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No, that was not an option. I’d do whatever it took to hang onto this job. I’d just have to kick butt bringing in some revenue and hope he didn’t look up my sales history.
4
TREVOR
The more time I spent around this woman, the more she intrigued me. Janelle and I worked side by side all morning, going through files and coming up with ways to bring in more business.
And now we sat at the table in the tiny break room, unwrapping the gigantic burritos I’d ordered from my favorite food delivery service. I probably should treat her to lunch at a restaurant, but I was enjoying having her all to myself.
“I wasn’t allowed to listen to anything but classical music as a kid,” she said.
“The classics.” I nodded, pausing with my burrito near my mouth. I’d take a bite as soon as I finished talking. “The Beatles, Elvis, the Stones.”
She laughed. “No. More like Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven. We also didn’t celebrate Halloween.”
I nearly choked on the combination of beans, rice, and tortilla I’d just swallowed. “Halloween?” I asked once I got my composure. “Like, no trick-or-treating?”
“Exactly.” She nodded. “It glorifies evil. That’s my parents’ opinion, not mine.”
Yikes. Not to judge anyone’s religious beliefs, but I’d never thought of any of those things as evil. In fact, classic rock and Halloween were among the best things in life.
“It kept me out of trouble,” Janelle said. “Other people my age were partying their way through college. I actually studied. I graduated with honors.”
Why didn’t that surprise me? In the more than three hours we’d worked together, it’d become clear she was one of the smartest women I’ve ever met.
“Were you allowed to date?” I asked.
That was information that was none of my business, but I couldn’t help but ask. She was still chewing, so she didn’t answer right away. But even after she set her burrito down and wiped her mouth, she still didn’t speak. Finally, she reached for her water bottle, unscrewed the top, took a generous swig, and set it down. Only then did she answer.
“We were chaperoned,” she said. “We were assigned a faculty member and usually dated in groups.”
I tried not to stare, but I had one big question, and it was a question I definitely shouldn’t ask. But that had never stopped me before.
“Kind of makes it tough to for a guy to make a move,” I said. “I assume you were allowed some alone time at the end of the evening.”
Janelle shook her head. “Nope. We were all supposed to save ourselves for marriage.” She held up her right hand. “This is my purity ring. It’s designed to remind me to be a good girl.”
She rolled her eyes at the end of that. The eye roll was what intrigued me most. Well, that and the possibility that she’d never had sex.
“Saving yourself for marriage?” I asked. “You mean you’re not going to have sex with a man until you’re married to him?”
I was treading on thin ice here, and I knew it. But there was something about this woman that didn’t let me put her in the same bucket as other employees. This woman was someone I had to get to know better.
“I was.” She shrugged. “But about halfway through college, it all just seemed ridiculous to me. So archaic. And then I moved out on my own.”
“And that’s when you rebelled and got wild?”
I smiled to let her know I was joking. She still wore the ring. I hoped that was a sign that she hadn’t gotten serious about some guy.
It was totally unfair for me to hope she was still a virgin. Lord knew I wasn’t. But my dick had jumped to attention at the thought that I might be the man who could show her what she’d been missing.
“Hardly.” She laughed. “But I want to. I just want it to be the right kind of guy.”
I set my burrito down. Now it was my turn to reach for my drink. I was parched, and this conversation threatened to break me out in a cold sweat.
“What kind of guy is that?” I asked.
I fully expect her to spew some sort of rainbows-and-lollipops bullshit. Sure, I believed in happily-ever-afters and all, but that wasn’t what I wanted to discuss right now.
