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Hair flung out in an arc, she turned on her heel at warp speed, her eyes widening in horror as she pulled on a white cord to release an earbud from her ear.
“Shit.”
I smiled. Her eyes widened impossibly further.
“Mr. Brooks. I’m so sorry.” She clamped her eyes shut in shame. “I didn’t know anyone else was still here.”
Her face was mostly hidden in shadow as she tilted it to the ground, but I was still almost positive I saw her mouth the word ‘shit’ again.
“It’s all right,” I offered, and her head snapped up in question. I grinned slightly. “The singing and the shits. In fact, if you really need to, you can say it again.”
Her face froze in shock.
“I can tell you want to,” I prodded. “Maybe even three or four more times.”
“Three. Four.” She shrugged helplessly. “Forty, maybe.”
“Forty shits?” I questioned, raising a brow in amusement.
“Depends on how much you actually heard, I guess.”
I craned my neck to one side and back again.
“I’m not sure. I’m feeling particularly attuned to your neck and back, and, well, the rest I’m not sure I can say in an office environment.”
“Oh my God,” she cried and sank her face into her hands, embarrassment renewed.
“Definitely forty shits. Maybe even fifty.”
I coughed on a chuckle before tucking it away, knowing it was the perfect time to get on with what I needed.
“It’s okay. I know how you can redeem yourself.”
Her gaze jerked up from the floor and her eyes widened with hope. “Yeah?”
“Tomorrow night. Go to the benefit for the Children’s Hospital with me.”
Horror contorted her face into a scrunched-up version of itself. Not exactly what I was going for.
“What? Go to the…with you… No.” She shook her head frantically, desperately even, her bright red hair swinging to and fro before settling helplessly on the white fabric at her shoulders.
“No.”
I had to admit, the double, emphatic nos threw me a little. It wasn’t that I thought no one could turn me down. They could, and hell, they probably should. But they hadn’t in a long time.
Not in a very long time.
“You’re busy?” I offered as an excuse, hoping her visible discomfort was more about being caught off guard than anything else.
One slim wrinkle formed between her eyebrows, and the corners of her eyes seemed to pinch together slightly. “No. Not busy.”
Ouch.
For the first time in quite a while, I struggled to find my words. “I…uh…well. Okay.”
She forced a fake smile in response.
And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to give up.
Walking around her desk and into her space enough that she backed up a couple of steps, I leaned my ass into the surface behind me and crossed my arms.
She rubbed goosebumps from her arms in a nervous fidget.
“So, how definite is this ‘no’? Is it an ‘I’m mildly considering it, but I’m thinking no’ or a ‘not a snowflake’s chance in hell no’ or maybe somewhere in the middle where negotiation lives?”
She shook her head as if mystified and tapped the toe of her stiletto twice.
My gaze shot down the length of her legs and back again, only to find her bright cerulean eyes narrowed slightly at the end of my circuit.
“I’m not disgusted with you, if that’s what you’re asking, but negotiation isn’t likely.”
Jim Carrey inhabited my body and took over my vocal chords before I could stop him. “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
“What the hell is going on here?” she snapped softly at the ceiling, almost as if to herself. Her eyes jumped to me. “Why are you asking me out? Why now? None of this is making any sense.”
The only thing I could do was give it to her straight. Whether it was a good thing or not, I never could stop the honesty. It was just my nature.
“Look. For some godforsaken reason, society has decided to care about my completely uninteresting life because I have money, and because tabloid fodder is way more important than donations or time volunteered, they want me to have a date at every function I attend. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, as in they can go fuck themselves, but in another slap of fate, my mother has decided she cares. Wants a daughter-in-law and grandbabies and all that crap.”
Her previously peachy-tan skin blanched white.
“But she has terrible taste, and though I know next to nothing about you, you’re already guaranteed to be better than any of my other options.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Trust me, I intended that as an insult to the others, not you.”
