional of guys anyway.
She raised an eyebrow at me, and I realized that I had been staring at her for a second too long. But rather than do what most girls would have done in her position, tossing her hair and flirting with me, she seemed impatient to get on with the interview. It made me wonder about her. I had never met a woman who was so blatantly uninterested in me before.
I sort of liked the idea of a challenge.
“I stood and introduced myself. “I’m Daniel McGregor,” I managed to say, and then felt like an idiot. Of course she knew who I was or she wouldn’t be here for the interview. I stopped myself from smacking my forehead and gestured at the chair across the desk from me. “Would you like to have a seat and we can get this interview underway?”
She nodded at me and sat down, primly folding her hands. For a long moment, we just stared at each other in silence, her waiting for me to begin the interview and me, for once, scrambling to keep up with someone else.
Chapter 6
Abby
I WAS SURPRISED TO get called in for an interview with McGregor on Wednesday, less than twenty-four hours after I had submitted my application for the financial advisor position at the company. But I was even more surprised to be shown into Daniel McGregor’s office. The place was every bit as sleek and sophisticated as I might have expected. McGregor himself sat there waiting for me, and I could tell from the way he looked over my body that he wasn’t really looking for an advisor. No, he was looking for an office fuck. Or at least for some eye candy.
I felt my lips tighten with disapproval, but I tried to keep my expression as neutral as I could. Get through the interview, at least. Then I could tell Leanne all about what an ass the CEO of McGregor Enterprises really was.
He was attractive himself, I had to give him that. Even more so in person than in any of the photos I had ever seen. Intimidating, too, when he turned those piercing blue eyes on me. But I couldn’t help thinking of what a spoiled brat he must be to work with. I suddenly doubted he had ever made a single business decision for himself. No, he was just a figurehead, and as everyone knew, all he really cared about were the latest clubs and his one-night stands.
Yet, he had the nicest office in the whole building, probably, with an incredible view out over the city, and I could see what must be a no-doubt expensive watch peeking out from the cuff of his tailored suit.
If all he was looking for in an advisor was someone attractive that he could sleep with while the rest of his employees weren’t looking, I wondered who it was who really made the business decisions for him. But I pushed that thought aside. It didn’t really matter, one way or the other. I was never going to come to work for a man like this.
I took a seat, returning his hungry look with a cool glance of my own. But still, he hesitated before starting the interview. I was beginning to wonder if this silence of his was some sort of new interview tactic that he was trying out. What was he waiting for me to say?
I could see where such a tactic might give him a lot of insight into the kind of person I was, though. I bet most women would bend over backward trying just to please him. But I wasn’t about to do that. I waited another beat and then cleared my throat. “So how’s your day going?” I asked.
I felt stupid the minute the words were out of my mouth. Way to show my intelligence: open with some generic small talk. I should have just cut to the chase and started talking about the weather. Shit.
But McGregor honestly looked relieved I had asked. “I have to be honest with you, I’ve interviewed a few other people for this same position today,” he warned me.
I frowned. “Yes, I saw the other woman leave right before me,” I told him, though that should have been obvious.
Another awkward silence filled the room. Finally, McGregor cleared his throat and shuffled some of the papers on his desk. “As my advisor, I would need you to stay on top of current news in the business world,” he said finally. “Can you tell me what sources you currently use for that?”
I breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. Hopefully, that meant we were on track for a real interview. Even if I knew I was no longer interested in the position he was hiring for—that of his latest fling—I figured I might as well give it my all. I could always use more practice with interviewing, I reasoned to myself. And besides, maybe McGregor had friends in the industry who were actually hiring. He might mention me to one of them, even if it was just in passing.
I knew the chances of that weren’t exactly high, but either way, there was no point in sabotaging the interview. I’d answer every question he’d shoot at me without batting an eye. I straightened and waited for the next question.
“Sounds like you’re pretty good at problem-solving,” McGregor said as he wrapped up the interview. I had noted the grudging appreciation in his face as I adeptly answered his situational-based questions. I hoped he realized that I wasn’t looking for the kind of position that he wanted to fill.
I shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve had a lot of experience at the other companies I’ve worked for,” I said, knowing from the way he had studied the papers on his desk that he at least did have my resume in front of him there. Maybe he needed an advisor who wouldn’t embarrass him at company functions and so he wanted to make sure that they had some sort of background in business?