He straightened. “I appreciate Karen asking someone to stand in for her this morning, and I’m sorry you have been inconvenienced, but I would prefer to choose my own temporary PA.”
“Except you didn’t.”
Knox had no intention of telling her that was because he simply couldn’t imagine working so closely every workday with anyone but Karen.
Magnus had moved to England after he and Sapphie were married. At the time, they hadn’t known whether it would be a temporary or permanent move, but the couple had recently had twin boys, and they now wished to remain in the UK near the rest of the Wynter family.
Knox had been head of one of the Wynter Security teams for years, and becoming CEO, although a promotion, was a completely new role for him. Karen had helped make that transition easier. Replacing her, if only for the time of her maternity leave, had seemed insurmountable when he’d thought about it, so he’d decided not to think about it. Except, he had now been presented with a fait accompli.
“I’ll talk to our usual agency and arrange my own temporary replacement,” he insisted.
Ellie Hall tilted her head to study him from behind those shaded glasses. A shadowed gaze so piercing, it made Knox shift uncomfortably. “What agency would that be?” she finally prompted.
“Halliday Executive Recruitment Agency.”
“HERA,” she absently provided.
“Is it? Oh yes, so it is. Whatever.” He shrugged, dismissing the abbreviation. “I’m sure Karen thought she was doing her best by asking you to fill in for her this morning, keeping in mind the emergency of her needing to be rushed off to hospital to have her babies. But I really think I should choose my own replacement, considering I have to work with her for the next six months.”
“Sally is very capable.”
“But I don’t know you or Sally,” he persisted stubbornly.
The two of them frowned at each other for several seconds before Ellie broke first and gave a rueful smile. “The immovable object meets the unstoppable force,” she appreciated softly, her smile having revealed she had very white and even teeth, and an endearing dimple in her left cheek that only appeared when she smiled.
Fuck it, there he went again with the uncharacteristic observations about this woman’s looks.
Because, despite his own and this office’s outwardly sophisticated appearance, he lived in a world that often involved violence and death.
An example of that being that the head of the team Knox had met yesterday evening, a team he had once worked hands-on with, had the graze of a bullet wound concealed on his left arm beneath the sleeve of his shirt.
The words cute and endearing didn’t normally enter Knox’s vocabulary.
Except when it came to Angel, but that was a different situation altogether.
“Would you care to explain why you think Sally is unsuited to stepping in as your PA?” Ellie prompted calmly.
“Well… Well… I…”
“Especially when I haven’t even told you what her qualifications are or provided a reference.”
Why was the challenging raise of one of this woman’s eyebrows making Knox feel like a naughty fucking schoolboy?
CHAPTER TWO
Ellie could see the inner battle Knox Wilder seemed to be having with himself from the frown between his challenging brown eyes and the flaring of his nostrils as he breathed heavily. As if he wanted to say so much more but was trying to hold back from saying anything she might find insulting.
Not, Ellie believed, because he liked or wanted her here, but because she was related to the woman who was his permanent PA, who would eventually be returning to that position.
“Okay, I can see that you really do need that coffee, so I’ll take pity on you and turn the machine on for you,” Ellie announced as she stood up. “I believe it’s the same model as the one I have at…home.” She substituted that word for what would have been her original comment.
His brows rose over that razor-sharp gaze. “Drink a lot of coffee ‘at home,’ do you?”
Ellie easily met those challenging brown eyes. “Shall we?” She indicated for him to enter his office ahead of her.
She followed him in, then set up the machine before collecting some water from the adjoining bathroom.
“Angel is five years old and the daughter of one of my best friends.”