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“You see me five days a week, usually several times a day,” she pointed out.
“I want to see you more than that,” Victor said. “If you don’t want to—that’s fine.”
“It isn’t that I don’t want to—not exactly,” Danielle said. She pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands for a moment, before meeting his gaze once more. “I just...where is this coming from?”
“I realized I had feelings for you,” Victor replied. “I actually realized it when I stayed late the other night, and I was about to go home...and I was bummed about how lonely the apartment was going to be when I got there.”
“Because you’re lonely outside of work, you want to see me outside of work, too?” Victor shrugged.
“I’m lonely for you,” he said. “I sound like a total idiot saying this I guess...but I haven’t felt this way about anyone that I can remember.”
“You’re into me,” Danielle said, making it not quite a question.
“I am,” Victor said. “You’re smart, you’re gorgeous, you’re talented and funny...what’s not to be into?” Danielle smiled shyly. Victor paused for a moment to let his compliments sink in and tried to think of how to say what it was that he wanted to say. “If you aren’t interested in me, that’s fine. But I had to say something. I had to at least see if you might be into it.”
“I’m not...not into you,” Danielle said. “I just don’t understand why you want to spend more time with me. Or what that would look like.” She bit her full bottom lip and Victor wondered if she knew what effect that had on him. “What happens if you get sick of me?” Victor laughed.
“First of all, I don’t think I’m at risk of getting sick of you anytime in the next year or two,” he said. “Second of all, if it doesn’t work out romantically, you still have your job. There’s no reason why you can’t keep managing my charity work without having sex with me.”
“You’re absolutely sure that if we keep going like this—getting more serious—and then end up breaking up, you’re still going to want me to work for you?” Danielle looked skeptical. “I kind of feel like the whole reason you even gave me this job in the first place is because you wanted ready access to sex with me.” Victor shook his head.
“That was a nice perk,” he admitted. “And as long as you keep wanting to have sex with me, and when you keep wanting to have sex with me, I’m happy to keep going. But I like what you’re doing with my money. I like giving back, and I like having someone on staff who can focus on just that.”
“If I decided that I don’t want to date you, nothing changes?” Victor nodded.
“If you still want to have sex but don’t want to see me outside of the office, we won’t do it,” Victor confirmed. “If you don’t even want to keep having sex with me, you can keep working and we won’t even discuss it unless you get a craving for some office-hours fucking again.” He smiled slightly.
“But if I want to date you, how does that go?” Victor had to think about that. The journalist who had come up to him a few days before, asking about his love life, asking about the raid—that had, he had to admit, changed the way that he thought about the situation. Neither he nor Danielle could ignore their pasts; while they were both legit, and neither of them—at least to the best of his knowledge—had gotten very deep into anything with the syndicates, they both had connections within them.
“We go out together,” Victor said slowly. “We’d want to keep it quiet—I probably should have mentioned that before. Someone saw us together at the show the other night. But we’d keep it quiet, just between us.”
“Someone saw us?” Danielle’s eyes widened, and the color drained from her cheeks. “What makes you think that?” She was more stunned by it than he had been.
“A journalist hit me up as I was leaving, asking if I had a new girlfriend,” Victor said, shrugging it off.
“And you didn’t think to mention that to me?” Victor frowned.
“I didn’t think it would be relevant to you,” Victor said. “I mean, I told him I was just out with a colleague.”
“Okay,” Danielle said. “I...if we do go out together, it’s going to need to be very quiet. I didn’t tell Sam about the other side of this.”
“What does he need to know about your sex life for, anyway?” Victor smiled.
“He doesn’t, which is why I didn’t tell him about that part,” Danielle replied. “But he knows you have some connection to the Sokolov family, even if it’s just that they invested in you.”
“And you think that him knowing we’re dating is going to change something?” Victor raised an eyebrow. Danielle looked away for a moment, shrugging.
“He wants intel on you,” she said quietly, before meeting his gaze once more. “He wanted me to spy on you, and I told him I wouldn’t. But if I’m dating you he’s going to insist on it—or maybe try and get it out of me by manipulating me.” Victor sat back in his chair.
“That’s...why would he want intel on me? I only have the barest possible relationship with Nikolai—not even anyone else in the organization.” Danielle shook her head, indicating she didn’t know.
“I think he just thinks that any intel is worth having,” she said after another moment. “If we do date, we’re going to have to be really careful about it—not go anywhere we might be seen.” Victor considered that.
“We could have some quiet dates,” he pointed out.
“That just makes it sound like you want nothing more than more opportunities for sex,” Danielle countered. Victor chuckled.
“Okay—we can meet up places, instead of going there together,” he suggested. “We can make this work; but only if you really want to do this.” Danielle met his gaze and Victor could see the doubt in her eyes. He thought, in that moment, that she might tell him no; that she would say it was too hard, or too complicated.
