The Tycoon's Marriage Exchange (10 page)

When the servant had finished placing the food in front of both of them, then disappeared again, Kallista ventured a conversational topic that she’d been dying to open with him, but worried that she might come across as ignorant.  But since she had been to several events lately with him and still didn’t know, she decided to just ask him and get it out of the way.  Better to let him know about this gap in her knowledge now rather than in a year or two after their wedding. 
“Can you tell me a little bit about what you do?” she asked. 

He started telling her about some of the companies he had acquired and why, how they helped the overall
parent
company
expand
and
Kallista
was amazed
at how interconnected all of his businesses were
.  She’d been prepared to try and listen attentively, but as he spoke she became fascinated by his strategy.  While some people had a five year career plan, Hector had a twenty year growth plan and not just for his core company, but for the smaller companies that he had acquired. 
He was even one of those amazing people who didn’t forget the immediate issues, knowing the short term goals that needed to be worked in order to achieve the long term
target. 

“You aren’t one of those guys that comes in and fires everyone once you’ve bought out the company, are you?” she asked as dessert was being served.

Hector
looked right back at her, not backing down even an inch
.  “You’re not one of those bleeding heart liberals who think the government owes everyone a job, are you?”

She laughed and
relented, understanding that she wasn’t going to get concessions out of this man.  Nor would she respect him if he did
.
“Not at all.  I am a firm believer in every person figuring out how to add value to this world.  I don’t agree when people claim that the government should create jobs.  I think people should create their own opportunities, while the government makes sure that the playing field is fair
for everyone and not making it easy for just a select few
.”

“But business isn’t fair.”

She was startled and looked up at him with a slanted glance. 
“It should be.”

“And what if I’m one of those guys that fires everyone?  What would you say?”

She took a sip of her ice water and considered him for a long moment.  “You aren’t, are you?”

He shrugged as if to act like firing people was a casual activity, but the look on his face told her that he wouldn’t take those kinds of actions lightly. 
“I’m not shy about letting go of the dead weight.  So anytime I purchase a company, some people are let go.”

That was an interesting statement, she thought.  Leaning forward, she asked,
“How do you determine which
people are let go?  How do you define ‘dead weight’
?”

“I have a team of people who come in and are trained to analyze what people are doing
and how efficient and effective they are at their jobs
.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. 
“How is that done?”

“There’s no secret to it, really.  A fresh set of eyes is usually all it takes.  Sometimes
the old
management just plugs along, letting people do their job when the reality is that
most workers
are only about fifty percent occupied. 
The rest either slough off their work to their coworkers or they chat in the office kitchens or hallways pretending to be working, but really, they’re just killing time until they can leave at the end of each work day.  I have a specially trained
team
that comes in and
figures out how responsibilities might be combined, offers challenges to those who deserve them and releases those who don’t.”

“I don’t think you’re one of those tough guys, are you?”

He leaned back in his chair, considering her
concerned expression
over his glass of wine.  “I’m pretty tough.  I have to be so others don’t take advantage of me.”

“I can’t imagine anyone taking advantage of you,” she laughed.

“Some try,” he countered.

“
W
hat happens to them
?
”

He shrugged and she watched in fascination as his eyes turned dark and hard.  “They are eliminated.”

She swallowed painfully.  “As in killed?”

He threw back his head and laughed, shaking his head.  “I guarantee there are no murders on my conscience.”
  He should probably be angry that she thought him capable of murder, but she just looked too cute as she worried over his misdeeds. 

Kallista thought that perhaps she’d been delving into the criminal world a bit too much lately with her drug investigation.  She was seeing criminals even in her fiancé. 
“
Sorry about that.  Silly question. 
What do you do when someone gets in the way or tries to slow you down?”

He was still smiling as he said,
“I told you.  I eliminate the issue.”

She wanted details, but she suspected he wasn’t going to give her any. 
Kallista
thought about letting the subject drop, but as a journalist, she simply couldn’t squelch her curiosity. 
Trying a different approach,
she tilted her head to the side and looked at him with her professional eyes, looking for different things than she would if she were looking at him as her future husband. 
“Say I’m a competitor and I try to hire out your most important asset.”

He saw the change in her body language and her facial features and was fascinated.  What had just happened, he wondered
?
  Where had the wide eyed, lush ingénue gone?  The woman had suddenly transformed into an almost different person, although her incredible figure hadn’t disappeared, he noted with irritation.  Damn, but he wanted her.  Seeing the different sides to her was only increasing his
absorption
with this woman. 
“How would you have found out what my important asset is?”

She bit her lip, trying to figure out where he was going.  “This person is developing the next best thing for one of your computer companies.  It’s the thing that everyone wants and only you have the technology and the supply chain to develop the product and bring it to the market.”

Hector watched as she bit her full, lower lip and he was jealous.  He wanted to bite that lip, to taste her mouth and feel the fullness of her lip.  “Okay, what’s the issue?”  He forced his eyes to stop watching her pretty teeth on her lip and concentrate on her question. 

Kallista considered different scenarios, then tried to come up with something that would impact his current business, drawing from their earlier conversations. 
“Your competition learns that this one person is developing the product and makes this person an offer they can’t refuse.  What would you do?”

He leaned forward and took her hand, pulling her up out of her chair and leading her over to the sofa that was facing the crackling fire, offering soft light and romantic ambiance.  “First of all, I wouldn’t allow any one employee to have so much power and knowledge.  There are much more effective ways to develop a product so that one person isn’t the lynch pin.
  It also creates a better product when more than one mind, one opinion is building a product.  It is stronger, more accurate and has a wider customer base because the creativity of a group is stronger.
”

Damn, he had a good point.  She wasn’t going to relent though.  Even his arguments were showing her more about the way his mind works.  “
But what if this
one
person had the idea
?
”

“
You’re pushing an ideal, not reality.  It’s rare that one person has a single brilliant idea and is able to bring it to a market successfully.  I understand what you’re trying to question, but come at it from a different angle. 
My companies don’t rely on single person ideas. Most products are a team effort, more of a brainstorming path than a single point of brilliance.  Which isn’t to say that I don’t have brilliant people working for me.”

For the next hour,
Kallista
asked questions, offered situations and asked him how he would handle the problem or keep his competition from intervening, or even interrupting for small periods of time in getting a specific product to market.  As she listened, her respect for this man grew enormously.  She truly respected the way his mind worked and how he viewed the people in his companies.  He wasn’t one of those moguls who sat on his empire and considered his employees to be subordinate humans. 
From the way he spoke, Hector knew that each person had a talent and
Hector
figured out the best way to capitalize on that capability. 

She smiled up at him with her newfound knowledge. “So you’re one of the good guys.”

He shook his head
, not
willing to be put on a pedestal
no matter how nice it sounded coming from her beautiful lips
.  “Don’t paint me as a saint
Kallista
.  I’m out to make money just like the other guys.”

“You’
re just better at it than most,” she grinned, impressed with this man more than ever.  And a little less intimidated although his size was still a factor. 

“I make my fair share of mistakes.”

She laughed and raised an eyebrow. “When was the last time you made a mistake?”

Hector thought
that
becoming engaged to a woman who drove him insane with lust was a perfect example, but he didn’t think she would see the irony of that.  “I could have moved faster or slower on certain deals that might have resulted in a more beneficial outcome.”

She laughed again, sure that he was
only
mocking her.  “And that was about as ambiguous
a reply
as a person can be
, coming from a man that the world really knows nothing about.  Why don’t you do interviews?  It sounds like you have a great deal of wisdom that others could use in their business dealings.  And your logic could be applied to areas other than business
.”

He smiled and shook his head.  “I prefer my life to be private.”

“Why is that?” she asked, curious that such an amazing and dynamic man wouldn’t want accolades for his success like so many others.  She actually liked that about him, but wanted to understand the reasons and not just the actions.  She sensed there was something deeper inside of him, something he was hiding from her and her curiosity was running rampant. 

He reached out and touched her cheek, amazed by the softness of he
r skin, not answering her question in favor of finding out some answers of his own. 

Kallista
felt his touch and froze.  There were those feelings again, making her stomach jump and her heart race. 
The reaction was instantaneous and embarrassing.  She felt ashamed that her body would react like this, with feelings so deep, in private places that she didn’t want him to know anything about. 
It was like she’d just run a marathon and couldn’t catch her breath
and her body was doing things, feeling things that were shocking
, throbbing in areas she didn’t
really think should throb in those ways
.  She stood up, backing away from the sofa and looking around for an escape route
and almost stumbling on the coffee table, then the chair to the side
.
She knew she looked like a fool, but she couldn’t stop herself from needing space from him, from his touch and the way he made her feel. 

Hector stood up himself and cursed
, furious with her reaction to his simple touch and angry with himself because he actually cared.  He didn’t want her to be repulsed by his touch.  Of all the women in the world, why was he now engaged to the one female who couldn’t s
tand it when he reached for her?
 
Why did so many other women throw themselves at him, claim to want him badly, and he was experienced enough to know that they weren’t faking those reactions, but this one tiny, beautiful woman wanted nothing to do with him? 

P
lacing his wine glass on the coffee table with a loud snap.  “
Kallista
, we’re going to have to talk about this,” he said and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. 

“No.  There’s nothing to talk about,” she said frantically, backing away several more feet in a desperate effort to gain more space between their bodies.  Even now, as he stood there by the fireplace, all she wanted to do was move towards him and put her hands on his shoulders, having him touch her once again.  And those feelings terrified her.  She didn’t want to feel this way about a man she didn’t know.  It made her feel cheap and promiscuous. 

Why was Hector’s touch so different from the other men she’d dated in the past?  Why did he have to be the one who set her nerve endings on fire with excitement?