Why would anyone with this kind of money be interested in her fledgling accounting firm? Who in the hell could the person be? The room she stepped into was large, but it had only one small table set up by the impressive windows looking onto the bay, and she knew right then that she had to have whoever it was for a client. This man — or woman — could bring her business out into the open.
“I’ll hang your coat for you,” the host said.
Excitement teamed up with nerves as he pulled out her chair and waited for her to hand over her coat and sit down. That accomplished, McKenzie wondered how long she would have to wait to meet this mystery person.
He — had to be a male — most likely knew that she would wait all day if that were what it took. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten away with putting the person off for three days. It had been a silly power play, and it could have cost her a big client. She’d have to be more careful in the future. Would she have to do some serious sucking up now?
“Might I offer you a drink while you wait?”
“Yes, an iced tea, please,” McKenzie replied.
The man vanished right away, zipped back in, and vanished again, leaving her alone in the room. This level of service was new to her. She’d made a lot of money over the years as the proprietor of a seriously upscale escort service, but the host’s behavior made it clear that the person she was about to meet had a whole new level of wealth, a wealth that only a few possessed. And though she’d made a lot of money, she’d had a lot of expenses. Luxurious meals weren’t one of them.
A few minutes later McKenzie knew she was no longer by herself. Her body tensed, and she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be happy when she looked up, but even knowing this, she had to find out who was draining the oxygen from the room.
And there walking toward her was none other than Byron Knight. She should have known, and maybe she even had known somewhere deep down inside, but she’d refused to even think he could be the man behind that phone call. Why? Because then she wouldn’t have come, and she desperately wanted this client’s business. Call it her competitive nature, or her will to survive, but all she knew for sure was that she had to make it in Seattle’s business world — in a business not involving sex — and Byron Knight had a lot of wealth that she wanted a piece of.
“I see you found the restaurant all right,” Byron said as he walked up beside her, pausing before he moved to the place across from her and sat down.
When his knees brushed hers under the table, she cursed the intimate setting and scooted back a couple of inches. Sure, it would make eating a bit more difficult, but if she were touching him during the entire meal, she wouldn’t be able to eat anything anyway.
She didn’t bother to respond to his remark about finding the place. It was in downtown Seattle. Even a tourist could find the restaurant. So she cut to the chase. “Why all the secrecy, Byron?”
He smiled before answering her question with one his own. “Would you have come had you known it was me?”
McKenzie lifted her glass and took a sip before looking him in the eyes. Never show weakness, she said to herself, and she made sure she had on her most businesslike mask. She rarely wore any other one, but she found herself struggling a bit this time. “Of course I would have,” she finally told him.
“Very good, McKenzie. I almost believe that.”
A waiter now spoke.
“Would you like the appetizers brought out, sir?”
“Yes, please. And I’ll have iced tea to drink, too,” Byron said, surprising her.
“What? No alcohol at high noon?” she said, only the slightest mockery in her voice. But she hoped he remembered his boozed-up condition the last time they met.
If he did, he didn’t show it. “I don’t want you to accuse me of being inebriated while we have a business discussion,” he fired back. “And didn’t you know that the three-martini lunch went out of style before you were even born?”
“Why am I here, Byron? Are you wasting my time?” Why not be blunt?
The waiter set down his tea before disappearing again, presumably to grab the first course, which Byron had clearly ordered in advance.
“Not at all, McKenzie,” came his easy reply. “Our head accountant has had an unfortunate accident and is out of the offices for the next thirty days — at a minimum. So I find myself in a pinch, and I’ve heard good things about your company.”
Several plates of food appeared magically on the table, and even though McKenzie was tense, she couldn’t help but appreciate the sweet aromas drifting up to her nose.
“And you want to hire us?” she asked.
“Don’t be afraid to have a little — it’s not as if you have to worry about calories,” he said. “We might as well eat to keep up our strength.”
The jerk thrust a plate toward her even though she could have easily reached it by herself. But a woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do. She took a little of the calamari misto, some of the fried cheddar curds, and a few mussels. With so many hors d’oeuvres, she wouldn’t have any room left in her stomach for anything else, but this meeting might not last long enough for her to reach the main course anyway. It all depended on what sort of game he was playing.
Byron filled a plate for himself and devoted a little time to nibbling before he spoke again. “I want to hire you, McKenzie.”
She didn’t miss the emphasis on you, but she chose to ignore it. Or to pretend to.
“Why don’t you tell me about the project? I can tell you then if I think our company would be a good fit,” she said. She was proud of herself, and of her composure. If she was bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, she knew she wasn’t showing it. The story of her life.
For the next few minutes, Byron explained the needs of this branch of the family business, and McKenzie’s mouth practically watered. This was the perfect sort of job. It was filled with challenges, and Knight Construction was so diversified — it had its hands in so many pieces of the corporate pie — that it wasn’t just run-of-the-mill accounting work. It would take a sharp mind to cut through everything, and she had that in spades.
“Our company is more than qualified to help you,” she told him. “It sounds as if these last few months have been…difficult…in some parts of the family firm.”
“Not at all. But my brothers and I tend to go out to a lot of the job sites, where we can swing a hammer and get back to the basics. We do it on the assumption that we’ve hired a responsible enough team to do their work, and when we come back into the offices, things sometimes haven’t gone as well as we’d hoped. That’s why I’m stuck at the desk for a while. It doesn’t help that our accountant had a boating accident. But that’s what your company is there for, correct? To come in and perform when needed?”