Mr. Personality (3 page)

With the ease of several years of teaching experience, she shifted into her assessment mode. In her line of work, she was faced daily with not only educating some pretty rough kids, but she also sought to bond with them enough to get them motivated to change their lives.

Something about Max Tucker’s ruthlessly walled-off emotions kept reminding her of her students. In school, she got through to young toughs everyday. The kids in her inner-city school faced tremendous social, emotional and physical hardships. She couldn’t help wondering what danger Max Tucker faced that had him so defensed.

“My resume. Of course.” The older applicant shuffled through her bag and produced a sheet of paper.

Sitting to the side of him, Nicole was in a position to observe Max Tucker. As he scanned the sheet of paper the older woman handed him, Nicole found herself sizing up the competition as if she were, in fact, seeking the job he offered.

Pretty slim pickings. The one woman was annoying and the other one too emotionally delicate.

When Max looked at the younger woman expectantly, she seemed to shrink further into herself. “I-I’m afraid…, I didn’t realize—The woman at the employment agency took mine. She said this was just a personal interview today.”

Max Tucker’s expressionless face chilled several more degrees. “In case I haven’t made myself clear, there will be nothing ‘personal’ between us. I’m not looking for a friend. I’m hiring an employee.”

Barely stifling the exclamation that rose to her lips, Nicole lifted her head to stare at him. Did this guy treat everyone with the same complete contempt? So what if these women weren’t great employee material? They still deserved some consideration.

The young job applicant stared at him with a stricken expression, the sheen of tears in her frightened eyes. “I didn’t bring a resume.”

“And you?” Maxwell Tucker asked, his gaze coming to rest on Nicole. “You didn’t bring a resume either?”

Her breath lodged in her constricted throat, Nicole shook her head in answer to his question.

A slight frown on his face, Tucker stared at her a moment, as if the sight of her triggered an elusive memory. Would he remember their very brief meeting two days ago in the hall outside this very apartment?

Nicole held her breath, praying against the inevitable. But after a moment, he glanced back down at the one resume in his hand, apparently unable to place her face.

In that moment, Nicole could only be grateful that he was the kind of person who tended to ignore his fellowman.

“I suppose I should have expected something of the kind,” Tucker told them, still looking at the older woman’s sheet of paper, boredom evident on his handsome face.

Nicole’s blood began to simmer. Just because Max Tucker was a famous, wealthy author didn’t give him the right to be such a bastard.

Still standing, he resumed scanning the older woman’s resume, his expression growing more distant. “You worked for a publishing house. It will be understood that I am not looking for unsolicited ‘editorial input.’ I have enough of that from copy editors.”

“Oh, no,” the older applicant hastened to assure him with a bright smile. “I understand completely. I’ve read some of your books. I know how geniuses are.”

Her laugh grated against the tension in the room. “In fact, my brother is an aspiring writer. Not on
your
level, of course, but he’s very good. He writes spy thrillers. You know, like John LeCarre? Anyway—“

Her gaze sharpened on Max Tucker’s increasingly sardonic facial expression. “I understand. I wouldn’t change a thing in your books.”

An edgy silence followed her eager assurance.

Seeming to dismiss her, Max Tucker glanced at the other woman and, briefly, at Nicole. “If you don’t have a resume, perhaps you can summarize your qualifications.”

Nicole drew in a tight breath in anticipation of the excruciatingly awkward moment ahead of her. On her job, she’d faced a knife-wielding kid who was high on crack, but, strangely, Max Tucker seemed even more unreachable. There was that elusive something in his expression that kept reminding her of her angrier, bad-ass students, a fragile kind of fear mixed with hostility in the back of their eyes.

“Well, Brad Smedford…and a mystery writer. I think her name was Ann James.” She faltered under the critical scrutiny of the man standing in front of her. “I’ve worked mostly for writers. I-I can’t remember all their names, right now.”

Max Tucker waited.

The older woman interrupted. “If you’ll glance at my resume,” she threw Nicole and the younger applicant a triumphant glance, “you’ll see that I’ve worked on Wall Street and for IBM, too.”

“Well,” the older woman said, seeming to flounder for the first time, “I understand—genius has its quirks. A man with your talent—“

Her glance seemed to fawn over him.

“—doesn’t have to—doesn’t want to—that is to say—he shouldn’t have to worry about other people’s feelings— My brother has days when he’s really crabby.” Her raucous laughter rang out again. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Nicole felt the urge to slap the woman. People’s feelings
always
mattered. And where did this woman get off, kissing up like that to Maxwell Tucker? He was probably loved hearing he could behave anyway he wanted.

Glancing over to see his reaction, Nicole was surprised to see scorn disturb his impassive features. But before she could draw any real conclusions, a stifled sound like a swallowed sob, drew her gaze back to the younger woman. The poor thing sat on the edge of her chair, gripping her purse as if she were preparing to bolt from the room. Job interviews were clearly not her thing.

“I’m very eager to work with you,” the older woman persisted, demonstrating all the sensitivity of a rhinoceros. “I could maybe help my brother. Seeing how you do things might give me some ideas—“

“I doubt that.” Max’s words were blunt. “In any case, I’m not here to further anyone else’s career. There’s more than enough dreck on the store shelves, as it is.”

“I don’t care what you’re trying to do. You are wasting my time. I have no interest in hiring you.” Tucker stood by the door, clearly immovable and, just as clearly, tired of the whole situation.

“I’m sorry.” She gulped back a sob. “I’m just…not good…with
hostility!”

Unconsciously, Nicole had risen too. She moved toward the weeping woman, holding out a tissue.

She could understand Max Tucker’s annoyance with her excessive timidity, but the woman’s obvious distress left Nicole with the urge to say something in her defense.

The woman might be overly-sensitive, but her emotions were genuine. With difficulty, Nicole repressed an urge to put a comforting arm around her.

“Hostility?” Max Tucker echoed, annoyance on his handsome features.

“You…,” she struggled to speak, “you’re so
unfeeling
!”

“My feelings are not the issue and I’m not here to flatter anyone,” Max Tucker said incisively. “This is a job interview.”

The older woman, pausing as she exited the room, turned and announced in a loud voice, “I can see the employment agency certainly didn’t exaggerate when they said you’re difficult to work with! No amount of money would be enough!”

She turned and swept out of the room.

The younger applicant, still sobbing into Nicole’s tissue, was understood to say she couldn’t stand hostility. “No one told me he was this difficult to work with! I can’t work surrounded by so much anger!”

Despite the compassion the younger woman’s distress drew from her, Nicole also shared some of the impatience radiating from Tucker. It wasn’t like he’d called them names or anything. Of course, he was about as warm and reassuring as a handsome chunk of ice, but no one said bosses had to be cuddly.

Watching the weeping younger woman follow the other woman out the door, Max said with a bite, “Good. I don’t need sobbing, idiots—“

Nicole realized she was trembling as she stood in the room now only occupied by herself and the great Maxwell Tucker. She understood why people called him a bastard. He didn’t pull any punches and had no patience for those he considered insignificant.

What the heck had him all locked up inside?

In a flash of realization, she knew she wanted to cross swords with him, wanted to see if she could reach the warm, breathing man walled off in the shell of his cold withdrawal. It was crazy, but she wondered if he needed…rescuing. She knew as well as most other adults who dealt with troubled youth that the bad-ass kids most desperately needed reassurance.

She also knew that
rescuing
others could be a really bad idea.

Not waiting for him to turn around and possibly recognize her as the woman who’d been trying to speak to him several days before, Nicole gambled and took the offensive.

“Why didn’t you hire the one who sucked up to you?” She kept her voice cool. “At least, she wouldn’t cry when you came in the room.”

Tucker swung around to face her.

“
She
already believes you don’t have to treat people with common decency. Your
genius
gives you the right to be heartless whenever you feel like it.”

Her heart thundering in her ears, she smiled blandly at him. After all, it wasn't like she had much to lose here.

“Apparently not,” Max commented, after a second, his gaze focusing on her. “She wasn’t so tolerant when I made it clear I had no intention of wasting my time nurturing her brother’s literary posturing.”

“You don’t know anything about her brother or his writing. He might be good. Maybe as good as you, although that would be unlikely, though, since you
are
God’s gift to the reading world.”

“I know who you are.” Recognition at last flashing in his eyes, he interrupted her implied insult as if he hadn’t heard her. “You’re that Cavanaugh fool’s daughter. The guy who plagiarized
Bondage
. You're the one who’s been standing outside my building the last day or two. What the hell are you doing in here?”

Well, that was getting to the point with efficiency, she thought, trying to ignore the sick feeling in her gut. This situation could go so bad for her father. What was she doing?

Tucker stood staring at her with arrogance, his face darkening.

Apologizing would probably be a good idea right about now. If she threw herself on his mercy and licked his boots— No! Nicole looked up at the tall, dark figure in front of her. She may have already blown any small chance she had of changing this guy’s mind about suing her father, but she couldn’t quite ignore the niggling feeling that Max Tucker was reachable.

How? How could she get to him? She knew she was good at working with groups of seventeen year-old toughs who had too many hormones and even more bravado, but this guy…. Even she probably couldn’t reach him in the short five minutes it would take the police to come haul her away.

“I’ll tell you what I’m doing here,” she said, feeling steadied by her decision to throw caution to the wind and take a gamble. “I’m here witnessing some of the poorest management skills ever. Don’t you know you’re supposed to set them at ease in order to ferret out their weaknesses? How many job interviews have you done?”

There was a startled look in his eyes, as if she’d thrown him an unexpected curve ball. Reveling in that flash, Nicole knew it might be the only good moment to come of a really bad bunch of decisions, starting with her determination to come to New York.

“Unnecessary!” He recovered his balance quickly as a humorless smile curled a corner of his mouth. “Their weaknesses were obvious.”

“Well, you’ve got that icy disdain thing down to an art form.” She wished she had pockets in her linen pants. Any place to stuff her hands right now. “I teach teenagers for a living. I’ve seen some pretty good bullies, but you take the cake. Does that ‘cold, heartless bastard’ thing come in handy when the paparazzi are bothering you? You know, it doesn’t really work well with people you’re trying hire.”

“What are you doing here, Ms. Cavanaugh?”

There was no need to answer the question, Nicole thought. He knew why she was here. “When I first came to New York to talk with you, I thought you just didn’t understand about the mistake my father made in copying some of your book. He's an old man and he didn't mean any harm. But now I’m wondering if you get some kind of misguided pleasure from the situation. Kind of like scaring the pants off that silly girl just now. I have to admit to being surprised by you. Your work demonstrates an unusual degree of understanding of people and what makes them tick. And then, I get to witness this kind of thing!”