‘In any way. Did you perceive he was serious in his reasons for not wanting to sell to me?’
Alice captured her lower lip with her teeth, gnawing on it thoughtfully. ‘I can’t see why he would lie,’ she said finally.
‘No, nor can I. After all, the price I’ve offered is above the market rate of the company. He’s a fool to walk away from it.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t really want to sell?’
‘He knows he must.’ He shook his head, dragging a hand through his hair, throwing it into even greater disarray. ‘He’s just being stubborn.’
Alice nodded, turning back to her desk thoughtfully. After all, the older man had raised a valid point. Thanos had a reputation for seducing women left, right and centre. He was rarely without a date on his arm, and it didn’t seem to be the same woman for long. He partied non-stop, but what did that matter? Everything he touched in a commercial sense turned to gold. Surely that was more important when it came to handing a business over?
‘Maybe he’ll change his mind,’ she offered, lifting her gaze back to his face. He was staring out of the window, his expression unreadable.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then you’ll just have to change it for him,’ she said quietly, turning back to the bills, flicking to the next one with a frown on her face, unaware of the way his eyes swivelled to follow her.
* * *
Thanos regarded this mild-mannered assistant thoughtfully. She was plain-spoken and unaffected. Unlike most of the women he dealt with, she wasn’t going out of her way to flatter and please him. She was acting as though she barely noticed he was a man. It was unusual for him to come across a woman who didn’t respond in a certain way.
And it was fascinating.
She was pretty, he supposed, in an understated way—though she also went to very little effort with her appearance. Her suit was old and boxy, hiding any curves she might have beneath too much fabric. Her hair was silky and luscious, long, he suspected, though it was impossible to know as she wore it pinned in a sensible, low bun at the nape of her neck. In fact, everything about her was sensible. Plain. Businesslike.
His eyes dropped lower, to hands that were sorting through a pile of papers—red, with OVERDUE marked at the top. And despite his own monumental problems, curiosity lifted inside him.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
She looked at him with a slight frown on her face, almost as though she thought he might have left.
‘I’m catching up on some personal business. It’s my lunch break.’
He looked at his watch. ‘It’s the end of the day.’
‘I didn’t have time to have it any earlier.’ She said it as though she was worried he might be cross with her, as if she feared recriminations. That was unnecessary. Though she was only a temp, and he hadn’t been to the New York office for almost a year, Thanos knew that Alice worked harder than most of the permanent executive support team. Her security card was frequently the last one swiped out at the end of the evening, and oftentimes the first one to appear on the staff list.
She worked long hours and, though his workload was nothing if not exhausting, she’d somehow managed to keep his business and personal life running like a well-oiled machine.
If he needed his jet fuelled up, he emailed Alice. Gifts organised, Alice. Anything done with his apartments? Alice. She oversaw all aspects of his life and yet they were only today meeting for the first time.
And he knew nothing about her.
Why did that bother him? He couldn’t have said. Stathakis Corp employed thirty thousand people globally. One woman shouldn’t have interested him like this.
And yet, he found himself propping his hip on the edge of her desk, and looking at the bills with more interest. She shuffled them self-consciously.
So he knew one thing about her.
She was a poor money manager. She had to be, given what the temp rates were for an executive assistant at this level. Sure, there was agency commission to come out of her salary packet, but regardless of that, her rate was generous.
‘Did you need anything else, sir?’
She spoke without looking at him, but he detected a faint tremble in her fingertips as she filed the bills under some other papers, pointedly reaching for her sandwich.
He straightened, with a frown. ‘No.’ As he moved towards the door, his frown didn’t ease.
‘How long do you expect to be in New York?’