“Then I’m in.”
“Okay. Good.”
“Good.” His eyes are almost unreal. A vivid turquoise color that’s quite unnerving.
I glance away from him, up toward the counter. “Now that we have that taken care of, I might go get some coffee.”
“Oh, I’ll get it for you.” He stands up. “I should have asked you before. What would you like?”
“Just black. Dark roast. But I can—” Before I can finish my sentence, he’s already heading up toward the counter.
I watch him walk away—the way his jeans mold the tight curve of his ass—and then I force myself to turn back around.
It’s fine. It’s all fine. Damian seems professional and relatively low-maintenance. More intelligent than I was expecting. Yes, he’s too hot for my comfort, but I can deal with that. I’ll probably get used to it fairly quickly. I’ve got a perfectly healthy sex drive, but I’ve never been unduly bothered by random impulses in the past.
My current state of mind is probably because I’m not used to being this close to a man so good-looking.
Otherwise, Damian exactly suits my needs. This is going to work out fine.
He returns a few minutes later with my coffee. As he slides into his chair, he smiles at me.
Damn it. Every nerve in my body zaps into life again.
“What’s the matter?” he asks with a frown, evidently seeing something in my expression.
“Nothing. Really. Just do you have to be so good-looking?”
He blinks. “Uh...”
“I know. It’s not your fault. And you can’t do anything about how you look. It’s just kind of distracting.”
His eyes narrow, scanning my face, but his mouth twitches up slightly. “And you don’t like being distracted that way?”
“No. I usually don’t have any problems with that kind of thing.” I’m scowling now since it really is quite annoying that I’m finding him so obnoxiously sexy. “Can’t you like put on some glasses or something to dampen the hotness a little?”
He gives another soft huff. This one shakes his shoulders slightly. “In my experience, glasses don’t do anything to keep someone from being hot.”
“I guess. But maybe it’s worth a try.”
He’s trying not to smile. I can see it on his face. He quietly reaches down to his computer bag and pulls out a small case. He takes out a pair of glasses and puts them on.
I stare at him for a minute. Now he looks handsome and sexy and incredibly smart. I slump and mutter, “Damn it. That didn’t help at all.”
His huff this time is obviously laughter. He takes off his glasses and puts them up. “Sorry about that. You said it was worth a try.”
“Do you really carry fake glasses around with you everywhere just in case a client wants you to put them on?” I ask, my curiosity helping to shift my focus from the attraction.
“They’re not fake. They’re real.”
“Are they reading glasses?”
“No. They’re actually mid-distance glasses. I got LASIK done a few years back, and they did one eye for distance and one for reading. It usually works great. I just shift between them. But sometimes mid-distance is a problem. Particularly when I’m working on my computer for hours at a time. So I wear those when I need them.”
“Oh.” I’m not sure what to say to that, so I ask another question. “You’re working on your dissertation? Isn’t that what Aurora told me?”
“Yes. I’m about six months from finishing it up.”
“What’s it on?”
“Early twentieth-century American literature.”
I know a lot about a number of things, but I know nothing about American literature. “Oh. So how did you get into this? I mean working for Companions for Hire.”
He doesn’t look surprised or offended by the question. “I was working as a waiter, trying to put myself through grad school without taking out loans. And a friend of mine was hired by Companions for Hire and told me about it. The company was just starting out, but the pay was better than anything I could earn waiting tables. And I turned out to be good at it.”
“That’s because you’re so unjustly hot,” I say in a mournful tone.
His mouth gives a little twitch, but he answers seriously. “Not just that. To be a success at this kind of thing, you’ve got to have more than looks going for you. You’ve got to be able to understand what women are looking for and then find ways of meeting it.”
I think about that. “I guess so. So do you have sex?”
His brows arch up.
“As part of the jobs I mean.” I’m flushing again, and it’s really starting to annoy me that I can’t control my responses with this man.
“It’s a possibility,” he says slowly. “But it has to stay entirely off the books for Companions for Hire. They’re very careful about that. Is that something you’re interested—”
“No!” I burst out. “No, no. That’s not why I was asking. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it. If people want to... But I wouldn’t be at all comfortable paying for that.”
“Okay.” Damian looks relaxed again. “If you change your mind, I’m happy to discuss it. But for now we’ll consider it not part of the job.”
Oh my God. I have no idea how I’ve stumbled into this particular conversation. It feels messy. Very, very messy. I want it to be over now.
“Since we’re asking direct questions,” Damian goes on, “can I ask you something?”
I nod, holding my breath as I wait to hear what he’ll say.
“How do you have enough money to afford to pay so much for a job that’s mostly just a convenience for you?”
I let out my breath. That’s an easy question and not one that digs too deeply into who I am. “Oh. I’ve got a lot of money.”
“That was my assumption based on the fact that you’re doing this. I was hoping for more specifics. Aurora said you run a tech company?”
“I don’t. I mean, not anymore. I did. Steve and I did. We were friends from college, and we would work on projects together a lot. Anyway, we developed some software that ended up being super helpful for mobile phones. Last year we sold the company for a ridiculous amount of money. It’s more than I can spend in my life.”
“So what do you do now?”
“I still play around, developing new stuff. I’m always trying to find a project that will grab me. I like to work. I’m not the kind of person to be happy lying around and spending money all the time. I’d get bored in a couple of months.”
He nods like he understands. “So you still work a lot?”
“Yeah. Most of the time. That’s what I mean about you having plenty of time and privacy. I don’t have a big social life. I’m on the computer most of the day. You’re not going to have to go out with me at all during the week. Just on the weekends when we visit my mom in Charleston.”
“Have you always gone to see her on the weekends?”
“Not every weekend but a lot of them. Ever since I moved to Atlanta for college and then stayed here.” I run my finger down my coffee cup. “Does that sound strange to you?”