Page 48 of Savage Suit

“There’s no harm in boasting about your accomplishments, Ms. Hagen. I’ve read over your sample brief and reviewed your portfolio. Your former boss speaks highly of you. He sees a dazzling future ahead of you.”

“I’m sorry my time there ended. Mr. Smith was a great boss and fostered a wonderful working environment. But I am ready for more challenging accounts, which is why a position with you interests me.” She licked her lips and flushed at her unintended double entendre. “Er, job.” She drew in an agitated breath. “I desire a relationship with you. A pl-place in your company.”

“And I want to lock in your position with me,” I murmured, skirting inappropriateness.

Her gaze flew to mine. She licked her lips once more, drawing my attention to their dewy plumpness.

She wanted the job, not a fuck. I didn’t do office romance. In the past, I’d fired employees just for flirting. One had been Nicholas’s good friend, who’d fallen for a receptionist. Because he and my brother were friends, I’d ignored their burgeoning relationship. I’d looked the other way during their first and second breakups. When she ended up pregnant, he doubted his readiness for fatherhood. Nicholas believed I was blind. He fired the receptionist. I fired his friend, another sin he’d never forgive and awaited a chance for revenge.

If he detected the slightest hint of my attraction toward Ryan, he’d put her through hell. Then I’d have to kill him and ruin my fucking life.Orhe’d threaten to expose me and incite mutiny thanks to my hard-nosed stance.

My gaze touched on her every detail. The curve of her chin and the beauty of her cheekbones. The shape of her lips and the elegance of her brow. The brightness of her eyes and the silkiness of her skin. She could serve as the face of the perfume I wanted and sell millions of dollars’ worth of product.

Each time I saw her, I remembered the ball and couldn’t escape the small belief—hope?—Ryan stumbled into my room that night. Reason always intervened. She’d shown no recognition of me. Yet, if Ryan had beenher, and Nicholas fucked with her…

What?Yes, what? Her career meant everything to her. Flaunting my own rules to pursue Ryan wouldn’t have ended well. Unless she agreed to focus on philanthropy and forget working, disrupting my life was pointless.

Would it matter if Ryan had been the beauty in blue? If she was happy, could I demand she quit a profession she loved? If she wanted children, how could I deny her?

Those questions were as pointless as imagining Ryan as my girlfriend. She wasn’ther.Nicholas and I had enough enmity without my poetic justice. He accused me of heartlessness, but he thrived on my misery. He’d find a way to weaponize Ryan against me.

It wouldn’t matter how I’d looked the other way with Megan, despite my disgust at his infidelity. I returned to the interview.

“You worked on one perfume campaign.”

Desire still flushed her cheeks and drew my attention to her mouth. “Yes.”

I ignored the hot currents between us. “To which portion did you contribute?”

“As you implied, T.S. was a small agency, so most of the time I focused on the mood boards and ad copy. The client was friends with Mr. Smith and didn’t have a huge budget, so we’d recently played with ideas for packaging. The winner of the best design would get a bonus and another promotion. I was a team lead, so I would’ve been promoted to an account manager. I was stoked for the opportunity. They let me go before I explored concepts.”

“When you were not concentrating on ad copy, market research, design details and mood boards, what other areas of the campaign did you work on?”

“This account was labor intensive,” she admitted. “It should’ve brought in the most money, instead of the least amount as it did. The sample brief I submitted to you is a portion of what I wrote for this company.”

Markus Dorset’s games came to mind, and I scowled. “You can sing like a canary and whatever is in that brief is useless in court.”

She bristled. “It wasn’t legalities I spoke of, Mr. Keegan. It was ethics. Synthetic elements of a fragrance can have a scent mark, but no legal protections exist for a perfume.”

“In theory they do, Ms. Hagen,” I challenged.

“We aren’t discussing theories,” she snapped. “But absolutes. A fragrance is a blend of chemicals created in a lab. A scent is the result. However, a scent also refers to a natural smell. The scent of flowers in a garden, rain-dampened earth, freshly chopped wood.”

“If I wanted a perfume legally protected, what would you advise?”

“That you talk with your legal team since I don’t hold a law degree,” she retorted.

“Humor me. If I offer you the job and I tasked you with working with the legal department on behalf of a perfume, would you at least know the basics?”

She thought for a moment. “The composition of your fragrance can be patented.”

“The combination of ingredients,” I simplified.

“Yes,” she agreed softly, the sharpness in her voice gone, leaving behind a lyrical tone that aroused me. “Trade secret protection is best. If we filed a trademark, it would make the details of your composition public. Your strongest protection is in the design patent in packaging if you have a unique design or bottle. Or both.”

For a moment, I allowed her words to hang in the air. It gave me the chance to process her words. Forget my desire to sit next to her, draw her into my arms, and kiss her with reckless abandon. She drew in a breath, causing her tits to heave. While I licked the pulse point at her throat, I wanted to feel their weight in my hands.

“I have two positions open.” I debated on a cold shower or jerking off, since having her wasn’t an option. “Both are urgent and center on the House of Amage.”