style="font-size:15px;"> “That’s impressive,” Jariah said, meaning every word. “When will you make a decision about the account manager position?”
“By Wednesday.” Mrs. Reddick closed her file folder. “Do you have any other questions?”
Shaking her head, Jariah picked her purse up off the floor and stood to her feet. “Thank you for taking time out of your very busy schedule to meet with me this morning.”
“No, thank you for coming.” Nicco stood and gestured to the door. “I’ll walk you out.”
“That won’t be necessary. I remember the way.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
Stepping forward, Jariah took the hand Nicco offered, and gave it a firm shake. Ignoring the warmth of his touch, she strode through the conference room door with her shoulders squared and her head held high.
* * *
Staring through the glass window, Nicco watched Jariah walk down the hallway with the grace of a woman twice her age. Her sleeveless dress, which clung to each sinuous curve of her body, made Nicco wonder if she’d ever been a model. He imagined her naked, with nothing on but her red patent leather pumps, and all but exploded in his boxers.
Jariah Brooks is all wrong for you. His conscience pointed out. She has a kid, man trouble, and a serious attitude problem, remember? Nicco did, but that didn’t stop him from wanting her. Intelligent, assertive women turned him on, and he enjoyed Jariah’s strong personality and the way she stood up to him. She was definitely a looker, and he liked that she was single...and available.
“What do you think?”
Remembering that he wasn’t alone and that Mrs. Reddick was standing beside him, watching him like a hawk, he turned away from the window and shook off his thoughts. “I think Ms. Brooks would be a great addition to our accounting department, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You don’t?” Nicco heard the surprise in his voice and coughed to clear his throat. After leaving Javalicious on Friday, Nicco had told himself to forget about Jariah, but the message had failed to reach his brain. All weekend, he’d thought of her and nothing else. Running into her at his office had been a stroke of good luck, and after sitting in on her interview, Nicco was even more intrigued by the single mom with the keen mind and stellar résumé. “I was impressed by her answers and the questions she asked.”
“Ms. Brooks is articulate, and obviously intelligent, but I don’t want to hire anyone who may cause trouble or disrupt the harmony within the accounting department—”
“And you think Ms. Brooks is trouble?”
Mrs. Reddick shoved her papers back into her manila file folder. “I can’t say for sure, but I’d rather not take the chance. And besides, she’s a single mother.”
“What does that have to do with her ability to do the job?”
“In my thirty years of experience in HR, I’ve found single moms to be unreliable, undependable, and often too distracted by personal issues to effectively do their job.”
“That sounds like discrimination, Mrs. Reddick.”
“It’s called selective hiring.”
Her words troubled him, but Nicco decided not to argue with Mrs. Reddick. The HR director was new to Morrretti Inc., but his father trusted her wholeheartedly, and he didn’t want to say anything to ruffle her feathers. “You’re the expert. Do what you think is best,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Have you hired a new executive assistant for me?”
“Unfortunately, none of the men I’ve interviewed yesterday were up to snuff.”
Stunned, Nicco stared wide-eyed at the HR director. Was Mrs. Reddick off her rocker? What would ever possess her to hire a dude to be his right hand? “Come again?”
“In light of what happened with Ms. O’Conner, your father thought it was best I hire a male assistant to work alongside you, and I agreed.”
“I don’t give a damn what my father thinks,” Nicco snapped, growing annoyed by her condescending tone. He knew what the HR director was implying, and he didn’t like it. “I would prefer working with a woman, so please don’t discriminate against female applicants.”
“I’ll keep your wishes in mind, but I have to do what’s right for the company...”
Nicco raked a hand through his hair. It wasn’t his fault his former assistant, Gracie O’Conner, had developed feelings for him and caused a scene at the company barbecue. Three days later Gracie quit, and when word had got back to company headquarters about the incident his father, Arturo, had reamed him out in English and Italian.
His thoughts slid back to the past. Nicco loved everything about women—their strength, their femininity, the way they smelled and looked and moved. But they were also the most cunning, calculating people on the face of the planet. One night, after too many glasses of Cristal, he’d slept with Gracie. The next morning he’d apologized and made it clear that they could never be more than friends, but like all of the other women in his past she’d foolishly thought she could change him. When that didn’t work, she threatened to sue him for sexual harassment. To keep her quiet, and their family name out of the tabloids, his father had quietly paid her off.
The muscles in his jaw tightened. Every time he thought about how Gracie had screwed him over, he burned inside. Why did women view him as their meal ticket?
He didn’t want to rock the boat or piss off Mrs. Reddick, but he wasn’t sold on having a male executive assistant. He needed someone strong and assertive who spoke her mind. Someone like... A light went off in his head. “I want Ms. Brooks.”
Mrs. Reddick gasped. “Excuse me?”
“I want Ms. Brooks to be my new executive assistant.”
“But she applied for the account manager job.”
“I know, but since you’re not hiring her for the position, I’d like her to work for me,” he said, keeping his tone casual, despite his growing excitement. “Not only does Ms. Brooks have marketing training, she also has extensive experience working with start-up companies, and I bet she has great ideas on how to trim costs without sacrificing value and quality.”
Mrs. Reddick pursed her thin lips. “I’ve been an HR director for more than three decades,” she reminded him. “My gut instinct is that Ms. Brooks isn’t the right fit for this company.”
Nicco dismissed her words with a shake of his head. For some unexplainable reason, he wanted to help the out-of-work single mom. Other women like Gracie enjoyed living off men, but Jariah was independent and charitable, and he admired her ambition. After reading her curriculum vitae, he felt that she’d be a great addition to the Morretti Inc. family. He didn’t care what Mrs. Reddick thought. He was hiring Jariah, and that was that. “With all due respect, Mrs. Reddick, I’m quite capable of hiring my own executive assistant.”
“Ms. Brooks is a university graduate, with years of experience working in finance,” she
