She blinked away the sudden intrusion of her past and, when she looked at him, she found him staring at her, his bright blue eyes narrowed on her face.
‘Don’t you agree with me?’ The way he looked at her made her feel hot and bothered, even though he didn’t seem to be looking at her in a critical way. Perhaps it was the level of containment, at odds with the aggressively confident and outgoing exterior. Here was a man, she suspected, who did precisely as he liked and yet remained a closed book. It was nerve-racking. ‘I mean, you run a successful company. Surely you don’t just jump in a haphazard manner from one day to the next, hoping for the best and keeping your fingers crossed?’
Curtis threw back his head and laughed. ‘No. Not quite. That approach doesn’t often work, although it sounds as though it could be quite a lot of fun.’
Tessa shuddered. Fun? Never knowing from one minute to the next what life was going to throw at you? Not a chance.
‘You don’t agree? Well, never mind. So you’ve worked in your last job for…how many years?’
‘Nine, give or take a few months,’ she said uncomfortably.
Curtis gave a low whistle under his breath.
‘And you are…? Age…?’
‘Twenty-eight.’
‘At work at nineteen and then staying put with the same company…’
‘Which should tell you how experienced I am.’ Why did she have the sinking feeling that this was the interview that should have been conducted from the start? ‘I’m sorry. I thought I had the job. I thought your mother was in a position to offer it to me.’ She could feel herself perspiring under her armpits and she wished she had removed her jacket when she had first sat down, just as he had done with his overcoat. He looked as comfortable as a cat on a feather quilt while she felt rattled, uneasy and hot.
‘Oh, of course she was.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a family firm. I run it completely, take full responsibility for all profits and losses, but my brother and my mother are naturally still interested in what’s going on, and occasionally my mother will offer her input. In the matter of my hiring someone to work for me, she insisted, and I expect she told you why.’
‘She mentioned that some of your secretaries in the past had been a bit…unsuitable.’
‘Except I don’t imagine she was quite so restrained in her description.’
Tessa frowned and tucked her hair neatly behind her ears. She had fine, slippery, very smooth shoulder-length auburn hair that had a tendency to slide forward and brush her face if she wasn’t careful about tying it back. Today, on Lucy’s advice, she had decided to wear it loose so that she wouldn’t look like a schoolmarm on her first day out. Now, she was regretting the impulse because for some reason she felt as though she needed the protection of her normally very restrained look.
‘I’ll bet she referred to them as bimbos,’ Curtis added helpfully as Tessa was struggling to come up with a diplomatic way of paraphrasing what had been said to her.
‘The thing is…’ He leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. He had pushed up the sleeves of his jumper and she noticed that he had very strong forearms, dusted with black hair. He, too, wore a simple watch although his looked crashingly expensive, unlike hers. ‘Bimbos suited me. How can I explain this?’
Tessa’s heart went into freefall at that rhetorical question.
‘I don’t work in an environment that’s anything like the one you have spent the last nine years, give or take a month or so, enjoying. The world of computers and computer software is far more about creativity and vibrancy and foresight than the world of accountants. The bimbos might have been a little lax when it came to typing and shorthand but they knew how to work around me.’
‘Your mother said the last one was only there for a matter of six weeks.’
‘Ah. Fifi did have a spot of bother now and again with some of the basics…’
‘Fifi?’ Two spots of angry colour blazed on her cheeks and she leaned forward into him, clutching the mug with both her hands. ‘Are you telling me that I’m too dull to work for you because I’m good at what I do and don’t fill all the physical attributes you think are necessary to a good secretary?’
‘I’m telling you that what I don’t want is someone addicted to schedules who is incapable of going with the flow. That would be unfair on me and even more unfair on you. Obviously, I would give you healthy compensation for the inconvenience caused.’
‘Inconvenience?’ Calm and control flew out of the window at the speed of light. Tessa inhaled deeply in an attempt to retrieve some of it. ‘I have thrown in a perfectly good job in order to take up this one. I simply cannot afford to be tossed out onto the streets like a…a beggar gatecrashing a private party to scour the employment agencies looking for something else!’