by Abby Gaines
He hadn’t known what to expect of Holly—but given her stellar reputation and the way she’d lambasted him the one time they’d spoken on the phone, it wasn’t this woman whose navy suit bordered on frumpy, whose hair of indeterminate color was pulled severely back off her wan face. Nor had he expected when he shook her slim hand to feel a charged awareness that simply didn’t make sense.
The confusion sparked by his physical reaction had provoked him to the kind of juvenile discourtesy he’d abandoned years before.
“So, Holly,” he said, “what’s changed?”
“I, uh, excuse me?” Holly cleared her throat, still trying to regroup the thoughts scattered by the searching intensity of his dark blue gaze. The moment she met him, she’d dived back into her familiar control-freak armor. At least that way she knew who she was, knew what she thought of him.
Because Jared wasn’t at all what she expected. She’d seen his picture in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer many times. She’d acknowledged he was good-looking, even as she disdained the smile she deemed cocky and the arrogant tilt of his head. But the reality was altogether bigger, more forceful, more…male than any photo could convey.
It’s his height, she told herself. He would easily be six-two, which made his broad shoulders seem just right, instead of hulking. She’d been right about the cocky smile and the arrogance, though—she eyed the black loafer-clad feet on the desk in front of her with disfavor. How could he expect her to take him seriously?
Yet she did.
“Could it be that my questionable business values are no longer incompatible with your client portfolio?” He quoted her earlier response to him.
Holly resisted an anxious urge to gnaw her lower lip. She looked him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have said that, and I apologize.”
His smile said he didn’t believe her. “But you still feel that way.”
“I—” She stopped, helpless. She wouldn’t lie to him to get the job. “This isn’t about my feelings. I need a job, you need an accountant.”
“So you’ll put aside your scruples?” He sounded almost disappointed.
“I’ll do what I should have done earlier and reserve judgment.” She thought she saw a flash of approval in his eyes.
“Why now?”
If their conversation had been difficult so far, it was about to get a whole lot harder. Holly kept her voice steady. “Before you offer me a job, I should tell you about my…less desirable attributes.”
“Sounds intriguing.” He brought his feet down to the floor, and leaned forward to scrutinize her. “Is that a mustache on your upper lip?”
“No, it’s not,” she snapped, her hand involuntarily testing the smooth and definitely hairless skin between her mouth and her nose. “Perhaps I’m the one who should be asking about your undesirable attributes.”
“I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours,” he wheedled. Despite herself, Holly smiled.
Jared blinked. Holly’s lips, no longer tight with disapproval, emerged as full and perfectly shaped. The somber eyes he’d dismissed as unremarkable gray proved to have hints of forget-me-not blue when humor lit them. Which just went to show his male instincts—the ones that had been shocked at that handshake—were in full working order.
“You need to know,” she said, “that as of last Monday I’m under investigation by the FBI for theft and fraud.”
His shout of laughter was the last reaction Holly expected. Still, Harding was notoriously unpredictable. “You think it’s funny?”
“Look at you.” With a wave of his large hand he indicated her face, hair, clothes, demeanor. “You’re the picture of innocence. You’re even blushing, for Pete’s sake. It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain there’s not a dishonest bone in your body.”
He made it an insult.
“What about Babyface Malone?” she demanded, stung.
“Who?”
“Malone was one of the most heinous mobsters around, and he looked every bit as innocent as I do.”
Jared snorted. “If you’re trying to tell me you’re with the Mob I’m not buying it. You’re nothing but an honest accountant who’s been wrongly accused.” To his evident horror, tears sprang to her eyes. “Now what?”
“I…appreciate your judgment of me,” Holly said, and added scrupulously, “however underinformed it may be.” She meant it. News of her troubles had traveled fast within Seattle’s accounting community, and two of the peers she’d phoned for advice before she turned to AnnaMae had made it clear they were assuming the worst. “You’re right, I am innocent. So if you want to tell me about this job…”
He grinned. “I can think of nothing I’d like more than having the FBI’s latest target handle the fine print on this deal.”
Holly hated his smart-aleck attitude, but right now she couldn’t argue. And this could be worse. Despite Jared’s casual clothes, his office didn’t appear to be a den of iniquity. The spacious corner suite wasn’t as tidy as she’d have liked, but its high-tech equipment and minimalist furnishings exuded professionalism. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, she had to admire his business acumen as he told her the bare bones of the acquisitions he planned to make with her help. It was a complex deal, involving asset swaps, share swaps and meaty taxation issues.
Fascinating, professionally speaking.
“So,” he concluded, “do you want the job?”
Jared could hardly believe he was holding his breath as he waited for her reply. But accountants of Holly’s ability, her creativity, weren’t that common. The only reason her business wasn’t ten times its size was that many chief executives were too fuddy-duddy to accept that a woman her age could be the best in her field. And most of the rest couldn’t afford her. But Jared fit neither of those categories. He trusted her ability, and he could pay whatever she demanded.
He needed the integrity Holly brought to her work, the gold standard against which she would measure this deal. So what if she was under investigation for fraud—everyone who mattered knew she could spot a flaky contract a mile off and wouldn’t allow anything remotely marginal in the eyes of the law.
Unlike her, Jared had been known to push the boundaries of legality. He hadn’t overstepped them, but he’d done things others would consider unethical, if not illegal.
Because sometimes the end justified the means.
“I won’t do anything illegal,” she said. “And by that I mean anything that I personally consider to breach the spirit or the letter of the law.”
He couldn’t help smiling at the irony, given her current circumstances. “What you say goes,” he assured her.
He couldn’t afford to have it any other way. This was his chance to avenge the wrong done to his family, and it had been twenty years coming. This deal was big enough to attract the scrutiny of the IRS, the stock market and his competitors. And one person in particular would be watching closely. It had to look squeaky clean.
“I charge plenty, and I need a partial payment next week.” Holly named a sum that startled Jared. He suppressed a grin—not many people would have the effrontery to demand that kind of fee when they were desperate—and agreed to pay.
But he wouldn’t let her think she could walk all over him. So he said, “I still have one concern about you.”
She bristled. “You said the investigation didn’t bother you.”
“Not that. I read an article about you last week.”
For the first time since she’d stalked into his office Holly looked less than one hundred percent sure of herself. “I— You can’t believe everything you read.”
“So the glowing account of your illustrious career wasn’t true?”
“Of course it was.”
“But the other stuff—the control freak part—wasn’t? I have to tell you, Holly, I don’t work well with control freaks.”
“I’m not—well, I guess I am a bit. That article was all my fault,” she said in a rush.
Jared quirked an eyebrow.
>
“I should never have let that journalist trail me around. It was one of those days when nothing went right and I had to…well…take control of my staff and my clients more than usual. I got off on the wrong foot with the guy. Right at the start he asked how I’d achieved so much in just a few years.”
“And you said?” Jared had a feeling he would enjoy her answer.
“I said…” Holly squared her shoulders and looked Jared in the eye. “I told him first impressions are important. That early in my career I could never have gotten away with dressing like he did, with his shoes all scuffed, his hair too long and his shirt hanging out. That no matter how good you are at your job, people will always judge you by appearance.”
Jared made a point of inspecting his own shoes. They passed muster, by his standards at least. Who knew what level of shine Holly expected? “My shirt is hanging out,” he said.
“Yours appears designed that way,” Holly said stiffly. “In hindsight, it wasn’t a clever thing to say, but he did ask. I gave him an honest answer.”
“And you think he took such offence that he went back to his office and labeled you a control freak?”
“No-o,” she said slowly. “I think he did that because I suggested he could write faster if he held his pen with the proper grip—I was only trying to help. And when it became clear the interview wasn’t going well, I asked to see his copy before it went to press and threatened to sue if he wrote anything I didn’t like. Which, of course, I have no grounds to do, as there was nothing factually incorrect in his article.”
“You don’t pull your punches,” Jared observed, his voice bland.
“I got what I deserved.”
Somehow the blue steel in his eyes—hard but not altogether unforgiving—strengthened Holly’s backbone and impelled her to an openness she hadn’t intended. “That article was a wake-up call for me. I’ve decided to be more tolerant of others.”
His lips twisted, she suspected in cynicism rather than appreciation of her resolution. “So that’s why you’re here. I’m the lucky beneficiary of your newfound tolerance.”
She nodded.
“That’s good. Because I don’t think I could work with the woman described in that article.”
Holly gulped.
“So,” he said silkily, “if you ever feel compelled to comment on the length of my hair or the state of my shoes, the way I hold my pen or the cleanliness of my desk—” Holly was certain he would discern from the guilt in her eyes that she’d already evaluated them all “—I suggest you run to the bathroom and tell it all to your reflection. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” she said.
Jared stood and walked over to his filing cabinet. “I’ll give you a copy of my standard employment contract. Amend the terms to suit yourself, and if I’m happy with it, I’ll sign it.”
He opened the top drawer and began to rummage through it. To stop herself from noticing how the drawer was stuffed higgledy-piggledy with papers, Holly picked up the cup of coffee Jared’s PA had brought in. She took a sip of the now-cold liquid. As she put the cup back on the desk, a splash of coffee slopped over the side onto the polished beech surface.
On automatic pilot, Holly whipped a tissue out of her purse and mopped the puddle. Then she noticed a smear of dust all along that edge of the desk and ran the tissue over it.
“What are you doing?” Jared thundered.
Holly jumped. “I spilled coffee,” she said. “I was just—”
“You were dusting my desk,” he accused.
“No! Well, maybe a little. I happened to notice—” She stuffed the dusty, coffee-soaked tissue back into her purse.
“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. In addition to the other things I mentioned, you are not to do any tidying or cleaning anywhere near me.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“Do you?” He advanced toward her and Holly instinctively shrank back in her seat, even as she reached to take the contract from him. “Are you sure?”
He picked up her three-quarters full cup of coffee and slowly, deliberately, poured its contents over the surface of his desk.
Holly squawked and leaped to her feet, looking wildly around for a cloth, napkins—anything. Finding none, she dredged the sodden tissue back out of her purse…
And stopped. Jared was standing immobile, watching her, impervious to the liquid spreading over his desk toward his laptop and the papers he had stacked on one end of his desk.
Holly swallowed. She dropped her tissue into the wastepaper basket, and forced her gaze away from the desk. “So,” she said briskly. “When do I start?”
Jared almost applauded. Ignoring that mess was the exercise of an iron will—he was struggling himself. “I’ll brief you over dinner tonight.”
ONE PROBLEM DOWN, two thousand to go.
Holly peered in the mirror on her visor, stifling the memory of the last time she’d done that—had it only been Tuesday?—and then found herself barred from her office. It was unlikely she’d be refused admittance to the Green Room, Seattle’s swankiest restaurant, if only because Jared wouldn’t let it happen.
She knew that much, though she knew little else about the man. She’d spent the past couple of days surfing the Internet at AnnaMae’s house, searching for information about her new employer. For someone who was never out of the headlines, the search yielded surprisingly insubstantial results.
Harding Corporation had succeeded where so many dotcoms had failed, creating a series of viable Internet businesses. The press had reported with a mix of admiration, envy and resentment the deals Jared had signed with companies and people no one else would touch. He’d cleaned some of them up and stripped some of them down for their dubious assets. He’d bought businesses for their possibly illegally inflated tax losses and offset them against his more profitable operations.
And rumor had it Jared hadn’t paid a penny in personal or company taxes in five years.
It might be true. But Holly doubted it could be both true and legitimate. So he’d better have meant it when he’d said she could do as she wanted with this deal.
She walked the block from her car to the restaurant and pushed open the heavy wooden door with the brass handle. The maître d’made a dignified rush to meet her.
Holly followed him across the intimate space of the dining room. Jared rose to greet her and she slid into the booth-style seat that wrapped around two sides of the corner table.
Jared had changed his clothes. This morning he’d worn a casual gray shirt, which, as he’d pointed out, hadn’t been tucked in to his dark pants. Tonight, a black polo and a zip-fronted jacket made him look too cool for words. Holly was still wearing this morning’s suit.
“I would have changed, but I don’t have any more clothes,” she said, then clamped her mouth shut.
“I’d no idea things were so tough in the accounting trade.”
“I wasn’t allowed back into my home after the FBI searched it yesterday,” she said. “And they froze my bank accounts, so I couldn’t get any cash. And when the bank realized that, they canceled my credit card.”
Her voice quivered. Holly bit her lower lip. She’d explained the situation to AnnaMae without shedding a single tear. Even lying awake in AnnaMae’s spare bed the past two nights, she’d been shocked, but dry-eyed.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?”
“Not in front of you,” she said stiffly.
With overt relief he handed her a leather-bound menu. Thankfully she wasn’t someone who lost her appetite under stress.
When they’d ordered, he said, “Since you’re going to work for me, you’d better tell me about this investigation. Just the facts.”
He was entitled to that much, Holly conceded. “David Fletcher and I went into business together two years ago, after we met at a conference. We were both unhappy with our jobs, and our different skills meshed well—he’s good at client relationships.”
“The schmoozing, you m
ean.” Jared looked her up and down with that faintly insulting scrutiny. “I can see you’re not a schmoozer.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She sat back in her seat while the waiter set her appetizer in front of her—a salmon kebab in a coconut curry sauce. It smelled divine, and she took a moment to inhale its spicy perfume, eyes closed.
That sensual gesture took Jared by surprise. Holly had ordered her food in a no-nonsense series of instructions—the waiter had practically saluted when she’d finished. Now she acted as if she’d dreamed of a meal like this her whole life.
Jared hadn’t planned on wine with their meal. But if Holly really wanted to appreciate her salmon, he knew just the Sonoma Chardonnay to go with it. She didn’t look worried when he ordered a bottle—just sent him an appreciative glance from beneath lowered lids, in a way he found curiously appealing. He shook his head. Holly Stephens was not his type.
For a few minutes, they ate in silence.
“How’s your salmon?” he asked eventually.
“Superb. And this wine is great with it. How’s your tuna carpaccio?” she asked.
“Excellent.” Belatedly, he realized she was eyeing the wafer-thin slices of raw tuna with the anticipatory delight of a tax inspector scenting a scam. “Would you like to try it?”
“Yes, please.” She pushed her side plate across the table toward him.
“What’s that for?”
“Put it on there—the tuna.” It was the same tone she’d used to give orders to the waiter earlier.
He forked a piece of tuna and held it across the table an inch from her lips. “Here.”
She frowned. “Just put it on the—oomph!”
Jared had taken advantage of her mouth being open and pushed the fork right in. Involuntarily, Holly detached the tuna before she pushed the fork away. He was right, it was excellent. But that wasn’t the point.