“Really?”
She hiked a brow his way, and something in that arched brow told him that if he was shooting pool with Tara Simonetti, she’d be pocketing the eight-ball before he got half his stripes played.
“Is your mother’s staff here?”
He grimaced and clapped a hand to the back of his neck. “No. One has eight-week-old twins—”
“Oh, I love twins!” Tara couldn’t possibly be inventing the look of joy she shot his way. “Boys, girls, or a mixed set?”
“Boys. As I was saying . . .”
“Fraternal or identical?”
He had no idea. Why would he ask that? Why would she ask that? He started to bring the question back around to the matter at hand, but she put up a hand to pause him. “So she’s out for a while, I take it.”
“Yes.”
“And who else works here?”
“Jean, she’s marvelous, but her father’s ill and she’s got to have a few weeks to take care of him. He’s a great old guy.” He shrugged because Jean’s dad had been good to him for the twelve years she worked here. No way could he begrudge her time with him, even if it left them in a lurch.
She glanced around the roomy store, puzzled. “That’s it?”
“No, of course not.” Two people could never run a thriving bridal business. The idea was ridiculous. “There’s Kathy, she’s been the assistant manager for years. She’s the greatest lady.”
“Is she in the back?” Tara moved left and peeked around a corner, then turned back with a questioning gaze.
“Norovirus.”
“Ouch. So she’s out for—”
“A couple of days, most likely.”
“Which leaves you. Unless you’ve got other employees?”
“We’re in a bind, but honestly, Miss Simonetti . . .”
“Tara.” She corrected him as she flipped her head forward and down, the mass of hair tumbling halfway to the floor. He stared as she wound it into a twist, tucked it up and under, then wove a pencil through the hair, creating an old-fashioned and very professional knot just above the nape of her neck.
And a very pretty neck it was.
“Greg, you don’t know me. And I’m going to bet you don’t know bridal all that well, because the minute I saw your name I recognized it. Anyone who’s followed mergers and acquisitions would realize you’ve been too busy dissecting companies to have much wedding experience yourself.”
Was that a backhanded compliment or a clever dig? He wasn’t sure. “While that’s true, I—”
A young woman appeared at the entrance and peered in through the glass.
Tara glanced toward the door. It was the stroke of ten, Saturday morning. The first customer had arrived.
She smiled and offered a challenge. “Let me have a try with this one. If it’s a total bust, you win. I’ll leave and go flip burgers to earn food money.”
“And if you do well?”
“Then we settle on wages and compensation at the end of the day.”
“Compensation? Don’t wages qualify as compensation, Tara? Because they do in the corporate world.” He said it as a challenge, but he had to admire the way she tossed the barter out there, as if she had bargaining rights.
“I was thinking along the lines of a cheesesteak from Sonny’s and a Rita’s frozen ice. I’m planning to be hungry by five.”
She turned and greeted the first bridal group as they stepped through the inner door. Taking her jacket and theirs, she hung them in the closet to the far left. She let him enter the bride’s information into the computerized system while she walked around the cavernous bridal room to his right.
She slipped on a pair of dark-rimmed glasses as she surveyed the displays, and his heart about fell out of his chest.
The tucked-up hair, well-done makeup, and “I’m smarter than you thought” glasses made him draw a deep breath.
She said she was a 3-L, a third-year law student, across town at Temple. That meant she’d be leaving in a few months, going back to wherever she came from, her law degree in hand. But if looks could sell wedding gowns?
Tara Simonetti would get a solid commission check come February.
Smokin’ hot with the greatest eyes known to mankind.
The phrase summed up Greg Elizondo, with his dark, wavy hair, deep brown eyes, thick brows, and rugged jaw. At about five-ten he wasn’t huge, but he carried himself huge, which explained the legal kudos surrounding his work a few blocks away in Center City.
You’re not interviewing for a date, sweetums. You want a job, and if you get the job at the end of the day? Crushing on the boss would be a stupid action on your part. Savvy?
Tara savvied, all right, and she had a list of solid reasons to avoid ladder-climbing lawyer types, so she nudged the handsome owner into a mental closet labeled “hands off” and examined the walls of gowns surrounding her. Silk brocade, embroidered hems, Swarovski crystals, draped bodices, and ruched side-sweeps.
Tara Simonetti was pretty sure she’d died and gone to heaven.