Page 178 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘Right, like I said. Eric tells me I should keep you on. Tell me why I should.’

‘Because I’m good at what I do.’

‘That’s it? Onlygood?’

‘Very good. What else do you need to know? I can run through the financial statements if you like?’

Fabulous. As if he didn’t know his way around a set of financial statements.

‘All right, then. Astound me.’ It might be entertaining to hear this one explain them.

Except it wasn’t.

She’d made it all the way through the profit and loss statement and had started on the balance sheet when Estefan swung his chair around to face her. ‘Enough!’

The woman jumped.

Dominico looked pointedly at his watch. ‘I don’t have time for this. I was told you were something special. I was told you were worth keeping on. And yet I see before me an everyday accountant, full of dull-speak and numbers.’

‘It’s a set of financial statements,’ she said, jamming her glasses higher up her nose. ‘Of course it’s full of numbers. It’s hardly a comedy routine.’

‘Now, that was funny.’ He raised an eyebrow and looked at her, more closely this time. Her cheeks were slashed with colour and under that navy jacket her chest was heaving. There was a surprise. She had a not bad figure hidden under that boring suit. He lifted his eyes to her face and was struck again with that flicker of recognition. Mad. But then he’d known a lot of women in his time, she was bound to resemble at least one of them.

‘Okay, one last chance. Tell me why I should keep you on. You have thirty seconds.’

His phone pinged. Another email. The plane was ready to leave when he was. If he could tie this meeting up, he could be on his way to the airport in ten minutes.

It occurred to him that she hadn’t spoken. ‘Well?’ he said, turning in his chair to face her. ‘You can’t think of even one good reason why I should keep you on?’

‘Maybe it’s because I can’t think of one good reason I’d want you to. Thanks for your time, I’ll see myself out.’

She turned to go.

‘Wait!’ he ordered, intrigued and not a little piqued. Nobody walked out on Dominico Estefan, least of all a drab little accountant he’d only agreed to see in order to get the old man to sign. People bent over backwards to get a moment of his time in order to push their latest project or seek some kind of favour. He was the one who would decide when he’d had enough. What was her problem?

She stopped, her back to him. She was angry, he could tell by the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders and the rigid way she held herself. His eyes drifted down her body. There were curves from this angle too, her jacket cinching in a slim waist before her skirt flared out over her hips. A decent designer could make the most of that shape.

‘I get the impression, Ms—’ he checked his email ‘—Ms Peterson, that you’re not happy about something.’

Her head went back with a very unladylike snort as she spun around. ‘You think?’

The surprises just kept on coming.

‘Okay, so tell me, what is it that’s made you so…prickly?’

‘You really don’t know?’

‘I’m all ears.’

She sighed. ‘Okay, so you take over a company where staff are more akin to family. Then you immediately sack half the staff without notice—’

‘They’ll all be well compensated.’

‘That won’t help them find new jobs—long-term jobs. And the remaining staff know that they are firmly in your sights, for whenever they reach their use-by dates.’

‘You’re being melodramatic.’

‘Am I? Isn’t that what you have planned?’

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