But he said nothing.
“I didn’t bullshit you,” she said finally.
He gave her a look.
“Well not all of it was lies,” she amended. “I really do like cute boys.”
His lips twitched in something that may have been a smile. “I’m sure you do,” he said.
“You’re not thinking about me as a call girl again, are you?”
“Ms. Dalton, I’m fairly certain that human resources would be in here pretty quickly if I started thinking about my assistant in such an intimate manner. Perhaps we could avoid such references going forward?”
“If I don’t mention The Incident again, can I keep my job?” she asked.
His silence wasn’t a good sign.
“Explain to me why you want this job,” he said.
“Well, gosh, unemployment does have a certain appeal, but I find I’m rather fond of having money for frivolous things like food, rent, condoms.”
“If you’re trying to endear yourself as an employee, you’re doing a miserable job.”
She bit her lip. Why did she keep baiting this man? This was so not the time for her snark to come out in full force, and yet she couldn’t seem to muster the polite, professional assistant routine around him the way she could everyone else in the office.
And even when she tried, he seemed to see right through it.
Gray leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his mouth. “I’m not going to ask you to leave, Ms. Dalton. Despite our unconventional meeting and the fact that you don’t seem to respect me in the least, you’re competent. More important, people seem to like you. To be honest, I could use some of that popularity to help people get accustomed to my…style.”
Ah, so Mr. Perfect was aware of his shortcomings. Interesting. “So you’re keeping me around because I’m popular?”
“Something like that,” he said.
Sophie considered. He had a point. She was good at that sort of thing. And it could be kind of fun to give a personality makeover to someone so socially stunted. Her brain was already bubbling with ideas.
“A project,” she said thoughtfully. “How fun! I promise it won’t be as painful as you think. I just need a month, and soon all of your weekends will be filled with golf rounds, cocktail parties, poker games…”
He winced. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I just meant that I could use your presence to buffer my…impatience.”
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days?”
He looked as though he wanted to smile but managed to resist the urge. Sophie was oddly disappointed. What would he look like without the pinched tension in his face?
“You have entirely too much of a smart mouth to be anyone’s assistant, Ms. Dalton.”
“For the last time, call me Sophie. This isn’t 1793. First names in the office are normal.”
“We’re not friends, Ms. Dalton, we’re colleagues. And casual workplace or not, I like to keep some semblance of mutual respect.”
“Fine, if you want to act like an eighteenth-century dandy, who am I to intervene?” She steeled herself for the big question. “But…I can stay?”
“You can stay,” he said quietly. “For as long as it suits you. Which, judging from your personality, I’d assume would be another few weeks before you move on to bigger and better things?”
Sophie tapped a fingernail against her lips. “Bigger things…such as dancing at bachelor parties and installing a pole in my living room to practice my moves?”
He gave one of his lopsided almost-smiles, and Sophie felt something warm and tingling in the vicinity of her lady parts. Annoying how the begrudging twitch of those unsmiling lips was somehow more rewarding than another man’s full grin.
“So we’re good?” Sophie asked tentatively.
“We’re…okay. Just no more thigh-high boots, no more rambling stories about your childhood, and no more climbing up ladders.”
“I make no promises,” she said cheekily, before wiggling her fingers at him and heading toward the door. “Now if there’s nothing else, I’ll go find someone a bit more…suitable to pull down Davie, eh?”
“Fine,” he mumbled. “Oh, and I did have one question.”
She turned and waited.
“The coffee you brought me this morning. There was cream in there.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Yes. There was.”
“You’ve always brought me my coffee black before.”
“Mm-hmm.” She studied her chipped fingernails. “And you really thought I wouldn’t notice that you dumped in two creamers as soon as I turned my back?”
She could have sworn she saw him blush. It was…cute? No, that wasn’t quite right. But it was something.
“I think it’s sweet that you didn’t want to hurt Beth’s feelings,” she teased. “She informed me with great pride that she’d guessed that you like your coffee black.”
“I think we’re done here,” he said, a distinct red creeping over his cheeks. “And don’t tell Ms. Jennings about the creamin-the-coffee thing.”