They had also brought her to the notice of Baron Randall and for that alone, she would spend the rest of her life devoid of makeup and dressing in conservative business attire.
Never again.
She straightened the papers on her desk. “My only interest in impressing Mr. Gordon is with my work and I don’t need lipstick to do it.”
Danette rolled her eyes. “You are such an all work and no play kind of girl. Did you ever hear that makes you boring and can give you ulcers before you’re thirty?”
Coming from a woman who had her first serious boyfriend at the age of twenty-one, that was pretty funny.
“My twenty-four-year-old stomach is just fine, thank you and better boring than stomped on I always say.”
“Not every man in the world is like that jerk, Baron Randall.”
Like most people, Danette had read the tabloid accounts of Tara getting dumped by Baron so he could marry his oil heiress. However, unlike most people, the younger woman had not let the stories color her view of Tara. She thought Baron was a world class pig and that her friend was better off without him.
Tara agreed. Now.
But two years ago, she’d felt like she would die from the pain and humiliation of the all too public breakup.
“Of course they aren’t,” she said, trying to stave off another lecture about getting back on the horse so she wouldn’t forget how to ride. Between Danette and her mother, she’d heard it about a thousand times too many. “But right now I’m not interested in finding out. I don’t have time for a man in my life and honestly, I don’t see how you can, either.”
Danette shrugged, her amber cat eyes twinkling.
“Some of us are better at multitasking than others,” she said with a grin. “Anyway, even if your career is all you care about, you should want to make a good impression on Angelo Gordon. He owns this company and several like it.”
“I do want to impress him…with my business acumen.”
“He’s already impressed, Tara.”
Tara spun in her chair to face her manager, surprised Mr. Curtiss was here instead of in the schmoozing session with the upper managers and the company owner.
“Mr. Gordon wants to speak to you privately.”
Tension stiffened her spine as the words reminded her of a similar conversation she’d had with her modeling agent. The woman had told her that Baron Randall wanted to meet her. Tara, naïve idiot that she had been four years ago, had been both flattered and impressed.
“Why alone?”
If her manager thought that an odd question, he didn’t let it show. “He’s impressed with your report on workplace effectiveness. He wants to discuss it with you.”
Relaxing, she smiled. Business. It was just about business, nothing like that other time when the introduction had been a prelude to seduction.
“That’s great, Tara,” Danette said, “I heard the guy is a genius. If he appreciates your brains already, I guess it’s true.”
“Does he want to see me right now?” she asked, feeling a little light-headed.
Sure, she’d daydreamed about the owner of the company being so impressed with her recommendations he wanted to talk to her. What junior executive didn’t? But that kind of stuff didn’t happen in the real world.
Her manager looked at his watch and frowned. “Five minutes ago, actually. I got waylaid by a phone call on my way to tell you.”
Tara Peters walked into Angelo’s temporary office with her back straight and a credible expression of confidence. The only giveaway to her nervousness at being summoned by the owner of the company was the tight clenching of her fingers into small fists at her sides.
Her bone structure was delicate for a woman of her height, which no doubt explained her success as a cat-walk model.
Yet, she looked very different from the still shots of her fashion shows that Hawk had included in the Tara Peters file. Nor did she resemble the pictures that had accompanied the tabloid articles after her breakup with Randall.
All the photos had shown a stunning woman who made the most of her beauty, but no one would accuse this Tara Peters of trading on her beauty to succeed in her job.
She had confined the glorious length of her signature chestnut hair in a tight French braid that fell down her back. She wore no makeup and the small ovals of her nails were unpolished, but buffed. The navy-blue slacks and blazer she wore disguised her figure very well.
He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but her current no-nonsense, almost androgynous attire fit Hawk’s report on her behavior since Baron Randall married another woman.
Tara didn’t date and appeared uninterested in attracting men. Was she still hung up on the monster? The thought did not sit well with Angelo and his usually impassive face creased in a frown before he realized it.
“Mr. Gordon?” The voice was questioning, but not hesitant and he liked that.
He admired strength because weakness…of any kind…cost far too much.
He looked up and met her faintly quizzical brown eyes. “Miss Peters. Please take a seat.”
She moved across the room and slid gracefully into a chair opposite his desk. His opinion changed on the suit. The jacket dipped in at her waist. Her movement had revealed curves that were neither pronounced nor were they so slight her blouse could disguise them completely. The way the clothes tried to hide, but could not help hinting at her femininity made him want to strip them off and see the beautiful body beneath.
It did not help that pictures from her file of her clad in bikinis and other almost-there outfits flashed in his mind’s eye.
Desire vibrated through him with shocking swiftness and urgency, making him glad for the concealment of his desk. He hadn’t responded with this level of physical intensity to the mere sight of a woman since puberty.
He forced his mind through the mental exercises he had learned in the Aikido training he had started as a young boy. He continued to train, using it as a way to keep his body fit and mind focused. Normally it worked without him even having to think about.
This time, he had to wait for the stunning response of his body to subside breath by breath before he could begin to concentrate on his agenda. “I’ve been reading your report on workplace effectiveness. You’ve drawn several interesting conclusions and made an equal number of suggestions that are worthy of note.”
Her eyes lit with pleasure and she smiled, her feminine fragrance teasing his nostrils as she leaned forward. “There’s a wealth of data to be analyzed and interpreted from recent studies on the subject, much of which has been ignored by current management theory.”
He nodded. Whatever else Miss Peters was, she had shown herself to be a natural in her chosen field. “I particularly found your suggestions regarding vacation time of interest.”
“Several studies have shown that employees who put in less overtime, take their vacation yearly and don’t consistently work through their lunch hours are actually more productive than their counterparts who work the longer hours and never take any time off.” She smiled. “Healthier, too. They have fewer heart attacks and are less likely to develop ulcers.”
“You’ve definitely done your homework.”
She blushed at the compliment and he filed the reaction away for future reference. From the way she presented herself, he had to assume her beauty was of much less significance to her than doing well at her job.
Interesting.
And unusual.
“Many