Mr. Personality Read Free

hundred bucks if you get a picture of Max Tucker when you go in for the job interview.”
    “What?” Nicole moved away from him, nearly bumping into one of the women who waited at the doorway.
    “During the interview the agency sent you here for. A hundred bucks,” the photographer hissed, holding a tiny camera out for her. “Just snap a few frames when he’s distracted.”
    “No.” She turned away from him. The doorman was motioning the women into the building.
    It all happened in a blurred moment. Nicole pulling back from the sleazy photographer, the cluster of women moving toward the door.
    Realization burst upon her.
    The women waiting at the door were here to apply for a job with Max Tucker!
    This was it! She could join the group. The photographer had already assumed she was with the others! Her chance to get in again, to see Tucker again and reason with him. If she could just talk to him face-to-face, she could convince him to drop the lawsuit. Hadn’t she talked herself around way worse situations?
    Before she knew it, she was inside the building’s foyer, the skulking photographer on the other side of the heavy glass door.
    “This way,” the doorman said, motioning the group toward the elevators. “Mr. Tucker’s apartment is on the eighth floor, number eight-zero-four. It’s to the left. He’s expecting you.”
    Trailing after the others, Nicole got on the elevator, her exhilaration at having gotten into the building starting to fade. Public people seemed perpetually protective of their privacy and she hated having to invade Max Tucker’s this way. But she had no choice.
    No one spoke as the elevator rose, the silence awkward. When the doors opened, they filed out. An older woman led the way, knocking loudly on the apartment door.
    Within minutes, they were all inside, shuffling forward in unison as Maxwell Tucker briefly directed them to go in and sit down.
    Nicole hunched her shoulders up and stared at the expensive oriental rug on the floor of his living room. Trying to keep behind the other job applicants, she shuffled further into the room and chose the seat most likely to be out of Tucker’s field of vision.
    How exactly was she going to handle this? Should she wait until he finished interviewing the others and then just blurt out who she was? Throwing herself on his mercy didn’t sound very appealing…or effective.
    Her stomach knotted itself around her breakfast and the word, “fool” kept flashing in front of her eyes. Yes, she’d gotten into the building, but how likely was Maxwell Tucker to listen to her when she was here under false pretenses? He’d be more likely than ever to call the police and have her carted away.
    This was worse than facing a new group of surly high school students on the first day of school. Not that much worse, but still not fun.
    In an effort to distract herself from the idiocy she’d just demonstrated by sneaking in, she covertly looked around. With Maxwell Tucker still out in the hallway talking to one of the three real job applicants, she had plenty of time to examine the room.
    She’d never seen the inside of a New York upscale apartment outside of magazine spreads, but this one looked more formal than she’d expected. Stiff, plush upholstered chairs in mostly neutral colors sat at precise angles to bleached antique pieces. Here and there, gold, ornamental chairs were placed along with gold and black striped ottomans. It was a room straight out of those decorating magazine, all pretentious and fake-y. Did people really live in rooms like this?
    The muscles at the back of her neck were starting to ache and she carefully unclenched her hands from around the chair’s arms. God, she wished she weren’t here. How could she have done such a crazy thing? Her fellow teachers back at Samson High School wouldn’t believe she could be this impulsive.
    Damn, she prayed. Don’t let me make things worse. At that moment, she’d have preferred to be anywhere but