Page 4 of Puck You Very Much

She pressed her lips together.Dax Temple is complicated,Leslie Forth had told her. She could not agree with her boss. To call himcomplicatedwas insulting to the word.

“I’m fine,” she said tightly. “Thanks for asking.”

“No problem. I’m personally always concerned about the language skills of our employees. There are so many beautiful words—it would be a shame if you just kept using the same ones, wouldn’t it?”

Oh, Lucy knew which words she wanted to use, but then people might question her professionalism. “Mr. Temple,” she said emphatically, “Can we finally get started?”

He grimaced and shook his head. “I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t feel comfortable discussing all this personal stuff with an intern.”

“All this personal stuff you’re about to share with twenty journalists?” she snapped.

“Yeah, that stuff.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing I’m not an intern.”

He furrowed his brows skeptically. “You sure? You look so young.”

“I’m twenty-five.”

“I think your parents lied to you, Luna,” he said regretfully. “You’re twelve at most.”

“Lucy. My name is Lucy,” she replied tonelessly.

“Then why did you introduce yourself as Luna?” he asked, irritated.

“I didn’t…” She trailed off and blinked.

No, that wasn’t humor, that was…anything but. Wavelength definitely wasn’t the problem, here! Still, she maintained the smile on her face. Professional—she had to stay professional.

“You know what, Dax, I’ll just start.” Only people who were polite deserved politeness in return, so she gave up on it. “It won’t take long. We just have to briefly go through the points.”

She pulled the clipboard from her chest, looked down at the list—and immediately turned a deep red.

Only now did she realize it had been a mistake not to study the clipboard beforehand. Some of the points on it… No, this was ridiculous. There was no way Mr. Temple would ever think of revealing something like that to the press.

Anyone would know that saying things like this was a stupid idea and would only result in a terribly scandalous headline! It was on the list, though, so… Shit.

“Well,” she began carefully, her voice almost drowned out by Dax’s loud pounding on the treadmill. “It’s obvious you can’t tell the press exactly how many women you’ve slept with, right? I don’t think we need to elaborate on that.”

“But it’s fifty-five,” he said slowly. “I specifically turned away all those women yesterday so that the number remained the same; it’s a nice number. If I leave it unmentioned, I missed an orgasm yesterday for absolutely nothing. That seems like a waste.”

Her mouth went dry and her cheeks burned like a bonfire. He hadn’t actually said that just now.

“Are you a virgin, Luna?” he asked.

She almost choked on her own spit. “Excuse me?”

“Well, only a virgin would blush so deeply at the thought of sex. But now that I think about it, maybe it’s better that your cherry’s still unpopped. Having sex at twelve is way too early.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully, pulled a water bottle out of the holder, and opened it.

Lucy stared at him, a knot forming in her chest. It was a red-hot knot of anger and contempt.

Who the hell did this idiot think he was?

She had been friendly, courteous, and professional, yet he was standing there patronizing her—making fun of her, even?

It was clear he didn’t take her seriously, never mind deem her worthy of respect. And if there was one thing she truly hated, it was someone making her feel like she was doing a bad job.

She dug her fingernails into the glossy coating on the clipboard.

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