Leaning an elbow on the beige marble counter separating them roth smiled at her. His sweet, seductive smile helped melt the icy mood she'd been in, up until that point - slightly. "So, come on, tell me what's bothering you? Where’s that beautiful smile you usually present me with?” He had a warm yet concerned look on his face.“Oh I got it! Your boss is being a jerk?" he teased lightly.A smile began to lift the corners of Ruby's lips for the first time that day as she shook her head. "No."He raised an inquisitive brow at her. "Oh I definitely got it now. Boyfriend troubles, right?"Her smile widened. "Hardly." Grabbing a large paper cup from the dispenser she began to pour his coffee."The usual?" she asked, ignoring his question. She didn't want to be spilling her financial woes to customers - not even Roth, And as for her non-existent love life - she really didn't want to be spilling that to him.Roth nodded. “Okay I’m done guessing,” he gave a little chuckle. “Then tell me? What'
The heat in her cheeks intensified and she nibbled lightly on her lower lip. "Macaroni and cheese." she joked. Could she cook? He had to be joking. She had to be the worst cook she knew. Nothing ever seemed to turn out right, no matter how much time or effort she took to prepare a meal. She overcooked everything. Some people were meant to be domestic; she wasn't one of those people.Taking the card from him, she glanced down at it. "Rothdam Enterprise?.""Yeah, that's me," Roth confirmed, with a disinterested shrug, he gave ruby a small smile that made her heart flutter She looked at the card, then meet his eyes. She had no idea what Rothdam Enterprises was, but he seemed to be awfully young to be running anything. He couldn't have been a day over thirty."You know what," reaching back into his inner pocket, Roth produced a silver pen, retrieved the card from her fingertips and quickly jotted down a phone number and address. "I have to go. I have a meeting in ten minutes, but give me
She suddenly laughed at herself for being so self-conscious. This was a job interview, not a date. While surfing the web trying to find out more about Roth, she'd seen a number of photographs with him and his dates. They were all leggy, model types who reeked of high-society and presumably owned little dogs they carried in their purses named Lolly or something equally as ridiculous. He was out of her league. Perhaps she was fun to flirt with in the afternoons while grabbing a coffee, but that was the extent of it for him she was sure. Sure she’d had a crush on him for some time now. But big deal. It was a crush, it didn't have to complicate matters.Taking a deep breath she tried to steady her nerves before straightening up; squaring her shoulders. She finally got out of her car and made her way up the front steps. She was just raising her fist to knock on the large oak door when it was opened by a man who appeared to be in his mid-forties, wearing a stern expression."Miss Ruby," he
Uncrossing his arms, he lowered them and grasped the edge of the desk, as he continued to recline back on it. "So let's get down to it. We've established that you can't cook...""Well, I... Ummmm," she shrugged and gave him an apologetic smile. "I'm willing to learn."Laughing, Roth nodded. "Fair enough. I'm willing to give you a little grace period to get up to speed. What I'm in need of is a live-in cook and housekeeper.""Live here?" She blue eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped in disbelief. He couldn't be serious. In this house? With him?Cocking his head to the side Roth arched a brow at her, amused. "Well, that would be what the term live-in implies. You'd be paid well. Your pay will increase when your culinary skills improve. We can heckle about the pay later. In addition, you'll receive room and board. I'm assuming when you said the extent of your cooking skills stopped at..." he chuckled and cleared his throat, "mac and cheese you weren't understating."Embarrassed, Ruby sho
She was a cheeky little thing. And Roth liked it, perhaps too much. He'd asked himself a number of times during the course of the day if offering her a job and having her live with him was such a good idea. While he'd led her to believe that the previous housekeeper had lived at the house, that hadn't actually been the case. Aside him and Tristan, Ruby was the first employee that he'd opened his home to. It was partially because of her apparent financial issues, but mostly because there was something about her that had him captivated. And if he were to be brutally honest with himself, the house felt too big for him, since Tristan had decided to become invisible, he could not help but smile when he introduced ruby to Tristan, Roth could picture the surprise look on his best friends face knowing a woman would be living with them for the first time since ten years. One thing Roth had in mind was that, he wanted the companionship of a woman without necessarily the relationship.One of t
The tour of the house went by as one big blur. Ruby's mind was focused on the hundreds of complicated recipes. From the glance she'd taken she didn't even recognize some of the ingredients. How in the hell was she going to pull this off? That was some crazy assed “Chef Ramsey” shit he was expecting from her by the looks of it. What if she took the job and couldn't make it work and he let her go? She supposed she could go crawling back to the coffee house, begging for her old job.The other thing that was keeping her mind from focusing was his general closeness. They had always had the counter at the coffee shop dividing them, but now he was next to her. Throughout the tour Roth would touch her shoulder lightly or place his palm at the small of her back, or take her hand to catch her attention; with each slight contact she was put more on edge as her desire for him rose. Should potential employers be holding potential employees hands? If even briefly. She didn't think so. But she liked
But... this was a negotiation and wasn't the opening offer supposed to be close to twice what you'd really take? Shit, she didn't know. Looking back up at him, her blue eyes locked to his dark ones and without thinking she requested twice as much as she made at the coffee shop.He whistled, his expression remaining blank. "Have you really thought that offer through?"Shit! It was too much. Damn, damn, damn. Maybe this wasn't meant to be. She groaned inwardly at herself, as a worried expression crossed her face.As if sensing her distress, he touched her arm. "I mean, have you really thought through what the job entails. You're on call 24/7. If I want you to get up at 3am to make me a pop tart, then I expect it to be done. If I have a hankering for something that you have to drive across town for at the most inconvenient time, I expect it to be done."Her frown deepened. She hadn't thought about it in that sense. "In that case, double my last offer."Turning to face her, he nodded. "Do
“Name,” he stated, a deep accent lacing the singular, blunt word.Clara cleared her throat and wiped her sweaty palms on her grey pencil skirt. “Hello,” she said, “My name is Clara Serim” she smiled nervously at the authority figure seated on a large leather chair behind a dark, polished marble desk so large it almost took up the entire length of the office.Roth didn’t glance in her direction as she walked forward and placed her resume on his desk with shaky hands.“Take a seat,” he muttered, still staring intently at his computer screen.Clara nodded, even though she knew he wasn’t going to be paying attention to the gesture. “Thank you.” she took a seat in one of the navy coloured leather chairs that were placed in front of his desk, and gripped the arm of the chair with such force that she watched her knuckles turn white.A few silent moments passed before his dark eyes flickered in her direction briefly, and then doing a double take.Clara eyes widen slightly and she swallowed f