“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered, and stabbed them harder.
Grant’s eyes darkened, stormy weather threatening in his gaze.“Don’t lie to me, Lacey. Don’t beat around the bush—you’ve been sitting there avoiding saying a word. You have opinions—well, share them. But don’t stew in your own resentment and act as though it’s my fault you don’t have the courage to speak up.”
That hit a nerve.
“This is why no one takes you seriously!” I snapped.“This is why the company’s in trouble! Today is supposed to be all about damage control, and you’re out eating and flirting with bimbos and accepting party invitations from your crazy ex that will just make things worse!”
He raised an eyebrow.“Did you hear me accept an invitation?”
That brought me up short.“W-well, no,” I stuttered.“But you implied—”
“I didn’t accept the invitation,” he said firmly.“I’ve certainly done some foolish things in the past, and you’re very welcome to bring them up for discussion, but don’t put things at my door that aren’t there.”
He set down his fork and squared his shoulders, looking directly at me like a man facing a firing squad. And after just now and last night, what else could he expect?
My face was burning; I was drowning in shame and regret.“I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” he said lightly, and took a drink of water.“Of course, I did say that I could be persuaded to attend the gala if the right companion were to accompany me…”
I’d also taken the opportunity to take a drink of water, and at these words that water came spurting out of my mouth like Niagara Falls in righteous indignation at his about-face.“You don’t make sense! Don’t you care about this job at all?”
He handed me a napkin and dodged the question.“What about you, Lacey? What do you care about?”
I ignored the tingles racing through me at the way he lingered on my first name. When had he started doing that? Before today, he’d never even used my name. Whatever, this was all just a distraction; my heart was only racing because I was in an argument with my boss.
“I care about doing a good job. I care about following through on my promises, and the promises of the place I work for. I care about doing whatever little tiny things I can to make this world a better place, and even if they’re super tiny, they’re something and I can feel good about that.”
“An unusual attitude,” he said, signaling the waiter to refill the water glass that I’d turning into a Yellowstone geyser,“in this day and age. And particularly in this rather laissez-faire hamlet. Did you grow up around here?”
“I grew up in the Midwest,” I said impatiently,“land of so many damn lakes there was practically no land. I went to Stanford because they gave me some scholarships and some loans where the interest rate was a toe and finger instead of an arm and a leg. After I graduated I decided I wanted to stay in the state for the job opportunities.”
“Just the job opportunities?” He raised an eyebrow.“There weren’t any other…incentives?”
“Ha ha, you caught me,” I said sarcastically, ignoring his obvious implication. I wishthere had been some guy worth staying in this state for.“I really stayed for the high cost of living and the thriving avant-garde sushi scene. What does it matter?”
He fixed me with his gaze, and it was like a telescope zooming in on me from miles away, the whole rest of the world disappearing to him, and to me.“It matters a great deal,” he said.“I want to know more about you. Everything, in fact.”
Well, that made an amount of sense that was about zero. Grant Devlin, wanting to know more about a lowly admin assistant? I’d seen Saturday morning cartoons that were more believable. I threw up my hands in exasperation.“Why?”
He looked away abruptly, his face closing off. He fiddled with his fork.“Why not? You’re a dedicated employee.”
“So’s Moneypenny, and James Bond never takes her out to lunch.”
He gave a real smile at that, wider and more sincere than any I’d ever seen on his face before, and turned back to me.“What a revealing metaphor, Lacey. Tell me—do you watch many James Bond movies?
And that was how the rest of the meal went—no matter how I tried to turn it around, he just came up with question after question about me, and eventually, I stopped trying not to answer. All of us want to talk about ourselves sometimes, and the fact that the guy doing the asking in this case looked like he’d stepped off the cover of GQ was certainly not making this any less like catnip for my ego.
I kept waiting for the catch, but he seemed really interested in everything I had to say—not just the important stuff like my ideas for the company, but silly little things like yes, I had watched every single James Bond movie, but I preferred its predecessor, the 1960s Avengers with Steed and Mrs. Peel. Or that my favorite course in college had been Ethics in Modern Capitalism, followed closely by Drawing I. Or that I used to play dress-up as a kid, pretending I was a princess invited to the ball, or a fairy warrior queen presiding over my court.