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She sounded remarkably cheerful about it, and Darius’s lips twitched.
‘So we aren’t dating any longer?’
‘We are,’ Mallika said. ‘You have a few redeeming qualities, but I’m not as sure about you as I was. We’re dating, but I’m not introducing you to friends and family just yet.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to remove me from the scene altogether?’
‘If I’d written you off she’d have tried setting me up with a perfectly horrible second cousin of hers. She’s spent the last two years trying to palm him off on every unmarried woman she knows.’
‘Maybe he’s not so bad?’ Darius suggested carefully. ‘You should meet him—keep your options open.’
Mallika shuddered. ‘No, thanks. I’ve met him once, and that was once too often. He spent forty-five minutes telling me how rich he is, and how he made his money. And he breathes really heavily.’
‘Hmm …’
Darius’s eyes were dancing wickedly, and Mallika felt a little jolt of awareness go through her. It had been so long since she’d spent any time with an attractive man that she was ridiculously susceptible.
‘Can I ask you something?’
She gave him a wary look. ‘Yes.’
‘Are you atoning for the sins of a past life by working for Vaishali?’
‘She’s been very good to me,’ Mallika said stiltedly, and when he raised an eyebrow she went on in a rush. ‘No, really. She can be a bit overpowering at times, but I owe her a lot. I didn’t mean to make her sound like a nightmare boss.’
She sounded as if it really mattered, and Darius nodded.
‘If you say so.’ He was silent for a few seconds as the waiter put their drinks in front of them. ‘So, should I tell you a bit more about the job and the company? You can make up your mind then.’
She nodded, and listened carefully as he explained again about the company structure and the role that he was offering. Unlike her current company, which invested solely in real estate, the Nidas Group had evolved into a conglomerate of companies that included a brokering house, a consumer lending company and the fund where Darius was offering her a job. Darius himself was moving on—he didn’t give her any details, but she assumed it was to head up a new division—and he didn’t have enough capacity to manage the fund as well.
‘I have a question,’ she said, once he’d finished telling her about the job. ‘Why do you think I’m right for the position?’
‘You have a superb track record,’ Darius said. ‘And Venkat was very impressed after he interviewed you.’
‘But you haven’t interviewed me,’ she pointed out. ‘Or do you trust Venkat that much?’
‘I have every intention of interviewing you,’ Darius said, his brows quirking. ‘The second you tell me that you’re actually interested in the job I’ll start firing questions at you.’
Mallika stared at him for a few seconds, and then burst out laughing.
‘You have a point,’ she said. ‘So—the job sounds perfect. It’s the logical next step in my career and like you said, I’ve been in my current job for five years and I’m beginning to stagnate.’
‘I can see a “but” coming,’ he murmured.
‘Yes … I mean …’
‘It’s not convenient from a personal point of view?’ Darius supplied when she hesitated.
Mallika nodded. ‘That’s it. I can’t tell you the details, but …’
‘I don’t need to know the details,’ Darius said. ‘But if you tell me what exactly it is that your current company is doing to help you maybe I can see if we can work something out.’
Darius could smell victory, and he wasn’t about to let this one go.
‘I don’t have fixed hours,’ she said in a rush. ‘Some days I reach work at eight, and some days I go in only in the afternoon. And I do site visits on my own when it’s convenient to me. Sometimes I work from home, and there are days when I’m not able to work at all.’
She ground to a halt, her eyes wide and a little apprehensive. Clearly whatever was happening on the personal front was very important to her. He wondered what it was. The kind of flexibility she needed was normally required only if an employee had to care for a sick child or an elderly parent. Mallika wasn’t married, and from what she’d said her younger brother sounded responsible. A parent, then, he decided.
The unwelcome thought that she might be going through a messy divorce came to mind, but he pushed it away. A divorce might need her to take time off work, but it wouldn’t need her to work from home. It was far more likely that one of her parents needed to be cared for.
He thought for a while. ‘We might be able to let you do the same,’ he said slowly. ‘Can I work this out and get back to you?’
‘But when I asked Venkat he said you don’t have a flexible working policy!’ she said.
‘It hasn’t been formally approved yet,’ Darius said. ‘We’re still working on it. Yours could be a test case.’
Their food had arrived, and Mallika took a bite of her spaghetti before answering. ‘You know,’ she said conversationally, ‘the job market’s really bad nowadays.’
‘It is,’ Darius agreed, frowning a little.
‘And bonuses are dropping and people are getting fired every day.’
‘Yes.’
‘So you could probably hire anyone you wanted, right? With just as much experience and no complicated conditions. Why are you still trying to convince me to take the job?’
When it came to work, Mallika was sharp and to the point. She was intelligent—obviously she was, or Venkat wouldn’t have considered hiring her. But Darius found himself wondering why exactly he was trying so hard to convince her. He’d never tried to recruit an unwilling candidate before—he’d never had to. And while she was definitely his first choice for the job, there were at least two others who could do the job equally well.
Had this just become about winning? Or perhaps he hadn’t been thinking clearly since taking her hand in that coffee shop several days ago. What was going on?
‘Venkat’s interviewed pretty much everyone in the industry,’ he said. ‘You’re the best fit for the role.’
‘But the second best might end up doing a better job,’ she said. ‘He or she’d be more inclined to take the offer to begin with.’
‘It’s not just about technical skills,’ Darius said. ‘We think you’d adjust well to the organisation’s culture. And we also need to improve the firm’s diversity ratio, now that we’re likely to get some foreign investment into the company. That’s one of the things investors are likely to look at. There are a lot of women at junior levels, but very few at middle or senior management. There weren’t too many CVs that fitted the bill and belonged to women—and other than you none of them made a decent showing at interview.’
‘But I’m sure you have male candidates who’re suitable,’ she said, her brow wrinkling. ‘Surely this diversity thing isn’t so important that you’ve not interviewed men at all?’
‘Venkat’s interviewed quite a few,’ Darius said. ‘Apparently you did better than them as well. Diversity’s not more important than talent—it’s just that now we’ve found you we don’t want to let you go.’
His gaze was direct and unwavering, and Mallika felt herself melting under it. The attraction she’d felt the first