Dating a Metro Man (14 page)

Talia laughed at his explanation. Laughing was impolite, but unavoidable given such a story. “Forgive me for saying this out loud, but I’m too honest not to speak my mind. Your personal life sounds like a soap opera, Mr. Carter. Now back to what you were saying—I want to get this straight—you’re offering to fix me up with medical support for my son and a date with an eligible man if I move here and agree to work with you? That’s the strangest set of incentives I’ve ever been offered during an interview,” Talia said frankly, laughing and leaning back against the pillows.

“I work out of my home and I like doing it. I might one day have to become a brick and mortar business, but right now I’m not interested. In your contract, I’m not offering vacation or sick leave or a retirement plan, but I figured your needs were greater for other things the first year. I intend to offer you a place to stay and help with the medical support your family needs. Dating Allen would actually be helping me, so that’s not technically an incentive for your benefit. If anything, it’s just repayment of a debt I owe the man for stealing my girlfriend back,” Seth said, laughing.

Talia Martin laughed at his explanation, and it felt really good. She hadn’t had a lot to laugh about in a long time. “That is still totally bizarre, but okay. Now I’m going to ask my question again. Why are you convinced I’m the one you need to help you?”

“You speak eleven languages. Your sales record is unmatched at your company and no one has broken it the whole time you’ve been out on family medical leave, which has been almost a year now. Your company loves you and is holding your place with them. I think I can do better because I can give you flexibility to take care of your son like you want, and a chance to use your global sales skills in ways you haven’t even thought of yet,” Seth finished. “You would get a fairly small base salary to begin and ten percent commission on all orders placed and shipped. I would pay out commission net sixty days. The delay in payout time is to allow customers to receive the goods and make returns.”

“How many other candidates are you considering?” Talia asked, wondering why her instincts were leaning toward the tall blonde man so strongly. There was just something so animated about him. He was engaged in his work and the excitement of it emanated from him.

“None,” Seth told her honestly. “If you’re not interested, I have to start my search all over again. That isn’t going to work well for my personal life, but I’d just have to deal with it if you say no. You’re the one I want. Now tell me Ms. Martin—what do you want?”

“What do I want? Well, frankly Mr. Carter, I want my secure life back,” Talia told him. “I lost my husband and almost my son in a car accident. I found out about the baby a couple of weeks after the accident. I couldn’t continue to work while I was busy struggling to just survive my life. If Ian hadn’t been well-insured, I don’t know how I would have financially managed this last year and a half. A normal job is not a possibility unless I put my children with someone else all day. My son needs a special level of attention right now, and I am determined he will have it. Unfortunately, I can’t be a stay-home mother all the time either. Even the best of insurance plans eventually run out of funds.”

“You would have control of all your time, but you would also be making and taking calls all hours of the day and night,” Seth warned, “but you could probably arrange them to end at midnight and not pick up again until after 5 a.m. our time. Maybe you’ll find a way to conduct business that I haven’t been able to manage. I speak Japanese, German, and a spattering of a couple Norwegian languages. I don’t speak any Chinese, and China is where the next deal is going to be.”

“I speak three dialects of Chinese,” Talia said quietly.

“Yes, I know,” Seth told her, smiling. “It’s listed in your business profile on the Internet.”

Talia looked at Seth. She was thinking, seriously thinking, about whether she could make this work. Something about his earnestness just made her believe. Plus it would be good to feel successful again, to know she was capable of supporting her children. And if Seth Carter didn’t mind that she was dedicated to her son first, then it was probably worth a shot to her to see if she could do this.

“How about a test?” Talia offered. “Give me a month to make arrangements to move here temporarily, and I’ll come back to stay for three months. We’ll see how I do, and then you can decide. I will earn my own way with your company, or we’ll part none the worse for our association.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t wait that long. I need you now,” Seth said, extracting another paper from his portfolio. “This is a picture and the address of a spacious one-level duplex with a garage. It’s available next week.”

“That’s a lot of turnaround to expect from a woman with children,” Talia said, suddenly feeling too managed and too controlled for her comfort level. “I’m not used to someone else calling so many of the shots.”

“Yeah—I hear that a lot lately, but I’ve become a desperate man in all areas of my life. If you get the deal for these replacement parts worked out, we will be the sole supplier for at least two large companies out west with wind turbines. The commission alone would buy you a house here in Falls Church and anything else you need for a couple of years,” Seth told her. “The only thing I couldn’t research for you is child care providers, but I thought the therapist might be able to offer some suggestions there.”

“You’re making it damn hard for me to say no to you,” Talia commented.

“Good. What would make it impossible?” Seth asked.

Talia let the silence between them stretch. Seth’s kind gaze while he waited pushed her over the edge of her decision-making. “Give me at least two weeks to get my Boston life in order,” she said at last.

Seth opened the portfolio, took out open-ended one-way first-class plane tickets back to Falls Church for her and the kids, an employment contract for one year, and the work-up for the job he wanted her to do locating a manufacturer for the hard-to-find wind turbine replacement part. He handed the stack of documents to Talia, grinning at the utter shock on her face as she sifted through them.

He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a top of the line cell phone and handed that to her as well.

“Here. If you have to take two weeks, you can start researching from where you are. Turn this on after you sign and date the contract. Your work can be done anywhere, but I don’t want to be so far away from you during the first year. That’s why I want you to move here.”

“You were awfully sure I’d say yes,” Talia told him, holding handfuls of her future and staring at the smiling man on her couch.

“My confidence helped me put two million through the bank last year,” Seth said, smiling. “I want to double that this year. I would think ten percent of your two million in sales would be a good incentive for you.”

Talia’s eyes lit with excitement, and she laughed openly.

“My husband was my first boss. I am not opposed to mixing pleasure and business. Are you sure you wouldn’t just rather date me?” Talia asked, laughing. “I’m an excellent wife. You’re a bit overbearing in some ways, but after what I’ve been through, I have an open mind about helpful men.”

“If you sign that contract, all I can offer is to let you call me Seth,” he told her with a huge smile, “but that’s as familiar as we will ever get. However, I am serious about getting you a date if you’re interested. All joking aside, the guy is a friend of mine now. He says I owe him a woman to date since I stole Jenna back. You’d help me get out of his debt if you went out with him even once.”

“Wow, is there anything you won’t wheel and deal about?” Talia asked, laughing. “Are you completely legal?”

“I am a damn boy scout about everything, which you’ll learn quickly enough. I’ll expect the same level of ethical decision-making from you,” Seth told her. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about import and export rules and how strict they are now. I simply don’t bend them. I’ve found it’s not worth it.”

“I don’t bend them either. I’ve had my share of debates in the past over that,” she mused.

“You’re going to like what I do,” Seth told her again. “You’re going to like the work even if you decide I’m a pain in the ass most of the time. So you’ll stay on and we’ll work things out. My instincts about business are very good, even if they’re not always spot on about personal matters.”

“Hence the need to steal your girlfriend back from your new friend?” Talia asked, grinning at his sincerity and his honesty.

“Yes. But I’m quickly learning my lessons about her too,” Seth said, smiling. “I intend to marry her as soon as she stops being stubborn and admits she’s still in love with me.”

Talia burst out laughing. “Well, I can see working for you will be entertaining if nothing else.” She stuck out a hand for Seth to shake. “I’ll let you know if I need contract changes, but for now let’s just say I accept. I’ll think about the date with your friend and let you know.”

“Great,” Seth told her. “Now I need to go track down my girlfriend to tell her something.”

Before Seth could rise from the couch, a little boy of three limped out of the bedroom wearing leg braces and walked slowly to where his mother sat on the couch.

Seth looked over at the boy, who hadn’t stopped staring. “Hello,” he said, reaching out a hand for the boy to shake. “I’m Seth Carter. Nice to meet you, Mason.”

“How do you know my name?” the boy asked quietly, but still reached out a tentative hand to Seth.

Grinning at the kid’s self-possession, Seth shook the boy’s hand briskly and dropped it gently.

“Your mother and I are going to be working together,” Seth said.

He shifted his attention to Talia, who was looking at her son with love and concern.

“When you come back, I’ll introduce you and your children to my cousin, Casey. He recently had a second hip replacement and has been doing physical therapy. He doesn’t even have to use his cane anymore. Casey can tell you about his program and what he’s learned.”

“You are an unusually thoughtful employer, Seth Carter,” Talia told him.

The more she found out about him; the more she liked him. Too bad he was taken. But when she got back Fall Church, Talia decided she would make it her business to find out just how taken Seth Carter was and make her own decision about it.

*** *** ***

When Seth contacted Jenna’s office looking for her, he was told she was out of the office on a job site. Seth knew exactly where she was and which site she was on, so he didn’t bother leaving a message for her.

Pulling into the gravel area poured in the shape of the circular driveway it would contain, Seth instantly fell in love with what he saw. The front curved back around what would be a paved entrance. Each side of the house extended out the length of multiple rooms. What would save the house from looking colonial when it was finished was the stucco and stone materials and the modern sculpture fountain that would grace the front.

Jenna had explained it to him just recently, and now he could see what she meant.

In the open frame of the center of the house, Seth admired the picture the serious-working Jenna made in her jeans, steel-toed boots, hard-hat and standard white shirt, the ends of it flapping in the breeze. There was an incredible sense of pride watching her going toe-to-toe with men who were all much larger than her. Seth could tell Jenna was agitated by the way she waved one of her hands toward the building while the other pointed to the blueprints on the paper with a demanding finger.

Seth almost felt sorry for the big men with the pained looks on their faces. The empathetic feeling made him grin. She was not going to be an easy wife, but she was not going to be boring either.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and just stood there watching her work. It was almost ten minutes before any of the group noticed him leaning on his car. When they did, it was Jenna who separated from the group and came over to him.

“What are you doing here?” Jenna demanded, irritation at the argument she’d just had making her unreasonably sharp with Seth. She felt chastised when Seth grinned and bit the inside of his jaw to keep from laughing. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to take your head off. Hi.”

“Hi back,” Seth said, reaching out to put a caressing finger in the opening of her shirt, stroking for a moment before pulling it back. “Having problems?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. You know, just because something’s never been done doesn’t mean it’s structurally impossible to do. Damn it, I’m the one with the architecture degree and I’m damn good with the math,” Jenna said harshly. “When I want it done a certain way, that’s what I expect.”

Seth chuckled to see her all riled up about something other than him for once.

“You don’t have to convince me. I trust your judgment. I happen to know you’re damn good at a lot of things,” he told her.

Jenna laughed at his teasing support, his words strangely calming to her despite the sarcasm lurking behind them. “I never knew you were a sweet talker, Seth. Want to look around while you’re here?”

“Dying to—thought you would never ask,” Seth told her.

“Let me get you a hard hat. It’s required. Wait here,” Jenna said, turning on her heel and stalking off.

Seth watched Jenna walk away from him, laughing because he knew she never questioned that he would do as she ordered. It dawned on him how much in control of herself and her surroundings Jenna had to be to work in a field where her primary interactions were convincing strong-minded men to do as she requested.

What he’d been reading as stubbornness in her was probably just a survival skill in her work. Not that he’d let her always order him around or have her way in everything, but Seth had to admit that he hadn’t exactly been the best about letting Jenna have much say in their relationship since they had been sleeping together.

He was too used to controlling his environment as well.

When she walked back to him carrying a hard hat in her hand, his heart rolled over in his chest. The sense of her belonging to him and with him was strong.

“Here. Bend your head down,” she ordered, putting the hat on him and fastening the chin strap. “There—you’re safe now. You’re going to get saw dust and god knows what else on your clothes, but there’s no protection from that. Come on.”