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A sigh rocketed out of me. “And why not?”
“You don’t need to get into it.”
“Don’t you think I can handle it? I’m supposed to be your secretary. How can I do my job if I can’t handle it?”
Damian’s silence filled the air between us. All I could hear was my heart pounding against my ribs.
“I’ve been working for you almost two weeks. Am I not doing a good enough job?” I asked, my cheeks heating up again. This was the scariest question I could have asked him, because I desperately wanted to be doing a good job for him. Ineededhim to be satisfied with my work at Fairchild Enterprises. Literally everything else in my life depended on it now.
His eyes drifted shut and he crumpled a little. “Jessa—”
“It’s hard to tell, since you hardly speak to me.”
Damian’s chin lowered, his gaze hardening. “You’re doing a great job. But I warned you at the beginning. Work is work. I’m not your friend. That’s how it has to be.”
“So what about now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’re not at work. In here, I’m just your old friend Jessa Walton.” My heart hammered so hard I thought I might pass out. I had not planned onanyof this coming out right now, but even I couldn’t deny how much the workplace distance bothered me. “Right? Let me help. You know I can.”
A grunt escaped him, and he rubbed at the ridge of his eyebrows with his free hand. “I can’t. It’s better if we keep our distance. I’m not going to budge on that.”
Disappointment rippled through me, hot and effervescent, utterly consuming every inch of free space inside my body. “I don’t understand why you gave me the job, then. It seems like you didn’t want to.”
Damian pinched his eyes shut, shaking his head. “It’s not that—”
“Should I find a different job?” I asked. The words coming out of my mouth shocked even me. I was drunk and rambling. Oh lord, I’d regret this tomorrow morning. I already knew it. “I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want to prevent you from having someone who can actually do the job you need.”
Damian frowned at the floor. “You need to trust me when I say it’s better for us to keep that professional distance. Okay? That’s all I need from you.”
My brows knitted together, his words landing like a slap.
“It’ll be better for everyone in the long run,” he said, pushing to his feet. “If you really want to be my friend, don’t be my friend.”
Damian stormed out of the workout room, carrying the plate of food. I watched him go, my head spinning from the unexpected turn the past ten minutes had taken. The wall of mirrors reflected my red-cheeked confusion. I sat stewing in my own arousal and confusion.
I wasn’t ready to give up on him yet, though.
I’d known this guy since grade school. He needed a shoulder—that much was obvious. And he was in denial of how much he needed that shoulder.
I needed to get to the bottom of this, and there was only one person who could help me dig deeper: my brother.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAMIAN
Mornings were always hard for me.
First of all, they were harbingers of another day. I didn’t normally care about “another day, another dollar,” but mornings were the threshold of opportunity across which unexpected surprises and unwelcome guests entered. Most days had some combination of the two. Not only that, mornings required me to be sociable, which I also resented. It took me at least three hours to ready myself for the general public. And even then, it wasn’t guaranteed I’d land well with my audience.
But the worst part about mornings was that they set the tone of the day ahead.
And if I didn’t get that tone just right, well…let’s just say the entire rest of the day tended to fucking blow.
It was eight a.m. on Wednesday, approximately forty eight hours after I’d met the supposed ‘long-lost bio brother’, and I was praying for no further unexpected surprises or unwelcome visitors today. Sunlight streaked through the slatted blinds of my bedroom, casting dreamy patterns on the gray carpet as I located my business slacks du jour, one of the last pairs hanging in my closet. I scowled at my room as I buttoned my pants and slipped on a dress shirt.
My bedroom was a fucking mess, because it was my last safe haven in Manhattan. It was larger than the apartment my brothers and I originally rented in Chinatown; hell, this bedroom was larger than most starter apartments on the market. I scooped up a pile of dirty clothes; I kept meaning to send them to be washed. My phone cord that had been missing for the last couple of days was revealed, and I picked that up too with a grunt.
