Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Damien Sharpton usually knew what to do in any given situation.
But he didn’t know what the hell to do about the woman bent completely over in the elevator, ass up, head down.
His first urge was to step out in the hallway and let the door close on her.
Despite what people said about him, however, he wasn’t quite that heartless.
He was impatient. Calculating. Aggressive. Consumed by his work and utterly devoid of a personal life.
He was okay with all of that. Yet regardless of the past three years, and everything he’d been through, he wasn’t inhumane.
So he hovered, holding the doors open, and wondered what exactly he was supposed to do now.
“Do you want me to call someone?” He reached for his cell phone, pleased that he’d thought to foist her off on someone else. Let one of the executive assistants deal with her, until her husband or boyfriend or friend came and retrieved her. Not his assistant, since he didn’t have one at present.
That flighty girl Lanie he’d hired out of total desperation had not worked out at all. Even the most simplistic of tasks like using the copier had been a struggle for her, and when he’d pointed out ways to increase her efficiency, she had burst into tears on him.
But he could call Nancy’s assistant, Terri. She was very maternal and sweet and would know what to do with a potential vomit situation.
“No, no, I’m fine, really. I have to get to this interview. I really need this job for the health insurance.”
Obviously, since she was sick as a dog. Damien tried to remember what she looked like when her light brown hair wasn’t covering her face, but he hadn’t really noticed her when he’d stepped on the elevator.
He had been thinking about his nine-o’clock conference call with the Atlanta team and hoping that his eight-o’clock interview would result in an assistant who could actually use Instant Messaging without inserting giggling smiley faces every other word.
Lanie had been fond of those.
Damien cleared his throat and unlocked his phone, scrolling to find Terri’s number.
“Can you hand me your coffee cup?”
“For what?” But he was already leaning down and sticking his coffee cup under her hair in the direction of her hand, figuring it wouldn’t be wise to upset her. The door tried to close again, but he held it with his foot and hip, hoping it wasn’t creasing his suit.
“I’m going to stand up, but I need something to catch it, just in case I get sick.”
Oh, good God. He was sorry he’d asked. And while he’d gotten a grande, he didn’t think the cup was that big. And it was still half full.
A little fist of nausea curled in his own stomach, and he lifted his eyes up from her head to distract himself.
Her suit jacket had slid down toward her neck, given the pull of gravity, and he could see her bare back above her waistline.
Her flesh was smooth, slightly pink, her waist tapering in above her skirt, in a way that was very. ..
Damn.
Damien nearly thunked himself on the forehead. What the hell was he doing?
In three years, he’d never once felt the stirrings of attraction for a woman, and now he suddenly found a woman’s bare back sexy. A faceless, flu-stricken woman. It was ludicrous.
“Thanks. I really appreciate this. The job I’m interviewing for, I’ve heard the boss is a complete and total ogre.
He’s scared off all his other assistants and is completely unreasonable.
I don’t mind, because well, I need the job, but I don’t want to cancel last minute with someone like that.
So I’ve got to go, hell or high water. ”
She stood up with a shaky surge, and as her eyes locked with his, Damien realized he was looking at his eight A.M. interview appointment.
He was the ogre.
She wanted to be his assistant.
And she was gorgeous.
With a heart-shaped face, chin-length hair that tumbled in soft waves, bangs sticking up a little from her previous position.
Her brown eyes were huge, warm, vulnerable.
Her cheekbones were high, her lips bowed, her skin a flushed pink and her breath rushing in and out on shaky little bursts.
There were slight dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were a bit hollow, like she’d lost weight from the illness she was battling.
Germs were probably leaping off her and onto him even as he stood there, but he didn’t retreat into the hallway. In fact, he let go of the door and stepped forward. Found himself bending over to pick up her bag and her shoes.
Shoving them in her hands. “Here,” he said gruffly, as the elevator closed and started to ascend.
“Thanks.” She brushed her bangs back, making them stick up even more. Then she passed the coffee to him and kicked the brown winter boot off her foot. “You can have your coffee back. I don’t think I need it after all.”
Damien took the cup and tried not to curl his lip in distaste. He’d never look at a grande coffee from the cafe downstairs in quite the same way. Nor could he believe that somehow this woman had heard he was difficult, unreasonable, an ogre, before she’d even been hired.
When she bent partially to put on her black dress shoe, she made a small sound of distress. Afraid he’d be stuck on the elevator indefinitely, Damien grabbed her arm and balanced her before she wound up on the floor or worse. He wasn’t sure his dry cleaner could remove vomit.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.”
He admired her tenacity. While it would have been simpler and probably smarter for her to just reschedule the interview, she had toughed it out. Probably assuming that he would dismiss her as irresponsible for canceling and that he wouldn’t be willing to give her a shot.
Not that he would do that. He didn’t think. He mentally went through his tight calendar. He wasn’t the most patient of guys, and he’d had it with incompetent and lazy assistants. Being totally honest, he probably wouldn’t have rescheduled with her, assuming she wasn’t serious about the job.
Which annoyed him that his ogre reputation might actually have some minor basis in fact.
The elevator opened on twenty-four, and an older man got on.
Reaching over, Damien punched the eighteenth floor. No sense in riding this thing all the way to the ground floor again.
Then he watched the woman tuck her boots in her bag. He narrowed his eyes. He fought irritation. Attraction. Admiration.
Time to clear his morning. “Mandy Keeling?”
She looked up in surprise. “Yes, how did you ...” Horror descended on her face, her fingers rising to clutch at her throat. “Oh, no. No, no, no, you can’t be…”
“I’m Damien Sharpton.” The door opened behind him. “The ogre.”
“Eighteenth floor,” the older man said when neither of them moved so much as a muscle.
Damien put out his hand in a polite gesture for her to lead, but his voice was the one he used in the boardroom.
The one that was ten times colder than the tone that had reduced Lanie to tears.
“After you, Ms. Keeling. My office is at the end of the hall, last door on the left. I’ll try to be brief. ”
He expected her to wither. Stammer. Cry. Retreat. Shake her head no, let the elevator door close behind her, and ride her little germ-infested self right out of his life.
She didn’t.
Through tight lips, she simply said, “Thank you,” and started down the hall, listing to the right a little like she was on a ship at sea.
His interest and respect rose another reluctant inch or two.
Mandy bit back a whimper and clutched her bag in one hand, her stomach in the other.
Bugger it. Now, what were the odds of encountering Damien Sharpton on the elevator? And her calling him an ogre, of all things. It was so heinous it was almost funny.
She winced, and not from the pinch of her swollen feet in heels.
So much for a nine-to-five job that would make daycare easier to secure. She wasn’t going to be given this position, for obvious reasons, but she needed to at least try and redeem herself on the interview so there weren’t repercussions for Caroline.
Which meant no referring to Damien as Demon Sharpton.
The door to his office was closed, which didn’t surprise her.
In the minutes they’d been on the elevator together, she had sensed his tension, his tightness, his impatient energy brimming beneath the surface.
Behind her now, she could feel his presence.
Looming, firm, judging, his feet making hard strides, his suit rustling as he slowed down to keep pace with her snail speed.
His breath coming out in exasperated bursts that he covered with a cough.
She knew his type. Her father was one. A man with no patience, no interest in anything other than his work. A man who didn’t understand why the whole world didn’t move at the same frantic, obsessive rate as he did.
Leaning around her, he opened the door and strode past her, tossing his phone on his desktop, dropping his coffee into the trash under it. He smoothed his rich blue tie, flipped open the lid on his laptop, and reached for a file, all before he had completed his descent into his chair.
“Have a seat, Ms. Keeling.”
Gladly. Mandy sank into a leather armchair and took a deep breath. “Please, call me Mandy, Mr. Sharpton.”
“All right. So, tell me why you think you’re qualified to be my assistant?”
No offer for her to call him Damien. No comment on the elevator incident.
Right to business. She should let it go, the whole embarrassing ogre thing.
But she just couldn’t. Not because of the job, but because of Caroline’s reputation, and because it seemed that if someone insulted her character, she would like to hear an apology.
“Listen, Mr. Sharpton, I need to apologize for the rather unfortunate comments I made in the elevator.”
He pinned her with a stare. “There’s no need. Really.”
While Mandy heard his almost palpable need to keep this interview clipping along so he could move on to the next task of the day, she could also see that there was more to Damien Sharpton than met the eye.
He was fabulously attractive, with dark hair cut very close to his head, strong, sharp cheek and jawbones, and the palest blue eyes she had ever seen. They matched his tie and set her heart racing with feelings that weren’t particularly maternal.
But even a mum can appreciate a good pair of electric blue eyes on an attractive man.
Not that she was a mum yet. And not that she had a husband or boyfriend, so the strange fascination she was feeling wasn’t wrong exactly.
But it didn’t matter in the least, because she wasn’t shopping for a man to fill either role. After Ben, she was done. It was time to concentrate on her child and being the best parent her inadequate self could be.
But blimey, he had nice eyes.
And behind the impatience, there was a touch of something that made her rethink Damien Sharpton. There was pain there, hiding behind his efficiency and elegance and hardness.
“No, there is a need for me to apologize, because I was completely out of line gossiping about you. I don’t know you, so I have no reason to believe any of those rumors are true, and it was small of me to be talking like that.
I’m sorry. My only excuse is that I was nervous, and not feeling well, obviously, since you were witness to that, and when I’m nervous, I tend to babble.
” Like now. Good God, Mandy felt her cheeks start to burn.
Damien’s eyebrows had shot up, and his hand froze on his computer mouse. If disdain had a name, it would be Damien.
“Fine. Thank you. Moving on, then. Why would you like the position here at Launchpoint?”
Okay, then. Mr. Happy didn’t like to chitchat. Duly noted. Mandy crossed her leg and settled her bag on the floor and launched into the perfectly poised bullshit response that Damien was expecting.
Twenty minutes later, her answers were getting shorter, her bullshit less poised, and her stomach was doing an imitation of Chinese acrobats. He was relentless. He didn’t even give her five seconds after a response before he fired the next question at her.
And every single question seemed designed to force a confession out of her.
Why do you want to relinquish your own business and work for me?
Are you available for business travel?
Where do you see yourself in five years?
The baby she could not feel suddenly seemed like a gigantic white elephant under her skirt. She didn’t want to lie— she didn’t want to deny her child before it was even the size of a grape.
She knew it was practical to keep her pregnancy to herself, yet she still felt like standing on her chair and screaming, “I’m having a baby! I’m going to be responsible for another human being!”
But first she needed to throw up.
“Excuse me, Mr. Sharpton, where is your bin?”
“What?” His head snapped up, but Mandy didn’t wait.
She dropped to her knees and stuck her face under his desktop. As she tossed her tea and toast onto his discarded coffee in his trash, it occurred to her that she had followed Caroline’s instructions. Her friend had told her to make a knockout impression, and this was certainly that.
Weak and horrified, Mandy lifted her head and found herself face-to-face with Damien Sharpton’s crotch.
“Oh, dear, God,” she whispered.