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“It’s no small thing he’s won a scholarship to MIT.”
“It’s partial.”
“Yes.”
And dependent on Tobias completing his senior year with a full courseload of advanced classes and a near-perfect grade point average.
Considering how well the young man had done thus far, Enzu had no doubts on that score. Apparently the prestigious university didn’t, either.
“He is the reason you want this position, isn’t he?” It was the only key issue they hadn’t touched on in the interview.
Generally Enzu preferred to draw his own conclusions about people’s motivations. If asked, they often lied. However, he found he wanted confirmation of his suppositions in her case.
“Partly, yes.”
“Your parents refuse to help with his schooling?” he asked.
“They wouldn’t have paid child support if the state hadn’t forced them.”
“That is criminal.” Enzu might have been born in the United States, but his family was Sicilian and he’d spent every summer in the Old Country until he’d started working at the bank.
Even then he’d spent several weeks a year with his extended family.
A Sicilian took care of his children. No exceptions. His father and brother might not have gotten the memo, but Enzu had.
A Sicilian who had the chance to send his child to a good school? He sacrificed whatever was necessary to do so, just as his great-great-grandfather had done for his own son, paving the way for the foundation of their family’s current fortune.
The Millers weren’t rich like Enzu, but they were wealthy and could easily afford to send their son to MIT without the scholarship.
Audrey let out a low, bitter laugh. “I always thought so, but I’ve learned one thing about my parents. If they can’t control their children, that is considered failure, and failure is unacceptable. Better to write it off completely.”
“Were they always like that?”
“I didn’t notice so much as a child, but then I lived in my own world of books and make-believe.” She sighed. “They were always cold, hard to please. I don’t remember them ever telling us they loved us, so I should not be surprised it turned out that they didn’t.”
“And yet they had four children?”
“The first two were planned and exactly to spec. I was Mother’s oops baby of her thirties and Toby was her little accident in her forties.”
“No child is an oops or an accident.” Enzu was outraged on her behalf.
His parents were self-serving and allergic to responsibility, but they had never made him feel like they would rather he’d not have been conceived, much less born. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Enzu was certain that his father had been planning for the day he could abdicate his business responsibilities to his son from the day of Enzu’s birth.
“I agree, but then as the official oops I’m prejudiced in my thinking.”
“Franca is not Johana’s child.” Enzu had not meant to admit that, but eventually he would have to tell Audrey if she turned out to be the successful candidate.
That eventuality was looking more and more likely.
“I know. They didn’t even start dating until three years ago.”
“You’ve done your own research.”
“Are you surprised?”
“No. More impressed.”
“Funny. I find your dossier on me invasive.”
“Perhaps I am too used to being the focus of unrelenting interest.”
“Your brother and parents spend a lot more time in the forefront of the media.”
“It takes a great deal of effort and foresight on my part to keep my own affairs private.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Why there’s all sorts of information about the business exploits of the man who took over his family bank’s presidency at twenty-three and became a billionaire by the time he was thirty-five. But no girlfriends. No exploits.”
“I do not indulge in girlfriends or exploits worthy of media attention.”
“Or if you do you do a very good job of hiding your involvement.”
“For instance?”
“Tomasi Enterprises funnels financial resources into a fund that has donated significant amounts to disaster relief ever since the levies broke in New Orleans.”
“How did you find that out?”
“I told you, research. The study of English Literature requires a fine ability to follow obscure references and threadbare connections.”
“I see. I guess it’s a good thing the media sharks that target me weren’t English Lit majors.”
“Why not let people know about your company’s generosity? Wouldn’t that be good for the bottom line?”
“We have an official charitable donation fund.”
“But it’s a lot smaller than the amounts you’ve given in secret.”
“If it weren’t, Tomasi Enterprises would be inundated with requests for money. We aren’t the Red Cross.”
“I think you’re a lot of things you pretend not to be.”
Audrey’s expression worried him a little. “Do not make me into a hero. I am not. If you forget the basic truth that I am at heart a ruthless businessman, you will get hurt.”
“And you don’t want that?”
“No.”
“That’s not exactly ruthless.”
“I didn’t say that if my interests and yours collided I would not hurt you, only that it would be my preference not to.”
“I’ll try and remember that.”
He did not like the humor underlying her tone. “Do.”
“Tell me how you ended up the bank’s president at twenty-three.”
“My father abdicated.”
“But didn’t he only take over from your grandfather a few years before that?”
She really had done her research. “Yes. Grandfather’s heart precluded him continuing in the position. I do not think either of them wanted my father in the chain of command.”
“Because your father is more interested in having fun than in making the money that makes that fun possible?”
“You have a way with words.”
“That’s how I became a customer service specialist.”
“I imagine our clients find you a soothing presence on the other end of the phoneline.”
Audrey grimaced. “Most of the time, yes. Some people are just plain cranky.”
No doubt. “I tend to expect perfection.”
“I’m sure you get it.”
“Most of the time.” He repeated her words.
She smiled. “You didn’t really answer my question.”
“I did.”
“No, you explained the chain of events that led to you being bank president right out of graduate school, but not how you made that work. Most twentysomethings would have ended up sending the bank under.”
“I worked summers and weekends at the bank since my fourteenth birthday. And then I interned in management while getting my MBA from Columbia. You could say I was raised in the bank.”
“You never acted like you didn’t want the responsibility, but it couldn’t have been easy watching your brother get to enjoy his youth in a way you never did. Heck, your father was partying up like a twenty-three-year-old when you were busy saving the family fortune.”
“Why should I have complained?” Enzu asked in genuine confusion. “I always wanted to take over the bank.”
“Why?”
Audrey had more insight than most, and Enzu wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he answered her question with candor. “It was painful to watch it languish under my father’s leadership. Even my grandfather ignored opportunity after opportunity to grow the business. He was too busy catering to a limited clientele with ties back in Sicily.”
The Sicilian branch, Banca Commerciale di Tomasi, had been the beginning of the bank, but that didn’t mean it had to continue to be the mainstay institution.
He added, “Tomasi Commercial Bank has always prided itself on being accessible to its Sicilian brethren, but today the American side is far more diversified and international.”
“So you had plans to expand the bank from the beginning?” she asked, sounding like she found it hard to imagine someone of his age with those aspirations.
“When I took over, Tomasi Commercial Bank had only three branches on the East Coast. Within three years of me stepping up to the helm we had branches of the bank in all of the biggest U.S. cities.”
