Page 11 of Hired Husband

There was a certain look in his blue eyes that made me pause. Even my extremely skilled thumb forgot how to scroll. Is it just me, or is it suddenly really hot in here?

There was no way it was the other thing, which was that I was shockingly attracted to Isaac Thayer after spending just one decent night in his company. Yeah, there’s no way. Maybe the venue’s air-conditioning is just struggling to keep up with the heat.

It had to be that because there was absolutely zero chance that the warmth spreading through me had anything to do with Isaac. I finally managed to tear my gaze away, shrugging at my father as I dropped my phone back into my purse.

“You know what? I can’t find him. We must be too late.”

Dad breathed a sigh of relief, but I still felt Isaac watching me every so often throughout dinner—and every time I did, the air-conditioning seemed to struggle just a little bit more.

CHAPTER 5

ISAAC

On Monday morning, Basel Saad broke a cardinal rule. He marched into my office before I’d even finished my first cup of coffee with an expression on his face that suggested even a shot of whiskey wouldn’t have helped me process what he was here to say.

“Good morning, Basel,” I said cautiously, glancing at the magazine he was carrying under his arm as he shut the door with his free hand. “Did we have a meeting on the books for today?”

Instead of answering, he set the latest issue of Engineering News-Record on my desk and tapped the cover. “This is where you belong, Isaac.”

I frowned, completely confused. “On the cover of a magazine?”

“Yes,” he said crisply, lowering himself into the chair across from mine and smoothing out his impeccable silk tie as he held my gaze. “If it’s covers you’re after, I’ll get you covers, but what I meant is that you belong at the forefront of innovation and design, blazing new trails and setting the pace in your profession.”

I glanced at my half-empty mug of coffee, wondering if I’d have understood what he was talking about if I’d at least finished it before he’d gotten here. “That sounds good, but uh, it’s not really my role here. The fact that I got that cover was a bit of a fluke, to be honest.”

“Nonsense.” He flicked his hand in a dismissive motion, like he wouldn’t hear of such a thing. “You are right about one thing, however. That is not your role here.”

I swiped my tongue across my lips, deciding there was at least a fifty percent chance that I was either hallucinating or dreaming. “Yeah, well. Those are the breaks.”

He scoffed. “There’s no such thing if you work for me.”

I blinked a few times. “I know that with the merger⁠—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” He cut me off without any hint of remorse and held my gaze intently across the desk. “Is this where you think you belong, Isaac? Are you happy here, sitting behind a desk in a big, ugly building only getting such a prestigious honor as the ENR cover by fluke?”

“I think so.”

He shook his head. “You should not think, son. You should know.”

I stared back at him, leaning more toward hallucinating than dreaming at this point. “All I know right now was that I wasn’t expecting a philosophical, existential debate before nine in the morning.”

He chuckled. “What if it wasn’t philosophical?”

My heart gave a strange stammer. “What are you saying, Basel? I’m really not sure I’m following.”

“You build beautiful things, Isaac.”

I frowned. “Thank you?”

He inclined his chin but spoke as if I hadn’t said anything at all. “I’ve seen a lot of your work over the last few days. Your ability to restore history is astounding, but so is your passion to create the future. You told me once that business wasn’t your thing.”

“Yeah, it’s not,” I said. “That’s why I switched over to engineering.”

Although, at this point, I wasn’t sure why he was referencing a conversation we’d had when I’d first met him so long ago, so maybe I should’ve switched over to… I don’t know? An advanced degree in speaking Basel?

Frankly, while I knew the guy, I didn’t know him half as well as Colin did, which meant I was complete unsure how to handle his pushy, slightly unhinged sudden passion about my career. “You switched over to engineering to be an engineer, no?”

“I am an engineer.”