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, anogre,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.
