Million Dollar Christmas Proposal. Lucy Monroe
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admirable.”
“Just how detailed is that dossier?” she asked with an edge of annoyance.
“Very,” Gloria answered for him as she placed tea things on the table beside Audrey. “Tomasi Enterprises employ only the best. The investigative firm we use knows how exacting Mr. Tomasi’s standards are.”
Far from looking impressed, Audrey was clearly disgruntled. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to simply ask me about my life?”
“You might lie. My investigator has no impetus to do so.”
“I guess most men as high up on the corporate ladder as you are cynical.” Again, Audrey didn’t sound particularly impressed by that observation.
He took his coffee, already prepared to his specifications, from Gloria. “In my experience, that is true.”
Audrey opened her mouth to reply and then seemed to think better of her words. She focused on putting sugar and just a dash of milk into her teacup before pouring the hot beverage.
“What were you going to say?” he asked, curious.
If nothing else, he had not yet found himself bored in this woman’s company. He could not say that about a great many people he was forced to spend time with in the name of business.
Her brow furrowed in thought. “It’s just that I’m not sure I see the point of this interview if you already know all the answers to your questions.”
He almost smiled, but held the expression in. She had no idea how much a simple meeting could reveal, even if the only thing discussed was the temperature outside.
“You do not think it is important to establish whether or not there could be a possible rapport between us?”
“Well, if you had the children here, that particular consideration would make more sense.”
“You do realize that being their mother mandates also becoming my wife?”
Or hadn’t she?
Was it possible that, however she had learned about the position, Audrey had not been made aware of that particular aspect? The stunned expression on her lovely features implied just that.
She jolted, setting the teacup down without taking the sip she’d planned. “What?”
“Surely you can see that you must be my wife in order to actually be their mother?”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Does the knowledge mean you would like to withdraw your application for the position?” he asked, with no doubt about the answer.
Who would not want to be married to a billionaire?
To his chagrin and grudging appreciation, Audrey took several moments to consider the question.
Finally she said, “Not immediately, no.”
He frowned, less than pleased.
“I’m sorry if that offends you. I just hadn’t considered...”
Her voice trailed off and he realized Audrey was seriously rattled.
“Yes, well, consider it.”
She nodded, still looking a little dazed. “You’re not looking for a real wife, though? Right?”
“The woman I choose will share my home, my family and many aspects of my life. In what way is that not real?”
“Oh, I...uh...I just thought...” Her lovely features went an interesting shade of pink before something seemed to occur to her and they paled to an alarming level.
Nonplussed that the idea of becoming his wife was more daunting to her than parenting two small children, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Y-ye...” She cleared her throat. “I mean, yes.”
He watched with interest as she lifted the teacup in trembling hands to take a sip.
Her eyes closed and she took another sip and several deep breaths before carefully placing the cup down again. “Um...does that mean you’re expecting...uh...conjugal relations?”
Humor vied with a vicious spike of arousal at the thought of sharing a bed with Audrey and her reaction to the concept.
The prospect did not send most women into stuttering panic. He was surprised she was reacting so gauchely to the idea. Was it possible she did not feel the passion sparking a steadily building electric current between them?
Or was it that she felt it and was overwhelmed by it? She was twenty-seven years old, not some blushing virgin, though.
“Naturally I would expect to have sex with my wife.” He did not mention that he’d actually had no intention of any such thing until this very moment.
But he’d had a sudden and inescapable self-revelation. No way could he live in the same house as this woman and not act on the desire she evoked in him.
Shortsighted of him not to realize the efficiency of such an arrangement as well, regardless of who he chose for the role. Enzu wasn’t usually a shortsighted man.
“I didn’t realize. I’m not... Well, you probably already know.” She gave him an appealing look. “I’m sure it’s in that invasive report. Your top-notch investigators wouldn’t have left something like that out. Right?”
Enzu was unacquainted with the level of confusion he experienced at her disjointed words. “What exactly are you talking about?”
“My... That I’m a...” She didn’t finish her thought.
Enzu found himself more intrigued than confused. That she was a what?
An idea came to him. One he dismissed almost immediately as impossible. She was twenty-seven, had attended university, and raised her own brother for the past six years.
Still, considering how little information on that front there was in the report, he could not help wondering. He had thought she was simply more private in this area than anyone he’d ever come across. Even himself.
And Enzu made it a policy never to get his name splashed across the tabloids for his sexual liaisons.
There was no evidence of any kind of sex life in the report on Audrey, but that didn’t mean she did not have one. An investigator would find it difficult, if not impossible, to name Enzu’s sexual partners in the past year.
“Your discretion in that area bodes well for your ability to maintain my confidences.”
Enzu had no intention of telling his wife sensitive information, but living together in the same house for at least two decades risked her being exposed anyway.
Audrey was back to blushing and looking into her teacup as if it held the secrets of the universe. “I am a very private person.”
“I had surmised that.”
“But it’s not so much a matter of discretion as there being nothing to be discreet about,” she admitted, almost as if she was embarrassed by that fact.
He was glad to hear she wasn’t promiscuous, but he did not want her to think he expected her to have no past sexual experiences. He was not a Neanderthal.
“I find sex a satisfactory stress-reliever but, like you, I do not indulge as often as some might expect.” Enzu wasn’t celibate by any stretch, but he was not and never had been a player like his brother, either.
He worked sixty-hour weeks, rarely taking days off—even on the weekend; Enzu didn’t have time for a lover, or even frequent hook-ups.
Audrey winced, cherry-red washing over her cheeks. “I don’t indulge at all.”
“Not at all?” he asked with some measure of disbelief.
“Not ever,” she admitted, as