Give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, she had to admire his business acumen as he told her the bare bones of the acquisitions he planned to make with her help. It was a complex deal, involving asset swaps, share swaps and meaty taxation issues.
Fascinating, professionally speaking.
“So,” he concluded, “do you want the job?”
Jared could hardly believe he was holding his breath as he waited for her reply. But accountants of Holly’s ability, her creativity, weren’t that common. The only reason her business wasn’t ten times its size was that many chief executives were too fuddy-duddy to accept that a woman her age could be the best in her field. And most of the rest couldn’t afford her. But Jared fit neither of those categories. He trusted her ability, and he could pay whatever she demanded.
He needed the integrity Holly brought to her work, the gold standard against which she would measure this deal. So what if she was under investigation for fraud—everyone who mattered knew she could spot a flaky contract a mile off and wouldn’t allow anything remotely marginal in the eyes of the law.
Unlike her, Jared had been known to push the boundaries of legality. He hadn’t overstepped them, but he’d done things others would consider unethical, if not illegal.
Because sometimes the end justified the means.
“I won’t do anything illegal,” she said. “And by that I mean anything that I personally consider to breach the spirit or the letter of the law.”
He couldn’t help smiling at the irony, given her current circumstances. “What you say goes,” he assured her.
He couldn’t afford to have it any other way. This was his chance to avenge the wrong done to his family, and it had been twenty years coming. This deal was big enough to attract the scrutiny of the IRS, the stock market and his competitors. And one person in particular would be watching closely. It had to look squeaky clean.
“I charge plenty, and I need a partial payment next week.” Holly named a sum that startled Jared. He suppressed a grin—not many people would have the effrontery to demand that kind of fee when they were desperate—and agreed to pay.
But he wouldn’t let her think she could walk all over him. So he said, “I still have one concern about you.”
She bristled. “You said the investigation didn’t bother you.”
“Not that. I read an article about you last week.”
For the first time since she’d stalked into his office Holly looked less than one hundred percent sure of herself. “I—You can’t believe everything you read.”
“So the glowing account of your illustrious career wasn’t true?”
“Of course it was.”
“But the other stuff—the control freak part—wasn’t? I have to tell you, Holly, I don’t work well with control freaks.”
“I’m not—well, I guess I am a bit. That article was all my fault,” she said in a rush.
Jared quirked an eyebrow.
“I should never have let that journalist trail me around. It was one of those days when nothing went right and I had to…well…take control of my staff and my clients more than usual. I got off on the wrong foot with the guy. Right at the start he asked how I’d achieved so much in just a few years.”
“And you said?” Jared had a feeling he would enjoy her answer.
“I said…” Holly squared her shoulders and looked Jared in the eye. “I told him first impressions are important. That early in my career I could never have gotten away with dressing like he did, with his shoes all scuffed, his hair too long and his shirt hanging out. That no matter how good you are at your job, people will always judge you by appearance.”
Jared made a point of inspecting his own shoes. They passed muster, by his standards at least. Who knew what level of shine Holly expected? “My shirt is hanging out,” he said.
“Yours appears designed that way,” Holly said stiffly. “In hindsight, it wasn’t a clever thing to say, but he did ask. I gave him an honest answer.”
“And you think he took such offence that he went back to his office and labeled you a control freak?”
“No-o,” she said slowly. “I think he did that because I suggested he could write faster if he held his pen with the proper grip—I was only trying to help. And when it became clear the interview wasn’t going well, I asked to see his copy before it went to press and threatened to sue if he wrote anything I didn’t like. Which, of course, I have no grounds to do, as there was nothing factually incorrect in his article.”
“You don’t pull your punches,” Jared observed, his voice bland.
“I got what I deserved.”
Somehow the blue steel in his eyes—hard but not altogether unforgiving—strengthened Holly’s backbone and impelled her to an openness she hadn’t intended. “That article was a wake-up call for me. I’ve decided to be more tolerant of others.”
His lips twisted, she suspected in cynicism rather than appreciation of her resolution. “So that’s why you’re here. I’m the lucky beneficiary of your newfound tolerance.”
She nodded.
“That’s good. Because I don’t think I could work with the woman described in that article.”
Holly gulped.
“So,” he said silkily, “if you ever feel compelled to comment on the length of my hair or the state of my shoes, the way I hold my pen or the cleanliness of my desk—” Holly was certain he would discern from the guilt in her eyes that she’d already evaluated them all “—I suggest you run to the bathroom and tell it all to your reflection. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” she said.
Jared stood and walked over to his filing cabinet. “I’ll give you a copy of my standard employment contract. Amend the terms to suit yourself, and if I’m happy with it, I’ll sign it.”
He opened the top drawer and began to rummage through it. To stop herself from noticing how the drawer was stuffed higgledy-piggledy with papers, Holly picked up the cup of coffee Jared’s PA had brought in. She took a sip of the now-cold liquid. As she put the cup back on the desk, a splash of coffee slopped over the side onto the polished beech surface.
On automatic pilot, Holly whipped a tissue out of her purse and mopped the puddle. Then she noticed a smear of dust all along that edge of the desk and ran the tissue over it.
“What are you doing?” Jared thundered.
Holly jumped. “I spilled coffee,” she said. “I was just—”
“You were dusting my desk,” he accused.
“No! Well, maybe a little. I happened to notice—” She stuffed the dusty, coffee-soaked tissue back into her purse.
“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. In addition to the other things I mentioned, you are not to do any tidying or cleaning anywhere near me.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“Do you?” He advanced toward her and Holly instinctively shrank back in her seat, even as she reached to take the contract from him. “Are you sure?”
He picked up her three-quarters full cup of coffee and slowly, deliberately, poured its contents over the surface of his desk.
Holly squawked and leaped to her feet, looking wildly around for a cloth, napkins—anything. Finding none, she dredged the sodden tissue back out of her purse…
And stopped. Jared was standing immobile, watching her, impervious to the liquid spreading over his desk toward his laptop and the papers he had stacked on one end of