Page 95 of Take Her

“I was not. It’s lovely,” he said. I turned, and saw that despite the gorgeous cityscape outside, he only had eyes for me.

If I hadn’t managed to handle his full attention already before now, I might have died from it—happily.

And it would’ve been the first time he caused my death, instead of saving me from it.

“What will I be in here?” I asked, seeing as neither of the desks had plaques on them.

“My new investor relations officer.”

My jaw dropped. “Really?”

“You keep thinking I’m joking—I’m mostly incapable of humor,” he said, with a sly smile.

I shrank down, hidden from the rest of the offices outside the glass by his much larger size. “You told me yourself there’s an entire floor of people who work here who are better qualified to do that than me. I don’t have the knowledge or the qualifications—I only barely have the degree,” I said in a hushed whisper.

“You think I don’t know any of that?” he said, tilting his head. “Are you accusing me of making a bad decision, Ms. Ferreo?” he said, suddenly teasing a lot less.

“I don’t want to be made out to be anyone’s fool—whatever I do now I can’t fail at.” As much as I hated to confess it, I knew both this industry and my father. “I’m not some brash golden boy who graduated from Harvard. People think I’m a spoiled rich girl. I’m only going to get one chance.”

“With me, that’s all you need. I will never let you fail.”

All I could do was stare at him, breathe—and believe.

Because he’d never given me a reason not to.

Not once in my whole life.

“What you don’t know, I’ll teach you,” he went on. “You can learn on the job. People will assume there’s a nepotistic element, obviously, but they’d think that no matter what level I brought you in at. Your job is to hold your chin high and to do as I tell you to do, until you know enough to do it by yourself. And try to seem happy sometimes,” he added. “Because you should be. You deserve good things.”

I inhaled to tell him all the reasons he was wrong. But then I realized he would only get mad at me for sharing them, because for him his word to me was law—so I straightened my shoulders to back him into a corner.

“Do I deserve you yet?”

He gave a dark chuckle, knowing what I was trying to do. “I am not good. But as for the rest of our arrangement—tonight? Eight thirty? I’ll pick you up?”

I rose up on my toes, ever so slightly. “Yes. Sir,” I said smartly—then bit my lips, glad the door behind him was still closed.

“You can call me Rhaim now. Here, and any place others will hear.”

I nodded quickly, and then looked around, at my desk, at the view, and at him, full of uncomfortable emotions I didn’t know what to do with, things like happiness and hope. I would try to figure them out though, for his sake.

I felt my eyes watering and tried to quickly blink back tears—not because I was afraid of crying around him, but because we were under a microscope.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome,” he said, before giving me a subtle smile. “Now pick a desk already. We have work to do.”

40

RHAIM

It took Nero about thirty minutes to send his blonde down to fetch me. He was slipping in his old age and with his cancer.

“Did you think that I wouldn’t notice?” he demanded the second I got off of the elevator.

“Notice what?” I asked disingenuously.

He made a snarling sound. “You made Lia Corvo’s investor relations officer?”