My mouth goes completely dry, throat raspy, hands trembling around my folder like I had too much coffee with no food. The sensation of being face-to-face with Dane Rourke rushes through me, starting at my feet and moving rapidly toward my head, like I’m on a theme park ride and my body is suddenly confused about gravity.
“Mr. Rourke,” I manage to choke out.
I was expecting Linda, hadpreparedfor Linda. Not DanefuckingRourke.
Dane Rourke. He’s never met me, obviously, but I know him the wayeveryoneknows him. The way you know Michael Jordan, Hillary Clinton, or the Pope. It’s a name in the news, a name thatmeanssomething.
You don’t even have to be a business bro to recognize his face, to know about his many, many successful ventures. To haveseen the photos of him with his rich friends, standing in the spray of a massive yacht, thousand-dollar sunglasses reflecting the sun.
Fashion magazines do pieces on his “capsule” wardrobe. Business journals analyze his decisions. Cheap celebrity rags snap shots of him sliding into a Porsche, theorizing on the shadow in the passenger seat, asking in bold words on the front why he hasn’t settled down yet.
On the plane ride from Missouri, I watched a forty-minute YouTube documentary about all the products and businesses he had a hand in. When I’d told my friend Marcie I was interviewing for an assistant position at Ember, she’d sent me an article titledTop 10 Silver Foxes I’d Totally Go Down On.Rourke occupied number one.
Which makes sense—he’s intimidating, private, and stupidly handsome. Straight roman nose, trimmed dark beard, large hands folded in front of him carefully. It occurs to me that of all the material I’ve ever read or consumed about this man—either purposefully or not—none of it has ever mentioned his eyes.
They’re just brown, deep enough that they seem to darken his pupils, but it’s not the color that’s notable. It’s the intensity, the cutting way they seem to focus, sweeping up and down, efficient. Cold.
When Dane Rourke looks at me, I have the sense that he already knows me and doesn’t need any additional information before making a judgment.
And, for some ridiculous reason, I feel the weight of that gaze right between my legs.
It’s the sound of the door shutting with aclickthat jolts me out of my stupor, and I stumble forward, thrusting my hand toward him like I’m flinging something from it. He looks down at my fingers for a second, then gestures to the chair facing his desk.
“Why don’t you take a seat?”
It’s really not a question, but a command, and it does nothing to help the subtle throbbing that spreads through me—completely inappropriate and wholly ill-timed. I blame my lack of exposure to men like this. My body has no idea what to do with this interaction, other than roll over and pray for mercy.
“Sure, of course,” I blurt out, nodding too jerkily and laughing a little through the words. I know it’s too shrill, that my movements are too clipped and unsteady, and still, I just can’t seem to stop it. Can’t control myself or find a center of gravity.
It’s like his is throwing me off-kilter.
My resumé trembles, folding slightly when I pull it out, hand still shaking. I straighten it and slide it across his desk, toward him, but he reaches over at the same time, and my thumb just grazes his.
A shiver shoots up my arm. It jolts over my skin and zaps through my shoulder, something like hitting my funny bone, but amplified. I settle back in the chair, trying to act like I don’t still feel the tingle.
Thoughts war in my head. Namely:What the fuck? I need to calm down. Stop being weird. What thefuck?
“You’re familiar with what we do here?” Rourke darts another one of those brief glances at me, eyes up and back down to my resumé in a flicker. It’s the only way he’s looked at me since I walked in the room.
Maybe it’s really that he only needs a second to get the information he needs, or he isn’t interested in any of this.
“I do,” I choke out through my desert-dry throat, wishing I’d said yes to that water now. “I am… it’s, uh, like… toys.”
Eloquent.
Sighing, he says, “Ember aims to be the market leader ofluxurypleasure products. Tools, companions. We do not maketoys—our customers are not children. They are affluent womenwith the means to invest in feeling good. We make high-quality products for them.”
“Of—of course.” My face is flaming—what is going on with me? Why can’t I string together a sentence, like an adult? Remembering the tagline I read a million times on the website, I manage to recite, “Ember—indulgent heat.”
His eyebrows raise, like he wasn’t expecting that from me. Another flick of attention toward me, just a crumb, before he returns to my resumé in his hand. “You have some assistant experience, but the rest looks to be… broad.”
I wince, thinking maybe I shouldn’t have includedallmy previous work experience. Flipping ice cream treats out a drive-thru window, walking too many dogs with better diets than me, selling essential oils for three weeks before I realized I’d actually been dragged into an MLM.
“That’s true.” I clear my throat, shift in the seat, and wish I still had my folder just for something to hold onto. “It may not look relevant, but I’m proud of all my experience—it makes me an excellent problem solver.”
It’s the last confident thing I’m able to say. For the remaining twenty minutes of the interview, Dane Rourke asks me increasingly complex questions, most of which I only manage to stammer through. Questions about their products, about the idea of pleasure, about the mission to provide an outlet for stressed, tightly-wound women.
In a perfect world, I might have met Dane Rourke and been clever and thoughtful. Impressive even. Maybe I would have been able to respond to his questions in a way that would have shown him that I’d fit in with a culture obsessed with sex and chemistry.
