“When are you available?” he asked.
“Today, even,” she replied quickly. His impatience was palpable, so she adapted her speech to follow his. This was a tactic she employed with hostile customers at Sabine’s; in her experience, fawning or placating such people did not work. The only thing that made any kind of impression on people who were easily provoked was to persuade them of your efficiency and competence.
He picked up the fax copy of her résumé and whistled at her transcript. “Hmm,” he said dismissively. “A schoolgirl, I see.”
Kevin dropped her papers beside the stapler, then returned to the conclusion of the report he was reading off the screen. He disagreed with the research analyst’s buy recommendation for the Taiwanese chip maker. Then he picked up the résumé again and turned to take a better look.
She was far too dressed up to be a sales assistant. A daddy’s girl, no doubt. Princess wouldn’t take this job seriously. Personal calls, lots of sick days—he’d seen it all before. People viewed being an assistant as a bullshit job, and it certainly paid a bullshit salary if you didn’t count the O/T, but a clerical error could screw a lot of people and cost a fortune. In the past year, he’d fired three people in six months. His boss, the head of international equities sales, told him that it was starting to make Kevin look bad as a manager. “Buddy”—he’d been pulled aside after having fired the last one—“the next one has to work out. You know? Your guys need even support.”
Hiring was a royal pain in the ass, however. Last year when he was promoted to desk head, he’d had no idea how much administrative crap came with the position. Somehow, when he was just one of the brokers, he’d been oblivious to what Owen, the prior desk head, had been doing. They used to call Owen “PT” for part-time, because he was often working from home （his gorgeous wife could not drop a teabag in boiling water, not to mention watch over their twin boys）。 Owen was promoted when Kevin was promoted, and he was now living in Hong Kong with a large household staff for his family. Kevin had been a phenomenal broker—one of the best institutional salesmen in the country—but as the desk head, he’d been forced to give up his biggest accounts to his guys to attend an endless cycle of management meetings. As far as he could see, these meetings made no dough for the company. He’d gone from running his own profit center to becoming a giant cost center. Instead of making his clients happy, he was now having to focus on budgets, shadow books, and safeguarding his ass from the great whites in the upper management pool.
“So, what are you doing here, exactly?” His green eyes flashed without warmth. “You really want to be a sales assistant?”
“A girl’s gotta eat.” Casey raised her eyebrows and smiled halfway.
She’d taken a risk. Kevin was amused, but he didn’t show it. “Yeah, but a girl with your grades and degree can work anywhere. ”
“But I want to work here.”
He stared her down. Without saying a word, he was asking her why.
“I’m an econ major. This would be good experience for B school.” Casey found herself lying with greater ease ever since she’d been thrown out of her parents’ house—hardship being the mother of imagination.
“B school, huh?” Kevin frowned and glanced at his computer monitor again.
Seeing his disapproval, she replied, “Maybe.”
“You know what B stands for in B school?” he asked loudly, mainly for Walter’s benefit. Without giving her a chance to reply, he proclaimed, “Bullshit.”
“Terribly original,” said the man seated opposite Kevin. His hair was mahogany colored.
Hugh Underhill, the senior salesman on the desk, winked at Casey like an ally. She blinked in surprise. In a club or a restaurant, she might have stared right back at him. He looked familiar to her. Then she realized that his coloring and features were nearly the same as those of Jay’s brother, Ethan, but this man was far more handsome—irritatingly so. Casey routinely ignored men like this, feeling in a curious way that they should not be given too much attention for their beauty.
Walter smiled at Kevin. His eyes disappeared into his gentle moon face. “Maybe Kevin should eat something. He gets so crabby when he’s hungry. Did Mom pack your lunch today?”
Walter turned to Casey. “The quality and experience of your interview will improve markedly in a few minutes. I promise.”
Kevin smirked hearing this. Walter wasn’t wrong, and Kevin checked the conference room doors, which remained shut.