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I pursed my lips. “Do you want a cookie?”
Now, she scowled. “Is this some kind of dare? Or a bet?” She peered around me to glare at Derek. I shot a glance over my shoulder to see how he reacted to that and had to bite back a laugh to see his pout—Derek wasn’t used to bei
ng scowled at by hot chicks.
“It’s the beard,” I mouthed at him through the glass, laughing when he flipped me off. “Shave it,” I continued, grinning before I instantly sobered up when I turned back to look at her.
I batted my own baby blues, trying to look as innocent as possible. “No. It’s not a dare or a bet. Why would you think that?” I was kind of surprised by the question.
I was considered a maverick in financial circles, but that was it. Playful wasn’t something I was renowned for, and ever since I’d floated Avalon and had made a shit ton as well as having turned the heads of some financial bigwigs, there’d been a shit ton of interest in my character.
I’d had exposes and articles written about me in everything from Forbes to the New Yorker. That made people think they knew me; they didn’t. The reporters who’d interviewed me, every single one of them, had all pissed me off. They’d made insinuations I didn’t appreciate, and had talked over me because I process things a little differently—that hadn’t put me in their good books, and had made me a difficult subject to interview.
Well, fuck, there had to be some perks to the job!
“Then it has to be a joke,” she declared crossly. Blunt, too—I liked that. Jessica wasn’t afraid to say black was black just because I was in charge here. “The boss does not get coffee for the temp administrative assistant. It just isn’t done.”
I shook my head pityingly. “Then you’ve been working in some barbarous places.”
I could tell she didn’t want to, but she laughed nonetheless. I knew, from experience, that my humor could be disarming.
I usually processed things a little differently to most. Another man might have seen her hair and thought it was beautiful. I, on the other hand, thought it was mesmerizing.
I only wasn’t gaping at it because I was restraining myself from reaching out and touching it.
That really would freak her, and Derek, the fuck out. But the temptation? It was there. I wanted, so damn badly, to slide the locks through my fingers and trail it over my cheeks and jaw, feel the tickle, sure, but mostly, just have that silk against my skin. It took all I had not to focus on it, to stare her in the eyes.
“I don’t understand, and I really need this job, sir.”
There was a plea to her voice that rankled. I sat on the edge of her desk, not missing the look of despair as I didn’t scurry away at her words. “Why do you need this job?”
She frowned. “Who doesn’t have bills or need to eat?”
I shook my head. “No. Most people work for that. You’re working for something else.”
Her mouth tightened. “Have you seen my file? Is that it? You think I’m game?”
“What?” I blinked in surprise and inadvertently noticed that the strands of gold in her hair were as bright as hay.
“My resume. You’ve seen it?”
“No, I haven’t actually.” I wasn’t sure why she was being so aggressive, but from her tone, sensed that it came from a place of desperation.
Desperation…
My brain processed that and didn’t like it.
“Would you like coffee?” I repeated, unsure why she’d mentioned her resume, and her head jerked forward, her chin jutting out.
“No. Thank you.”
I got to my feet. “Fine.” And like that, I strode off, making a mental note to read her resume and to see what the hell had gotten her all fired up.
Chapter 2
Jessica
That was weird.
