Chapter 5
5
LINCOLN
“Okay, everyone.” Hank, our team coordinator, addresses the room. “This morning was a tremendous success. I am sure you have all had a lot of fun. I especially like the moment Jasper faked his own shark-infested custard death. You deserve an Oscar, my friend.” Hank winks at him teasingly before he continues, “Work is supposed to be fun. It’s where you spend most of your days and there is no point in spending the rest of your life with regrets. This morning was about finding new ways to work together as a team, but it’s time to go deeper. To get to know each other even better. This afternoon’s exercises are based on building trust, being honest, and showing how courageous you can be.” Hank rubs his hands together again. “I want you to find the partner I buddied you up with this morning. Are you ready? I need a hell, yeah.” He punches the air, and we all laugh and parrot his hell, yeah back to him.
After a few minutes of moving our seats around, Hank instructs us to sit facing our partners.
I sit down opposite Violet. “Hi.” I feel her nerves. “How’s your head today? ”
“It’s better. Thank you.”
Hank dishes out the rules of the next activity. “This exercise is called three lies, two truths. You are to tell your partner three lies about yourself and then two truths, and they have to figure out your facts from your fiction. The rules. They can ask you as many questions as they want to discover your truths. There is a fifteen-minute time limit and make your lies believable. No one will believe you if you say you can speak fifty-seven languages. This exercise is to demonstrate how trust ing and how trust worthy you are. Are you willing to share your innermost secrets with someone you work with without fear of being judged?” He pauses. “It’s time to be courageous and show your vulnerability. Do you fully trust your partner to share? If you are brave enough to do so, it shows the true meaning of trust. Whatever is said between you two remains a secret.” Hank eyes the wall clock. “You have thirty minutes, fifteen minutes each, and I will tell you when your time is up. Go.” Hank sets us off.
“I’ll go first.” Violet wiggles side to side in her seat. “I love buying stationery and have a special cabinet full of it in my house. I collect dog ornaments. I’ve never been in love before. My sister and I are best friends, and I’ve had over ten assistants since I started my job at West Oracle.”
I eye her suspiciously. She has a great poker face, but I am looking for her tell. I start by asking her questions about the dog ornaments and eventually I work out that’s a lie.
“What was the name of your last assistant?”
She hesitates before answering. “Alfred.”
“Alfred?” I can’t hide my amusement. “What, as in Batman’s butler?”
“Yes, he happens to have the same name.” She tries to be cool, but the tone of her voice went up by at least two octaves.
“And the one before that? ”
“Geoffrey.”
I scoff, “ The Fresh Prince of Bel Air ’s butler, Geoffrey?” She’s not a good liar.
Sucking her lips into her mouth, she snorts. “I’m not very good at this. Sorry, that wasn’t very ladylike.” Her rosy cheeks deepen in color.
“So that’s a lie. How many assistants have you had then? A couple?”
She shakes her head. “None. I’ve never had an assistant. I have a kind of secretary instead. She’s based at head office and only sorts my emails and organizes my calendar. No grabbing coffee or dry cleaning.” She grants me a blistering smile that makes her eyes crinkle at the sides, illuminating her entire face.
This weird flip-flop sensation in the depths of my stomach begins and I try to think of paint drying to calm my half-mast erection and focus on our task. “Okay, so three things left: stationery, sister, and never been in love.” I list them out loud. “You’re thirty-two years old this year; I know that already.”
She gasps. “How did you know that? You looked me up?”
Shit. “I did.”
“Stalker.”
“Research. You’re my new employer.”
“It’s temporary work.”
“And I want to know who I am working for. You could be trafficking women and have fifteen sex clubs for all I know.”
“West Oracle is not that type of corporation.” She leans toward me, her eyes narrowed.
“Good to know. Just checking.” I wink. “Thirty-two?”
“Yes.”
“You have to have been in love, surely. I reckon that’s the lie. Which means your two truths are you love stationery and you’re best friends with your sister.” I fold my arms confidently .
Violet makes a buzzer noise. “Wrong.”
Dammit. I thought I had it.
“Are you telling me you’ve never been in love and you’re best friends with your sister?”
“Nope.” She shakes her head again.
“You’ve never been in love and you love stationery?”
“Got there in the end.”
“Are your sister and you not close, then?”
“I barely speak to my sister, Francesca.”
“Why not?” My brows pull together.
“I work. I mean, what is the world coming to? Women working , making a living for themselves. Pft.” She rolls her eyes, making me laugh. “And then, of course, there is how I look. Look at me.” She makes a sweeping motion with her hands down her body.
“I can’t stop looking at you.”
Her eyes bug out. “You’re a great liar, but I’ve got you pegged already. I bet busty blondes are your type, right? Your turn.”
“Not yet.” I flash the palm of my hand to stop us from moving forward. “You don’t believe me?”
“For Christ’s sake, why are we doing this?”
“Hank said complete honesty. I’ll be dead straight with you.”
“Okay.”
“Yes, I like blondes. But until yesterday, they were my type.”
“What changed yesterday?” She audibly gulps.
“A beautiful busty brunette with the peachiest of asses fell at my feet and made me question my entire existence. Tell me about the relationship with your sister.”
She’s still looking at me like she doesn’t believe what I just said. “Okay, well, Francesca likes to keep reminding me I work too much. I talk too much. I need to settle down. I’ll never get a man if I keep working all the time and don’t look after myself. ”
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever set my eyes on. I can tell you look after yourself.”
“You’re only saying that because I’m your new boss and you want to stay on my good side.” Absentmindedly, she chews her lip.
“Throughout my entire twenty-nine years on this planet, I have never set eyes on anyone as gorgeous as you. I mean that. No BS.” I slice my hand through the air.
“It’s not always about appearance.”
“I’m fully aware of that, and it’s what makes you even more attractive. You’re smart, talented, driven, caring. I could go on.”
She scratches her neck with her perfectly French-manicured nails. I’ve made her nervous, and she’s obviously not great at receiving compliments. “Did you find all of that out last night, too? When you were on your little research trail?”
“I did, yeah.”
“What else did you discover?”
I lean in and she moves closer. “I know the camera loves you, Violet. I spent way too much time on your social media accounts last night looking at you. You are dazzling and I can feel your energy through the screen. You have beautiful eyes that I would like to lose myself in. I love their color. I learned you are one of life’s gems and have a heart of gold. You invest your time and money in a kids’ fostering charity that was almost closed down a couple of years ago, but you kept it afloat, and you’ve helped to rehome several hundred children since. You only have two close friends, Hannah and Ruby, whom you trust with your life, and you go out with them on the first Friday night of every month to a nightclub called Xenon. Harvard University gave you a first-class degree with honors.” Her nostrils are flaring, and I can’t work out if she’s mad at me because I know so much or if she’s mad at herself as her social profiles are set to public. “One last thing. Your sister sounds like a narcissist, but I think if you dug a little deeper, you will find that she’s jealous of you because you’re an incredible woman. She’s intimidated by you. Hell, I’m intimidated by you, but it doesn’t deter me from wanting to ask you out on a date. I would like to do that.” It’s not a question; I’m stating facts.
The whole time I’ve been talking, Violet’s face has softened. Her golden eyes dance back and forth between mine as we stare at each other. “What about your no-women rule?”
“I’m in charge of the rules and I just ripped them up. But only for you.”
She’s looking at me like she can’t actually believe what I am saying.
Violet flinches as Hank bellows, “Time to switch. It’s your partner’s turn now. Fifteen minutes, everyone.”
I sit back. “You okay?”
Violet blinks several times and then leans back in her chair too. “Thank you for all those kind things you just said.” Her voice is quiet, and I struggle to hear her over the faint hum of chatter in the meeting room.
“You’re welcome.” I take a deep breath in. “Okay, here goes, three lies, two truths. I can speak four languages.” That’s my first lie. I can only speak two. “My mother left my father when I was only a few months old and he brought me up by himself, and therefore I have never met my mother. I have never been in love. I’m a twin. I am completely color-blind.”
She instantly pounces on my lie. “You said you loved the color of my eyes, so you’re not color-blind.”
“Well done.”
“You can’t be a twin or you would have said your father brought us up, not me .”
“Well done, Detective West. ”
Narrowing her eyes, as if thinking hard, she finally says, “I don’t think your mother left your father, so I think your two truths are you speak four languages and you’ve never been in love.”
“Nope.”
She inhales a sharp breath, as if in shock. “Did your mom leave you?”
“Don’t look at me like that.” When people find that out, I can’t abide the look of pity in their eyes. The head tilt and the strike of pain across people’s faces. It seems to hurt them more than me. My father is an incredible man. He gave me everything I ever needed and more. I never felt like I missed out on anything, and no one should feel bad for me.
Although that’s a partial lie. I’ve always wondered what a comforting cuddle would feel like from my mom.
“What am I looking at you like?” she asks.
“Pity. Your sad eyes, the head tilt. I’m good. My father, my yaya , and my grandfather brought me up and I think I turned out okay.”
She sits bolt upright, correcting her sympathetic body language, her brows knit together. “Your yaya ?”
“Grandmother—she’s Greek. My grandfather is Scottish.”
“You only speak a couple of languages? Greek and English?”
“Well done.”
Violet remains quiet as she looks at me. She’s trying to figure out if I’m damaged and I can see her doing mental gymnastics.
“I’m not broken, Violet. There is nothing wrong with me. Or my father. My mom…” I shrug my shoulders. “She decided after she had me, she didn’t want to be tied down. I was a whoopsie , and she was only seventeen at the time. I wasn’t part of her life plan, so she left us.” Although, as I say that casually, it stings a little .
“She left you ?” I can tell Violet is struggling with that information.
“Yeah.”
“Your dad?”
“Is an amazing man.”
“You’ve never met your mom?”
“Never. Please don’t feel sorry for me. I had a brilliant childhood, and my dad is an exceptional and selfless man. He’s the reason I’m here. Traveling.”
“Explain?”
“Not much to tell. My father and I work together.”
“In hospitality?”
“Yes. He wanted me to find myself. Make sure working together was still what I wanted to do. So he sent me packing. Literally. He wanted me to experience my own life adventure. But I love my home, my family, and I can’t wait to go back to Scotland.”
Violet looks me dead in the eyes and frowns. “Why are you working? Why are you even here? I can’t figure you out.”
“I’m bored. I’ll become a pro-surfer at this rate and sunbathing really isn’t my thing. I enjoy working.” I smile. “A bit like you.”
“Cut from the same cloth.” She changes direction. “You’ve never been in love?”
“Married to my job.”
“Me too.”
“I know.”
“You don’t really know me.”
“I want to get to know you. All parts of you. Are we still playing the game?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Can I tell you three other truths? ”
“Yeah.” She tucks an invisible hair strand behind her ear.
I take a deep breath. “One, I want to take you out on a date. Two, I’m flipped out by how attracted I am to you. Three, when you fell over yesterday, I didn’t see anything because you are completely bare.” I lower my voice further. “Bonus truth. It’s the prettiest I’ve ever seen.”
She gasps.
I tap my temple. “Embossed in my brain forever.”
“You should try to forget.”
“I can’t,” I whisper.
Time stands still for a beat too long as we survey one another. “You have nice lips,” she says, staring at my lips as if hypnotized.
“All the better for kissing.”
“And perfect white teeth.”
“All the better for biting.” I lick my lips.
“Tongue.”
I lean in toward her ear. “All the better for licking and tasting illicit things.”
She makes a faint whimpering sound that makes my cock bounce in my boxers.
“Time’s up,” Hank shouts, and the two of us spring backward in our seats.
Violet smooths her hands down the thighs of her black trousers, fixes her perfect ponytail, and then fans her face with her hand, muttering words I can’t hear under her breath. It’s then I notice her hard nipples piercing the thin fabric of her tee shirt.
She likes me.