Page 7 of Think Outside the Boss

“They’re the worst offenders.” He tips his head back and drains the last amber liquid in his glass, a thick watch on his wrist. It looks expensive.

“But you’re not here with someone?”

“I’m not,” he confirms, reaching past me to set down his glass. The movement brings with it the scent of whiskey and sandalwood. “Nor are you.”

“How are you so sure?”

“I doubt a partner of yours would leave you alone this long.”

“Well, I doubt I’d have a partner who put so little faith in me that he had to watch me constantly.”

His eyes spark. “Oh, that’s not what I meant. No, he wouldn’t be able to stay away from the trouble you might be getting into.”

I glance down into my champagne glass and away from the force of his gaze. “You’re good at this.”

“At complimenting a woman?” He snorts, but I think it’s more at himself than at me. “I try my best.”

I tilt my head and observe him. Here in the dark alcove, with the incense of the party mixing with heady intimacy, it feels like I could ask him anything. “What do you usually do at these parties?”

“Searching for inspiration?”

“Perhaps I want to know who I’m dealing with,” I murmur.

He leans back on the sofa, pulling his shoulders back. “What happens at these parties doesn’t leave them.”

“Well, we’re at a Gilded Room party,” I say. “So talking about past exploits wouldn’t break that rule.”

His lip curves, an acknowledgment of the loophole. “You know, I keep trying to figure out if you got into the Gilded Room because of your brains or your beauty, and it’s damn difficult to decide.”

“It has to be one or the other?”

He sweeps an arm at the party. “Most people here pay for membership, men more often than women, after they’ve been approved by the selection committee. But there are always a few women who don’t, and who are granted membership solely from their looks.”

“Well, that seems sexist.”

He laughs, the hand behind me brushing the bare skin of my shoulder. “So you’re not one of those women. You could be, though.”

I frown at him, which only makes him grin wider. “So I’m one of the women who could have benefitted from a loophole that is in and of itself pretty sexist?”

“I never claimed my compliments were politically correct.”

“No, you didn’t.” Ignoring the nerves resurfacing, I slip out of my heels and pull my legs up on the sofa. His fingers don’t leave my shoulder. “I saw you speaking to a woman earlier. You’d been approached by someone?”

“Several someones,” he acknowledges. “But you’d already smiled at me from across the room. I told them I was called for.”

The nerves ranch up a notch. “Oh. Was I that intriguing?”

“I’d never seen you here before.”

I make my voice teasing. “And you saw someone who looked like she needed guidance? How kind of you to reach out.”

“I’m a saint.”

“I told you I liked this anonymity thing,” I say, “and I do. The idea that we have no idea what the other person does during the days. Perhaps you spent the whole day working as a surgeon at a children’s hospital.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t honest when I said I was a saint.”

“Then perhaps you spent the whole day evading the New York Police Department, because you’re the head of an organized crime ring.”

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