by BETH KERY
The media loved him. She’d seen photos of him clean-shaven, sexily scruffy, and even once with a beard and mustache. Currently, he wore a very thin, well-trimmed goatee. His skin wasn’t pale, but he didn’t look like the type of man who tanned as a matter of course, either. Alice imagined that, like her, he spent a lot of his time reading reports and squinting at numbers on a computer screen, or else sitting at the head of a boardroom table.
Durand Enterprises was well known for not only its strong philanthropic practices, but its financial robustness. Alice herself had suggested it right off the bat for their multifactorial, longitudinal study about the correlation between company philanthropy and profit. Alice had poured through journal and magazine articles, collecting relevant data on Durand, so she’d seen photos of Fall.
She’d stared at those photos a lot. So much so, in fact, that she’d started to think she was getting a little obsessed with the business mogul.
She was pretty unimpressed by men as a rule. She’d had to deal with her share of strutting, bullshitting, worthless, and dangerous males in her life. Good-looking men usually had even fewer redeeming qualities than the plain or ugly ones, in her opinion. The ugly ones had to compensate somehow in order to compete for women. She didn’t usually blink twice when she met a hot guy, but Dylan Fall was the kind of rough-and-tumble gorgeous that had all sorts of involuntary chemical reactions sparking in her body.
At the moment, she damned him straight to hell for it. Didn’t he possess an unfair amount of advantages as it was?
She straightened her spine and cleared her throat. “I was one of four research assistants on Dr. Lopez’s project. We all did our share of research and running numbers.”
His sliding fingers slowed on the pen. His gaze narrowed on her. “You’re a team player, then?” he asked quietly.
“I’m just stating the truth.”
“No. You’re not.”
Her chin went up. She almost immediately ducked her head when she felt how muscle and skin tightened, making her thrumming pulse probably more obvious to him, exposing her vulnerability.
“I spoke to Dr. Lopez about it in person before arriving here today,” he said. “She says that most of the innovative statistical analyses run on the project were not only completed by you, but designed by you.”
She couldn’t think of what to say, so she just held his stare.
“You don’t want to brag about your accomplishments?” he asked.
“Is that what you’d like? A little dog-and-pony show?”
His long fingers stilled, holding the silver pen mid-flip.
Shit.
Her cheeks flooded with heat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” she said, flustered. “I’m just a little confused as to why Durand is here at Arlington College. We all are, to be honest. Did you come because of the article?”
“Does that surprise you?” he asked, tossing the pen on the blotter. “Durand was one of the main companies featured. You single-handedly vindicated our strong philanthropic principles using hard statistics to do it. I’m impressed,” he said starkly. She swallowed thickly when he leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and met her stare. “Very.”
“Did you need vindication?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
He shrugged slightly and leaned back again, the action bringing her gaze downward to broad shoulders and a strong-looking chest. He knew how to wear a suit, that much was certain. Powerful. Elegantly dangerous. On Dylan Fall, a suit was transformed into the modern-day equivalent of a warrior’s armor.
“Not really, no. Durand is a privately held company, as I’m sure you already know. There are no stockholders to whom I need to justify my actions.”
“What about to other officers on the board?” she asked, curiosity trumping her anxiety.
His stare narrowed on her. “I was under the impression I was the one interviewing you.”
“Sorry,” she said quickly. Is that all she was going to do during this interview? Apologize? And was that a tiny smile tilting his mouth? Somehow, she’d rather it wasn’t, as unsettling as she was finding this whole experience. She wasn’t wilting, like Maggie had worried she would, but she was blowing this. Not by a slow burn, either.
More like death by blowtorch.
“I was just curious about Durand’s reaction to the article,” she back-pedaled. “I worked on that project even in my sleep for fifteen months straight. It sort of gets into your blood.”
“As someone who sleeps, drinks, and eats Durand, I’m inclined to understand completely,” he said dryly. “Actually, Durand’s philanthropic goals are built in to Alan Durand’s—the company founder’s—directives. Durand has a long tradition of community projects, people-building, and charitable programs. After completing the study, were you convinced it’s a worthwhile goal for a company to have?”
“Sir?”
“Do you think most companies should include philanthropy in their operating directives?”
“The statistics certainly indicate they should.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She stared at her interlaced fingers lying on top of her folder. A small patch of perspiration wetted the vinyl. “If a company can increase its profits by doing good works for the community and its people, it seems like a win-win situation all around, doesn’t it?”
She looked up at his dry laugh. “That’s certainly a politically correct answer. Now give me an honest one, Alice. Do you think companies like Durand should continue with philanthropic community efforts?”
The silence stretched taut.
“Alice?” he prodded quietly.
“Of course. It’s just …”
“What?”
“It’s nothing.” His dark brows slanted menacingly. “It’s only … It seems …” What the hell, you’ve already blown the interview anyway. Everyone knows you never stood a chance from the get-go. “A little patronizing, that’s all.” She cringed a little when he went eerily still. “Aside from that, I think the answer is an obvious yes. I think large corporations should have charitable directives.”
“Patronizing?” he asked, his quiet voice striking her as similar to the deep purr of a misleadingly calm lion. “Like Durand is grandstanding, you mean. Making itself look good in the public’s eye for the sole purpose of selling widgets … or candy bars, soda, energy drinks, and chocolate milk, among other things, in Durand’s case.”
“All of the things your campers at Camp Durand—low-income urban youth from poverty-infested neighborhoods—consume,” she couldn’t stop herself from saying. Heat rushed into her cheeks.
She forced herself not to flinch under his boring stare, but her defiance definitely wavered. To call his eyes merely “deepest brown” or “almost black” vastly understated their impact. They shone like polished stones with fire in the depths. Somehow, his eyes managed to startle her on a constant basis instead of a quick rush.
“Do you consume those products, Alice?”
“Once in a while,” she said with a shrug. In truth, she was a chocoholic. Durand Jingdots, Sweet Adelaides, and Salty Chocolate Caramels rated among her favorite guilty pleasures while sitting at her computer running numbers. Not that she’d confess that weakness to Dylan Fall. “Why?” she asked warily. “Is that a prerequisite to be chosen for the Durand training program?”
“No,” he said, picking up a piece of paper from his desk. Her heart raced. He was going to tell her any second the interview was over. Let him. The sooner she was done here, the better. He idly perused what she realized was her resume. “But I happen to know that Little Paradise—where you grew up—is one of the crime-infested, low-income urban areas you just described.”
Her heart jumped uncomfortably against her sternum. She unglued her tongue from the top of her mouth.
“How did you know I grew up in Little Paradise?” she rasped, mortified that Dylan Fall, of all people, knew about the infamous place where she’d grown up—Little Paradise, the grossly
inaptly named, sole remaining trailer park within the Chicago city limits; a grimy, mangy little community tainted by toxic-smelling fumes from the nearby factories of Gary, Indiana. The address wasn’t on her resume. She wanted no part of Little Paradise. She’d used a local address ever since she’d left for college nearly six years ago.
“Dr. Lopez mentioned it,” he said without batting an eye. “Are you ashamed of where you grew up?”
“No,” she lied emphatically.
“Good,” he said, dropping her resume to the desktop. “You shouldn’t be.”
He was probably only ten or so years older than her almost twenty-four years. She resented him for his air of experience and unflappable composure, despite his relative youth. What were the circumstances of him becoming CEO of Durand at such a young age? Wasn’t he related to the company founder or something? She struggled to recall. It’d been extremely difficult to find personal details about both Alan Durand and Dylan Fall. She’d never found many details about Fall’s meteoric rise in the powerful company.
It suddenly struck her full-force how out of place she was in the face of his polished, supreme confidence. He was no doubt amused by her gauche defensiveness and confusion.
“Are you going to ask me any relevant questions in regard to business, my interest in Durand, or my qualifications?” she asked through a tense jaw.
“I thought that’s what I’d been doing.” Her rigid expression didn’t break. He exhaled. “Fine.” He briskly put on the charcoal-gray glasses he’d been wearing and picked up some papers from the desk. He looked extremely sexy wearing those glasses.
Of course.
“I have some questions for you in regard to your research decisions on the philanthropy and profit research.”
She began to relax slightly as he launched into a series of pointed queries regarding her statistical analysis. Alice knew mathematical models backward and forward. She was also a workaholic. In this arena, he couldn’t fluster her. Even so, she sensed after a period of time that Fall not only understood the nuances of the statistics as well, if not better, than her, he was light-years ahead of her in knowledge about what her conclusions meant in the practical workings of the business world. She was envious of his knowledge, but also curious. Hungry. Tantalized by the glittering promise of power that those numbers might grant her when paired with knowledge and experience like Fall’s.
After nearly an hour of intense question and answering, he tipped his forearm and glanced at his watch.
“You’re a statistical trend spotter, aren’t you?” he asked casually, referring to her ability to absorb data and quickly break it down into meaningful trends, spot anomalies, and even predict outcomes.
“I suppose you could call me that,” Alice said.
“Are you a savant?”
“No,” she denied tensely. The word savant labeled her as a freak. All she wanted was to go unnoticed. Freaks didn’t blend in. “I just have a decent feel for numbers and what they mean.”
“You have a phenomenal feel. A rare gift,” he corrected, his deep voice making her spine prickle again in heightened awareness.
“I think you’ve informed me of just about everything I need to know,” he suddenly said briskly, his gaze on the papers on the desk. Alice eased forward in her chair, recognizing the end of the interview. “I was wondering—were you interested specifically in Durand Enterprises before you began the philanthropy study?”
She shook her head. “No. I mean … I knew about it, of course. I was familiar with both its corporate success and philanthropic emphasis.”
“Ah. I was under the impression from your advisor that you were the one who first suggested Durand for the study,” he said.
“I might have been. I’m a business major,” she said shrugging. “Durand Enterprises is one of the most successful businesses in the world.”
He took off his glasses, his gaze on her sharp.
“Are there any questions you have for me?” he asked after a pause in which Alice had to force herself not to squirm.
“How many people will be chosen as Camp Durand counselors?”
“Fifteen. We try to keep the camper-to-counselor ratio as low as possible, while offering scholarships to as many of the kids as we can. New-participant numbers remain fairly steady, but the returning campers have to keep a clean legal record and pass several random drug tests if they have a history, in addition to maintaining an acceptable grade point average. As you probably already know, the camp focuses on junior high and high school-aged kids. Each counselor usually has around ten kids on his or her team.”
“So only nine counselors make the cut to become a Durand manager,” she reflected. “Do you honestly think that this setup—a summer camp on the shores of Lake Michigan for three weeks—really gives Durand the information it needs to hire top-notch executives?” she asked skeptically. “It seems a little”—silly, she said in the privacy of her brain—“odd to expect business graduate students to have the necessary experience. We’re not social workers or teachers. Or babysitters.”
He flashed her a glance when she mumbled the last under her breath.
“You’re not expected to be any of those. Well … maybe a teacher, but not in the classic sense. There are regular, experienced staff at Camp Durand—cabin and grounds supervisors around the clock. It’s true, though, that the counselors play a crucial role in the camper’s experience. The Durand counselors are, essentially, the face of leadership and support to each individual camper. We offer a weeklong training period to the counselors, so they know what to expect. That training program is similar to many management retreats utilized around the world by companies to hone leadership skills. But that’s only the beginning. Then the kids arrive, and the challenge really begins. What’s required to succeed as a counselor—and as a Durand executive—is a large measure of ingenuity, leadership, people skills, and humanity. Those are qualities we’ve been unable to measure adequately from a resume, recommendation letters—which are almost always glowing—and a few interviews. Camp Durand works for us, no matter how unconventional it may seem. It’s worked for us for decades. The executive contestants are under nearly constant observation for four weeks: one week of training and the three weeks while the children are there. Their schedule is arduous. They’re considered to be on the clock from seven thirty in the morning until nine p.m., when the night supervisory staff takes over for them. They’re expected to work Saturdays until three, with only Sundays off. It’s not enough to brag about qualities of leadership, planning, intelligence, innovation, salesmanship, compassion, determination, hard work, and courage: The counselors have to demonstrate those skills daily with a group of children, some of whom have been labeled as criminal, uncooperative, manipulative, lazy, or unreachable. It’s a lot harder than it sounds at first blush,” he said, his mild tone in direct contrast to his lancing stare.
“So Durand does it again. It combines philanthropy—no, it uses it—to optimize the bottom line.”
His smile was closemouthed, slashing … dangerous.
“Yes, I understand. That’s the way you would view it,” he mused as if to himself, sounding not at all concerned by her pessimism as he leaned back in his chair. His stare on her made her feel like a wreck he was considering making into a project. It was a cold, sharp knife, that stare, so Alice couldn’t figure out why it made her sweat so bad.
“Would you be adverse to accepting a position at such a seemingly mercenary organization?” he asked.
“No,” she replied without pause.
His gleaming brows arched. “Ah. So you’re a little mercenary yourself.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m not stupid, if that’s what you mean.”
He gave a gruff bark of laughter. “No one could accuse you of stupidity,” he said with a swift glance at her paperwork spread across the desk. He stood abruptly. Alice jumped up like she’d been released after being held down on springs.
“This has been enlighten
ing,” he said briskly, holding out his hand. They shook. “We’ll be making our decision on finalists for Camp Durand within the next two weeks. Chicago-area colleges and universities were Sebastian Kehoe’s last stop on the recruitment tour. We’ll be in contact.”
“Right.”
His eyes flashed. She grimaced. She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but recognized she had. Well, at least this fiasco was over with. Now she had all the valuable interviewing experience either she or Maggie could ever want for her. Everything after Dylan Fall would be trite. She had a future full of cakewalk interviews before she landed her new, realistic job.
Probably a boring, entry-level, menial one given the current job market.
She turned to go.
“Alice.”
She came to an abrupt halt, pausing in the action of reaching for the door. She didn’t care for the fact that she looked over her shoulder with a measure of eagerness. It was hard not to crave every glance she could get of Dylan Fall. Despite the fact that he intimidated her, he was one hell of a sight.
“I know a man—he’s a member of the Durand board, in fact—who grew up in the Austin neighborhood on the west side of Chicago,” Fall said. “Are you familiar with that neighborhood?”
She studied him narrowly, trying to see his angle and failing. “Yeah. It’s one of the worst in the city.”
“Worse than Little Paradise.”
She barely repressed a snort. Mr. Slick, Gorgeous CEO in his immaculate Italian suit had a lot of nerve, presuming to know about Little Paradise. He noticed her flash of disdain, because his brows rose in a silent, pointed query.