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She offered him a soft smile. “Can I call a car for you, Mr. Rockford?”
His mouth fell open then slammed shut. She’d stumped him with her politeness, and I was quietly amused. Catherine had a way of handling the men I met with on a daily basis. Her manners never failed her, but she had a cutting edge beneath her soft outer layer.
“No, you can’t call a car for me, young lady.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” She gestured politely to the door. “If there’s anything else I can do to make your exit easier…”
His nostrils flared, and his eyes fell on her belly. “You really want to bring a kid into the world working for a man like this? What kind of mother are you—?”
That was enough.
I jerked him back by the collar of his sports jacket before he could complete his filthy question and marched him toward the door. He resisted, but the old guy wasn’t much more than bones and paunch beneath his tailored suit, so the little fight he put up was laughable.
Once he was on the street and my security team was alerted to keep him there, I rejoined Catherine in the lobby. Her lips were rolled over her teeth, eyes on her feet.
“Do you have anything to say, Catherine?”
She shook her head. “No. Nothing at all, Elliot.”
She held her notebook against her chest, her gaze averted. On anyone else, I might have taken her response at face value and believed she was interested in the uninspired architecture of our new building. But not Catherine.
She’d been holding herself back from day one.
If I hadn’t been so impressed by the ingenuity she’d shown in making an entirely new outfit from the lost and found box—a discarded cardigan, athletic leggings, an oversized blazer, and a tie as a belt—I wouldn’t have hired her.
Not because her résumé wasn’t up to snuff. It had been fine. And it wasn’t because her answers to my questions had been anything less than passable.
It was my job to understand what was beneath the surface of situations—and that extended to people. With Catherine, something broiled deep down, but she kept it buried. There were words on the tip of her tongue she routinely bit off and a flicker of opinion on her otherwise placid features she smoothed in the blink of an eye. I didn’t trust what I didn’t understand and therefore couldn’t predict.
Fortunately for her—and me, as it had turned out—Catherine Warner fit all my other criteria and had been a model employee.
We strolled to the elevator, and I hit the button for the penthouse. We were meeting with a designer to approve his proposal for converting the top ten floors into apartments. We had to strike hard and fast. Completing construction and moving in tenants ensured we didn’t end up in the same position as Donald.
Not that I would. I had too many fail-safes to ever find myself so deep in the red I could never get out.
“Did you feel sorry for him?” I asked, swiveling to face my silent assistant.
Her lips parted. Her answer was there, waiting to be unleashed. As always, she pressed them together and swallowed down what she truly wanted to say.
“It was difficult not to. He’s old. He doesn’t have time to rebuild an empire.” She lifted one shoulder. “It’s understandable that he was angry at you. You bought his debt for a fraction of the money he lost.”
I shook my head at her shortsightedness. “Donald Rockford had stripped away the livelihoods of more people than you can imagine. There are entire cities of skilled laborers who wouldn’t set foot on one of his projects or piss on him if he was on fire. I know because these people have worked for me, and unlike Donald, I pay them for the jobs they complete.”
She tucked an errant strand of her thick, auburn hair behind her ear, but it popped back out as soon as she withdrew her hand. A rebellion.
Catherine kept her hair tidy and straight, mostly in low ponytails, but these small tendrils betrayed her. They curled toward her face, almost ringlets. I often wondered if we were to get stuck outside in the rain, would she end up with a massive riot haloing her face?
“I don’t doubt he’s unscrupulous, but nothing is ever black and white,” she said. “It’s still sad to see a man who’s fallen as far as he has.”
I stuffed my hand in my pocket so she wouldn’t see my fingers curl into my palm with frustration.
“You shouldn’t offer sympathy to those who don’t deserve it, Catherine. That isn’t a trait that will take you far in life.”
Donald Rockford and his ilk would use a woman like Catherine as a stepping-stone if they thought it would get them ahead. There wouldn’t be sympathy when she was flattened in the process. They wouldn’t even notice her beneath them.
Her teeth dug into her bottom lip, and I couldn’t help wondering what she wanted to say to me.
“I’ll take note of that, Elliot.”
