didn’t get bigger. So he’d readied the big office overlooking the river—the one he’d hoped to move into someday but which was too far from the hub of the office to be practical now. That was for when things were running themselves.
Or for when he was running them and needed to stick a figurehead president as far from the action as possible, he thought grimly. With her conveniently out of the way, he could get on with running the company. Which he ought to be doing right now, damn it! But he wanted her settled and disposed of first.
He had expected she’d at least be there by nine, but it was already half past. He’d been at his desk since eight, ready to deal with the interloper. Rosie, his assistant, had been there when he came in and had coffee brewing—obviously trying to impress the new “boss.”
She told him to make his own damn coffee on a daily basis. She’d even put a plate of fancy cookies by the coffeemaker.
Elias had considered giving her grief over them, but they were damn good. Some buttery chocolate kind with a hint of cinnamon, and some with almonds, and the traditional American favorite, peanut butter criss-cross.
His stomach growled now just thinking about them, and he went out to snatch another one only to find everyone else already there.
His normally spit-and-polished researcher, Paul Johanssen, was talking with his mouth full. Lucy, who oversaw the contracts and accounting, was deciding to go on her diet tomorrow. Dyson, who did blueprints and development for AMI projects, had crumbs in his mustache, and even the temp steno girls, Trina and Cara and the very-pregnant-and-about-to-deliver-any-moment Giulia were sneaking into reception to steal a cookie or two.
Elias thought it was no wonder Rosie had always refused to even make coffee in the office. If they’d known the extent of her talents, they wouldn’t have let her do anything else.
Well, Ms Thalia Savas was sure to be impressed—provided she managed to show up before the coffee and cookies were gone.
But he was done waiting. It was time she realized this wasn’t business school. Real work got done in the real world.
“We’ll go into the boardroom,” he said to Paul and Dyson. They jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice, and Paul surreptitiously wiped his mouth.
Elias grinned, taking a bit of perverse satisfaction in the tardy Ms Savas missing out on the cookies made especially for her. Not to mention that Rosie had gone to all that trouble only to have her efforts gobbled up by the rest of the staff.
“Very impressive,” he said as he passed her on his way to the boardroom. “I can see why you don’t do it all the time.”
Rosie looked up. “I didn’t do it at all.”
Elias gave her a sceptical look, but she stared him down so sternly that he turned to Paul. “Don’t tell me you baked them?”
Paul laughed. “I can’t boil water.”
“Don’t look at me,” Dyson backed away, shaking his dreadlocks and grinning.
“Maybe the new girl made them,” Trina suggested as she headed back to her office with her arms full of files.
“What new girl?” Elias knew they were going to send one to fill Giulia’s spot, but he didn’t know she’d arrived.
“I guess that would be me.” A cheerful, unfamiliar voice from the hallway made them all turn around. She was not the usual temp agency girl. She was older for one thing. Late twenties probably. She didn’t resemble a stick insect, either. She was slender but definitely curvy. She also wasn’t wearing a nose ring or sporting a hank of blue hair. Her hair, in fact, though pulled back and tied down and even anchored, had a will of its own. And even the army of barrettes she’d enlisted to tame it wasn’t up to the job. Her hair was thick and wild and decidedly sexy.
She looked as if she’d just got out of bed.
Elias found himself imagining what she would be like in bed. The thought brought him up short. He was as appreciative of a beautiful woman as the next man, but he didn’t usually fantasize about taking them to bed within moments of meeting them.
Then Ms Temp smiled brightly at him, at the same time giving her head a little shake so that her hair actually danced. And the urge to pull out those pins and tangle his fingers in that glorious hair hit him harder.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. He knew better than to mix business and pleasure.
“You made the cookies?” he demanded.
She nodded, still smiling. “Did you like them?”
“They’re good,” he acknowledged gruffly. But he didn’t want her getting the idea she could use them as a ticket to something more. “But they aren’t necessary. You only have to do your job.”
“My job?” She looked blank.
So she had a temp brain apparently. “Filing,” he said patiently. “Typing. Doing what you’re told.”
“I don’t type. I hate to file. And I rarely do what I’m told,” she said cheerfully.
Elias frowned. “Then what the hell are you doing here?”
She stuck out her hand to shake his. “I’m Tallie Savas. The new president. It’s nice to meet you.”
CHAPTER TWO
DAMN Socrates, anyway.
One look at Elias Antonides and Tallie knew she’d been had. So much for her father finally taking her seriously.
Now she knew what he was really up to. The presidency of Antonides Marine was nothing more than a means to throw her into the path of a Greek god in khakis and a blue oxford cloth shirt.
Elias Antonides was definitely that—an astonishingly handsome Greek god with thick, wavy, tousled black hair, a wide mobile mouth, strong cheekbones and an aquiline nose that was no less attractive for having been rearranged at some earlier date. Its slight crook only made him look tough and capable—like the sort of god who could quell sea monsters on the one hand while sacking Troy on the other.
And naturally he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, which just confirmed her suspicions. Well, she certainly couldn’t say her father didn’t have high aspirations.
But he must have lost his mind to imagine that a hunk like Elias Antonides would be interested in her!
In the looks department, Tallie knew she was decidedly average. Passable, but certainly not head-turning. Some men liked her hair, but they rarely liked the high-energy, high-powered brain beneath it. More men liked her father’s money, but they seldom wanted to put up with a woman who had a mind of her own.
Only Brian had loved her for herself. And until she found another man who did, she wasn’t interested.
When the right man came along, he wouldn’t be intimidated by her brain or attracted only by her hair or her father’s millions. He would love her.
He certainly wouldn’t be looking at her, appalled, as Elias Antonides was, like she was something nasty he’d found on the bottom of his shoe.
