Well, of course he had. Even if she’d come recommended. Luke was the kind of man who’d pay attention to detail. ‘I don’t need a website. My clients come from word of mouth.’
‘Which is the best form of advertising. It’s accurate and it can’t be bought.’
How come they were discussing her business? She was meant to be finding out about his. ‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ she pointed out.
‘I buy and sell businesses.’
She blinked. ‘You’re an asset stripper?’ No way was she going to work for someone like that. Even if he did come highly recommended, and had the sexiest mouth she’d ever seen. She had standards. Standards that, post-Hugh, she wasn’t going to compromise.
‘No. I get bored easily and I like a challenge.’ He shrugged. ‘So I buy failing businesses and turn them into going concerns. And, once they’re back on their feet, I normally manage to arrange a management buyout.’
So the people who put the work in with him to sort out the company reaped the rewards. A man with a conscience, then.
The complete opposite of Hugh.
Not that she was going to think about Hugh the Betrayer.
‘I’m good at solving problems.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Usually. This is the exception that proves the rule.’
‘What sort of businesses?’
‘Sport and leisure. Gyms, health clubs, spas…and I’m thinking about expanding a bit.’
‘And you do all this on your own?’
‘With a good PA. And decent managers in each business who are savvy enough to talk to me well before something becomes a major problem—and who come to me with solutions rather than expecting me to sort it all out.’
Luke liked the way Sara Fleet questioned him. The way she cut right to the nub of the problem. He could work with her.
‘So why are you freelance?’ he asked.
‘I guess it’s the same thing as you—I’m good at solving problems and I get bored easily.’
Better and better. He could definitely work with her.
‘And I like decluttering and sorting out mess.’
‘Are you mad?’ He slapped a hand against his head. ‘Sorry. That wasn’t meant to be an insult. I loathe filing, so I’m grateful to find someone who actually likes it. I don’t understand you at all but, believe me, I’m grateful.’
‘I like putting things into order. I suppose I’m a bit of a neat freak.’ She glanced round his minimalist office. ‘Looks as if you are, too.’
‘Look, I’m being rude here, but your sister tells me you had a first-class degree. How come you’re working as an office troubleshooter?’
‘A glorified filing clerk, you mean?’
He blinked. Had he been that obvious, or had she just heard the question too many times? ‘I wasn’t going to be quite that blunt, but yes.’
‘It’s information retrieval. I suppose I could’ve been a librarian or archivist,’ she mused, ‘but I like the challenge of sorting out new places. My family nag me about my degree, but frankly I’d had enough of academia and all the backbiting and I couldn’t face staying on to do my doctorate. So I temped for a bit, while I decided what I really wanted to do with my life.’ She shrugged. ‘Then Lou worked out that what I love doing most is a business asset, and I’d be better off working for myself than working for an agency.’
He ignored the mention of her family. It was irrelevant to his business. He didn’t care if she could trace her family back ten generations and was best friends with all her fourth cousins three times removed. If she could do the job, that was all that mattered. And so far she seemed pretty clued-up. ‘It sounds sensible to me.’ He paused. ‘So do you do other things, besides decluttering?’
‘Such as?’
The first thing that came into Luke’s head shocked him. He’d only just met the girl, for pity’s sake. Sara was the complete opposite of his normal type—well, apart from the fact that she had long legs. Her straight blonde hair was pinned into a neat chignon, whereas his girlfriends always had dark hair with that just-got-out-of-bed look, and her eyes were sharp and blue instead of a wide, soulful brown. She was dressed totally for business, in a little black suit teamed with a demure cream-coloured top; a choker of black pearls added a classy note.
But then there were the shoes.
Killer heels. Shiny. And bright pink.
A touch of the exotic.
He took a deep breath, willing his libido to go back to sleep. This wasn’t appropriate. Even if Sara Fleet did have a gorgeous mouth and legs he’d like to see more of. This was business. And he wasn’t going to act on the impulse to ask her out to dinner. Or the even stronger impulse to yank her into his arms, unpin her hair and kiss her stupid.
Focus, he warned himself.
‘I don’t know how long it’s going to take you to sort this lot out. Or how long it’s going to take me to find maternity cover.’ He gave her a speculative look. ‘I think your mind works the same way that mine does. You’re going to get bored sorting out my filing.’
‘Your information retrieval system.’
He laughed. ‘Don’t try to dress it up in fancy words. It’s a box of filing, and you know it.’
‘Plus a potential overhaul of your systems, if you show me what you already have in place. What else did you have in mind?’
Again, he thought of her body wrapped round his. Which was crazy. Apart from the fact that Sara Fleet wasn’t his type, he knew better than to mix business with pleasure. It always ended in tears.
Except for Karim and Lily. But again they were the exception that proved the rule.
And he knew he was going out on a limb here, but his hunches were usually right. ‘The kind of business I’m looking at—I could do with a female viewpoint. An honest one.’
She frowned. ‘What sort of business?’
‘A new venture, for me.’
‘Which tells me so much.’
He loved her sarcastic tone. It meant she’d speak her mind, rather than telling him what she thought he wanted to hear. And he valued honesty and straightforwardness. ‘I’m looking at buying a hotel. I have three or four options, and I want to check them out, so it means there’ll be some travelling involved. Would that be a problem?’
‘No. Justin won’t mind.’
Justin? Obviously her partner, he thought. Good. That made her very firmly off-limits. Because he only dated women who were single and who didn’t have wedding bells in their eyes. Sara was already spoken for, so he could lock away that instant attraction and simply work with her. ‘Fine. Right—systems.’ He took a swig of coffee, then talked her through the bank of filing cabinets, answering her questions as they went along. ‘That’s the paper side of things. Computer…’ He drew a chair round to his side of the desk, then tapped into the computer and flicked through the various programs. ‘Accounts, payroll, correspondence, past projects, current projects. All bog-standard stuff. I assume you can deal with spreadsheets and graphs.’
‘Yes.’ She asked a few more questions—sensible ones, and not just for the sake of it, he noticed—and then it was decision time.
He knew what he wanted. So he did what he always did and played it straight. ‘So that’s the set-up here.’ He paused. ‘Would you be prepared to sort out my office and act as my PA until I find maternity cover?’