‘I thought I might be able to get funding for an accountancy course...’ She thought wistfully of the dreams she had once had to get involved in finance. She had always had a thing for numbers and it had seemed a lucrative and satisfying road to go down. Dreams, she had discovered, had a tendency to remain unfulfilled. Or at least, hers had.
‘It wasn’t to be,’ she said briskly. ‘So I thought that perhaps joining a bigger, more ambitious company might be a good idea.’
‘But, before you got too accustomed to the job, you felt it necessary to tell me that your working schedule is limited.’
‘My weekends are accounted for.’ Alice was beginning to wish that she had decided never to say anything. She should have just kept her head down and then crossed whatever bridge she had to cross when she came to it. Instead, she had made assumptions about the way he ran his company and had decided to act accordingly.
‘Boyfriend?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Or maybe husband, although I don’t see any wedding ring on the finger.’
‘Sorry, but what are you talking about?’
‘Isn’t it usually the boyfriend in the background who ends up dictating the working hours?’ Gabriel asked, intrigued by her outspokenness, her sheer gall in laying down ground rules on day one—as though she had any right—with him. Intrigued, too, by that air of concealment that was so unusual in a woman. At least, in the women he knew.
‘Not in this case, Mr Cabrera,’ Alice told him stiffly.
‘No boyfriend?’
Alice hesitated but, perhaps having misjudged her timing to start with, why not go the whole hog and expand on her conditions? He would probably chuck her out on the spot. She would return to the agency, who wouldn’t be surprised to see her, and they would find her another job—something with a normal boss, working normal hours in a normal environment. It sounded unappetising.
‘I should mention...’ She heard the wooden formality in her voice and cringed because she was twenty-five years old, yet she sounded like someone twice her age. ‘I also do not appreciate talking about my personal life.’
‘Why not? Have you got something to hide?’
Alice’s mouth fell open and, in return, Gabriel raised his eyebrows without bothering to help her out of her awkward silence.
‘I...I do a very good job. I take my work very seriously. If you decide to keep me on, you won’t regret it, Mr Cabrera. I bring one hundred and ten percent to everything I do in the working environment...’
Gabriel didn’t say anything. He watched her flounder and wondered whether she brought one hundred and ten percent to whatever it was she did in the leisure time that she was so stridently protecting.
‘Accountancy courses require weekend time... What would you do about those precious weekends of yours that you can’t possibly sacrifice?’
‘I can do the work in my own time,’ Alice said promptly. ‘I’ve checked it out. And I would pass the exams. I have a good head for figures.’
‘In which case, remind me why you didn’t go into that field of work when you left school...college...university? In fact, now that you seem to be campaigning for a permanent job with me, why don’t you hand over the CV which I am sure is burning a hole in your bag...?’
Alice hesitated fractionally and Gabriel looked at her, his dark eyes cool and assessing.
His mobile phone rang; he glanced down at the caller ID and then he, too, hesitated, fractionally, but this time there was a smile hovering on his lips as he disconnected the call.
‘Here’s the deal, Miss Morgan.’ He sat forward, invading her space, and rested his elbows on her desk.
Alice automatically inched back and her breathing quickened as their eyes clashed. Suddenly, she was aware of every inch of her body in ways she had never been before. She felt hot all over; her breasts felt prickly and sensitive, her skin tight and tingly. She took a deep breath and shakily told herself that she would have to subdue reactions like that if she was to be offered the job of working with this man full-time. She might not like the guy but she couldn’t afford to let that dislike control her responses.
‘Yes,’ she said, grateful that her voice was steady and cool.
‘I’m going to read your CV and, provided I don’t discover any...suggestion of little white lies in it, and provided your references check out, I’m going to offer you a full-time job working with me...’
‘You are?’
‘And I’m going to go the extra mile. After all, don’t preach what you can’t practise. I’m going to open the door for you to do that accountancy course you want to do.’