mocking him? Seriously? From nowhere a bubble of stunned laughter rose into Mitch’s throat. He swallowed it down before it took any kind of hold.
Then his voice dropped a good three notes as he produced his most officious glower and said, ‘Now would be a good time to show me your résumé.’
She shook her head. ‘No résumé.’
‘No résumé?’
‘When has a résumé ever told you anything about a prospective employee more valuable than the things you discovered simply by talking?’
He opened his mouth to deny it, but she made a fair point. One he’d always believed in, hence the reason he was here now rather than some overtrained human resources lackey. ‘Okay, so then why don’t you tell me a bit about your experience?’
When her smile shifted sideways, lifting one rosy cheek until a sincerely adorable dimple appeared, Mitch shifted in his chair and wished this day over.
‘Your experience in the auctioneering field,’ he qualified.
‘Right.’ She smiled at him some more, lots and lots of goodness knew what going on behind those bright brown eyes. Then she leant forward, her fingers with their blood-red nails gripping the edge of the desk. ‘Is this really going to be one of those interviews? Where you ask for my references and I have to come up with some sham, off-the-cuff answer to “What’s your worst flaw?”?’
Mitch could do little but stare.
The other interviews had taken around twenty minutes a piece, the well-qualified participants answering exactly those sorts of questions without complaint. In fact, they’d answered them with great preparation and poise. And he was a busy man with other pressing projects to ably fill any spare time he might have. Back in the city in his nice big office behind a nice big door manned by a Rottweiler of a receptionist whom he would have trusted to take a bullet for him rather than expect him to deal with the kind of frivolity he was dealing with right now.
He too sat forward. ‘Would it be a huge problem for you if it were that kind of interview? We can end this now if that’s the case.’
Maybe that would be for the best, he thought. Despite the growing desire to see what throwing a firecracker like her into a place like this might achieve. For then she and her long legs and bright eyes and hot lips and crazy car would be gone from the fringe of his life. As would the sense that she would end up being more trouble than she was worth.
But instead of giving in and admitting they were obviously a bad fit, she smiled more, wider. And the sense that he was no more in charge of this interview than the chair beneath his backside grew stronger than ever.
‘Mr Hanover,’ she said, ‘Mitch. All you need to know is I’m it. I’m your girl. I’m the best you’re ever going to meet. This job you are looking to fill isn’t about an extensive knowledge of those old paintings out there. It isn’t about who I know, or where I’ve come from. Auctioneering is about selling people what they already think they need: land, lifestyle, dreams, the next big idea, golden trinkets. The product doesn’t matter. What matters is the pleasure I can gift your clients when they buy from you. As it is that pleasure that will become their lasting memory of dealing with Hanover House.’
She finished off her speech with a grin. And Mitch realised all too late that the strange tugging feeling around the edges of his face was the result of him actually smiling back. The soothing lilt of her voice, her utter conviction, the way she un-flinchingly held his eyes with hers… Hell, if she’d tried to resell him the building beneath his feet he had a feeling he might have asked how much.
He slowly relaxed until he was back in control of his facial features, then sat back, rubbing a finger along the dip beneath his bottom lip while he let the idea of her trickle through his flinty outer shell.
She was sassy. Confident. And, despite her apparent lack of regard for form and tradition, she was selling herself like crazy. She wasn’t here on a whim. She really wanted the job. And he really, really needed someone to do it. Someone who actually had a chance of bringing the business into the twenty-first century. And quick smart.
He thought back to the portrait of his great-grandfather, the founder of Hanover House, hanging imposingly over the reception desk. He wondered what old Phineas would have made of Ms Tight Pants. If the guy had had a pittance of the Hanover charm he was famous for, Mitch was pretty sure the crusty old goat would have been smitten.
He asked, ‘And you don’t have any qualms about selling people things they don’t need?’
‘They’re grown-ups, right? Let them do as they please with their money. If they want to blow it all on red at the casino, on drought relief in Africa or on a shiny big ring for their mistress, then who are we to stop them?’
Mitch scratched his head. Who was this woman and where had she come from? ‘I wouldn’t have pegged you for a cynic, Ms Bing.’
She was all blinking dark lashes and radiant smiles as she said, ‘And why ever not?’
Fifteen minutes later Mitch once again stood in the foyer, watching Veronica Bing and her tight denim and bouncy dark curls walk away.
The woman is a walking mantrap, he thought, hands in his trouser pockets as he tugged at the hairs on his thighs in punishment for allowing his eyes to remain focussed just south of her beltline.
She spun suddenly, walking backwards, and his eyes zoomed north. ‘See you tomorrow, boss!’
‘Not me,’ he said, somewhat relieved for it to be the truth. ‘Boris will show you the ropes from here.’
Her pace didn’t falter, though he could have sworn her smile dropped. But with the sun in his eyes it might well have been all in his imagination, which had been acting as though it were on some kind of stimulant ever since she’d walked through his door.
‘And there I was,’ she said, ‘thinking I’d be spending tomorrow strapped to a chair, toothpicks keeping my eyelids open, while you trained me in the ways of the Hanover business principles using graphs and pie charts and ancient battle cries.’
Mitch again felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, but since she was on her way out the door, he let it happen. ‘That’s week two.’
She smiled in return, and that time he knew it wasn’t his imagination, because he felt it clear across the room. He balled his hands into fists until his nails dug sharply into his palms.
She waved. He nodded. And then she was out the door.
The six-week contract he’d half had in mind for the position had been stretched out to six months, for how could she be expected to move cities for less time than any sane landlord would offer on an apartment lease? How indeed. Though the clothing, petrol and moving allowances she’d initially insisted she could not live without had been summarily refused, the fluid working hours, a refurbishment budget and carte blanche to run the auctions the way she saw fit had made it through the hashing-out process.
Mitch consoled himself with the fact that he was on such a tight time limit that, if she’d held strong on some of her other requests, he might well have given in to them, as well. Grudgingly. And at least now the deal was done and the toughest little negotiator he’d come across in some time was on his side forthwith.
As he watched Veronica toss her shiny silver handbag into the seat of her audacious pink car a parking inspector sauntered up, notebook open. A malevolent kind of thrill shot through him, much like the feeling of anticipation that came just before a champ was knocked out in a title fight.
‘This’ll be good,’ he said to nobody in particular, leaning against the desk to get the best view possible for when she was taught a much-needed lesson in supremacy and command.
Veronica sidled up to the man in blue, smiling and leaning to look over his shoulder. Mitch remembered then the way she’d smelled when she’d leant in to shake on the employment deal: exotic and fresh all at once. How