Seduced By His Touch

Leo rubbed the stubborn knot of tension at the base of his neck with the heel of his hand as he stared blindly at his computer screen. His personal assistant had walked out three days ago when her boyfriend had dumped her. She was so distraught that she was not even in a state to work out her notice. It annoyed him no end, but what could he do? Women! You can't live with them, and you can't live without them.

There was a knock on the door to his office.

"Come in," he said.

Precious, one of the general secretaries, came in with a large stack of papers in her hand.

Leo groaned inwardly at the stack of papers. What now?

"I do have some of the resumes for the personal assistant position, Mr. Joe," she said, getting down to business. "I've weeded out the absolute no-gos, and these are the ones that I think are feasible. If you can look them over and give final approval, I can forward them to HR and they can arrange for interviews right away."

He was tempted to say, "Just send the whole lot of them over to HR and let them fight it out," but he didn't. He did not need another outright mismatch. For one thing, he was a bit of a control freak, but he had built this company himself from the ground up, so he was used to doing everything himself. Now it was a multi-million-dollar corporation, but old habits were hard to break. "Thank you, Precious," he said, inclining his head toward one end of his desk. "Put them there, and I'll get back to you after I've had an opportunity to look them over."

She did so, smiled briefly at him, and hurried back out of his office.

If he could rush through these, HR might be able to set up the interviews for the latter part of this week, and if everything went smoothly, he might have a new personal assistant by his side on Monday.

He picked up the top resume from the stack and reviewed it. Mary Jackson. Excellent qualifications, plenty of experience. Nothing that raised a red flag. He started his keep pile with her. The next three he interviewed were not acceptable. Two of them had children, and the third, while having no visible baggage, did not possess the kind of experience that he needed. He wasn't certain that she would be able to keep up with the pace of this work. The next two were both qualified applicants. Puma Luka had worked at some pretty fast-paced locations, and White Queens had over five years' experience in a very similar business to his. White Queens was looking like the top candidate at the moment. A man would not fall apart just because his girl broke up with him.

He kept sorting his way through the stack, separating them into two piles. White Queens was still ahead. Then he opened the last file and stared in surprise at the name on it.

Amara Denz.

His heart started racing in his chest. It couldn't be the same person. No way. That would be the weirdest coincidence on earth. He rocked back in his chair, and the past came rushing back, vivid and in Technicolor.

Amara stood in front of him, her white, pale face defiant.

"All that money and you bought those pants?" he joked.