The Billionaire's New Year Gift. Emma Darcy

a silly teenager.

      Quickly striding away, she decided the best thing for her would be to give Alex Noble a wide berth. A really wide berth. On the other hand, that wouldn’t be the best thing for HuntCom.

      In fact, she should probably keep a close eye on him these first few weeks. Make sure he was actually doing the job he’d been hired to do.

      But for the rest of the morning, she kept her distance. She would quiz Rick later, see what he thought. Maybe she was just paranoid about Alex because he was so attractive. Face it, she chided herself, you’ve been exposed to too many good-looking, self-centered, arrogant men in your lifetime and now you think they’re all like that.

      Maybe Alex Noble would prove to be the exception.

      Yeah, right.

      But P.J. wasn’t going to hold her breath.

       Chapter Two

      “I thought there was a hiring freeze.”

      P.J. made a face. “Yeah. That’s what I thought, too.” She and Anna were just finishing up lunch.

      Anna popped the last bite of her tuna-fish sandwich into her mouth, then wiped her mouth with her napkin. “But Jimmy said you’ve got a new picker.”

      P.J. nodded.

      “So what’s the deal?”

      “You tell me.”

      “Me?” Anna laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

      “Well, you usually hear all the gossip, so I thought if anyone would know what’s going on, you would,” P.J. pointed out. That was the other thing about Alex Noble—maybe even the most important thing—the fact he’d been foisted on her without any warning.

      “I haven’t heard a word,” Anna said. “Not a peep.” She reached for a plastic bag filled with cut-up apple.

      P.J. polished off her turkey sandwich, accompanied by a handful of potato chips—she was a junk-food addict, much to her mother’s chagrin. “Not even from Ben?” Ben Garza was the HR Director and he’d had a thing for Anna for a while.

      Anna made a face. “I’ve been avoiding Ben.”

      P.J. refrained from saying something trite like you could do worse. She knew how sick she was of people trying to pair her off with guys who didn’t interest her in the slightest. Still, she almost felt sorry for Ben. He wasn’t the best-looking guy in the world, but he had a good job and he seemed really decent. But Anna simply wasn’t interested. She’d gone out with him twice and told P.J. that the thought of going to bed with him actually turned her stomach.

      “So what’s he like?”

      “The new guy?”

      Anna laughed. “Yes, P.J., the new guy.”

      P.J. frowned and finished chewing and swallowing before answering. “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to belong here.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “He’s too good-looking. Too…sophisticated or something.”

      Anna chewed thoughtfully on a piece of apple. “Tina said he’s a hunk.”

      “Tina? When did she see him?”

      “She snuck down to your area earlier this morning. Said she wanted to check him out.” Anna grinned. “We don’t get that many eligible guys here. Handsome eligible guys. Every woman in the place is going to be checking him out. Maybe they already have.” Anna’s grin turned sly. “So if you want him, P.J., you’d better stake your claim early.”

      “Want him? I have absolutely no interest in Alex Noble. Believe me, he’s not my type.”

      “What’s wrong with him?”

      “I told you. He’s too good-looking.” The truth was, Alex looked like he belonged in her sisters’ crowd. The country club, golf and tennis crowd. The Armani crowd. The kind of men P.J. had wanted to get away from.

      “Tina says he looks like Colin Firth.”

      “Who the hell is Colin Firth?” Irritation made P.J.’s voice increase in volume.

      Anna looked at her as if she’d suddenly grown two heads. “You mean there’s a female alive on this earth who doesn’t know Colin Firth?” Her voice was laced with astonishment.

      “What is he? A movie star? You know I don’t pay attention to those people.” In P.J.’s opinion, movie stars were only a cut above rock stars, and P.J. considered them the armpit of the universe, with no redeeming social value whatsoever.

      Anna sighed. “Honey, Colin Firth is way more than a movie star. He’s the most gorgeous guy to come along in years. He’s British and has one of those upper-crust accents that is sooo sexy. He also has dreamy dark eyes, he’s tall, and he lives in a villa in Tuscany.” She sighed again. “Unfortunately, he’s married.”

      P.J. rolled her eyes. Honestly, even sensible Anna could be an airhead at times. “Alex Noble isn’t that good-looking.”

      “No? Well, with your ideas about men, I don’t think I can trust your judgment, P.J. I think I’ll have to have a look myself.”

      P.J. abruptly stood and began clearing up her trash. “Oh, for God’s sake. Come and drool all over him. I certainly don’t care. Just make sure you don’t distract him from his work.”

      “Somebody certainly is testy all of a sudden,” Anna said, giving P.J. a knowing look.

      P.J. knew she’d overreacted, and for the life of her, she didn’t know why. All she knew was, she was heartily sick of the subject of Alex Noble.

      Alex was beat.

      He’d thought he was in great physical shape. Hell, he worked out three times a week at the gym and played tennis at least three times a week. But he had a soft job at the foundation, mainly sitting on his butt. And today, for the first time since he’d spent a summer building houses with Habitat for Humanity, he’d done physical labor, with lots of stretching, kneeling and lifting. He’d used muscles he hadn’t even known he had. So by the time four o’clock rolled around, he was more than ready to leave.

      Other than that, he was satisfied with how the day had gone. He found it interesting seeing how many orders came through during his shift and how much work was involved in filling them and getting the merchandise shipped out. Although before he started this job, he’d studied the numbers associated with HuntCom and its myriad arms, actually seeing all the products they manufactured and sold was a real eye-opener.

      Whether you worshiped at the altar of money and power or not, you had to admire what Harry had accomplished. It wasn’t as if he’d come from money. Just the opposite, in fact. Alex’s Hunt grandparents had been squarely middle-class. His grandfather Hunt owned a small hardware store; his grandmother had been a stay-at-home mom.

      And Harry had been a too-tall, just-this-side-of-weird, geek.

      Yet look what he’d accomplished. He’d developed ground-breaking software that had changed the personal computer industry practically overnight and followed that by designing cutting edge hardware that was as good as or better than anything else on the market.

      Now he was worth billions.

      And he employed thousands of people.

      Alex had met a couple of dozen of those people today. Among them several attractive women. Two of those women seemed promising as far as his bride hunt went—one worked in the mail room, one was a picker from a different quad—although he’d have to know more about both of them before he could make any kind of decision. After all, he was talking about the future mother of his children.