The first two options are men. One younger, one older. Both with brilliant experience and impressive resumes. One makes too many nervous jokes. The other won’t stop fidgeting as he sits being questioned. Neither are an option, and I message to have them dismissed before the interviews can be concluded.
Leaning across my desk to push the intercom button to call Bianca for another coffee, I see the next person walk into the first room.
At first, I can’t fully process what I’m seeing, and my entire body goes rigid with shock. My hand hovers above thebutton, frozen as my mind races to make sense of what I’m seeing.
It can’t be her.
It’s impossible.
I grab the screen and pull it closer, staring at her face.
She brushes her hands elegantly over her legs as she sits down, smoothing her clothing.
She’s wearing a black dress, knee-length, formfitting and incredibly sexy. Over it, she has a white blazer to go with her white stilettos. She crosses one leg over the other and places her hands on her lap. Her back is straight, her expression is confident, and she remains silent and stern as she waits for the interviewer to greet her.
“Mrs. Ford, thank you for coming in,” Mark says, looking down at her file.
My heart flips over in my chest as tension rises inside me.
“Miss,” she corrects him politely.
“My apologies,” he smiles. He continues to look down at her paperwork. “You have a very impressive background for someone so young. How long have you been in this business now?”
“Four years in business analysis. Before that, I did data capturing, which was the start of my interest in analysis.”
“Four years…yet your skillset is impressively superior to most other candidates,” he murmurs to himself.
“Thank you,” she says, calm and cool.
She hasn’t smiled once.
Kayla Ford.
Am I really sitting here staring at the beautiful face of Kayla Ford? Is this really happening?
She is a piece of my past. A story I have not told or spoken of for five years, yet one I think about almost every day.
Five years.
She is the one who got away. The one I have and never will get over. She had every piece of my heart, and still to this day…to this day, I am not over her.
I had to let Kayla go. She was young and sweet and beautifully innocent. She was everything that would be destroyed if I allowed her into my world.
She had no idea who I really was or what I do for a living. She met a businessman. She was unaware of the Bratva underworld I owned.
She didn’t know the real me, and when I realized just how much she meant to me, I knew I had to push her away.
It was the most selfless thing I have ever done in my life. And I am not a selfless man.
It was also the most brutal thing I have ever done.
I couldn’t risk her trying to come back. I couldn’t risk her thinking there was or ever would be a chance between us ever again. I was cruel in pushing her away.
It broke me in ways I didn’t know were possible.
And now, staring at her, my heart is somersaulting, and my mind is racing in every possible direction.
Do not hire her.
