Page 6 of The Refusal

“Asked me out?” My voice comes out about two octaves higher than normal, my heart leaping into my throat at his choice of words. Good God, is he … is he … No. He’s a player—they all come out with lines like this. I straighten my face into what I hope is a nonchalant expression.

Janus waves his hand. “Yeah, well, I’m going in for the kill because I think you’re stalling.” He studies the floor, and through the tousled top of his head I can see the white teeth of his smile, then he peeks at me from under his lashes. He is such a flirt. If he wasn’t so cute, it’d be painful.

My mind is whirling. “You know”—I stare up at the floor numbers slowly ticking down on the console and pretend to think hard about what I’m saying—“I’ve never met you before, and it’s been a total honor by the way, but you need to stop doing all the standard guy pickup moves. They are way too obvious. Do most girls you meet fall for this kind of thing? Is this the approach you use to get everyone to say yes to you?”

Tipping his head back, he laughs out loud.

“I think I’m a bit rusty.” He nods for emphasis. “Perhaps you could help me with my technique. What’s your method for getting people to say yes?”

“Squiggles on paper,” I deadpan. “What I write down is actually nonsense, but the tech guys who run companies like to look smart and it works every time. The more complex and incomprehensible the drawing and lines, the better.”

Janus’s face is a picture as he gusts out a bark of laughter.

“You were particularly gullible.” My smile creeps slowly over my face. “You actually came and looked at it closely. Although I’m rather disappointed that you thought it was real; I use it as my standard intelligence test.” I try to look crestfallen as I lean toward him, lowering my voice in what I hope passes for regret. “Not sure you passed that one.”

He cups his face in his hands, fingers pressing into the corner of his eyes, and lets out a rumble from deep in his throat. The sound reverberates, making me think of warm naked skin and hot hands, and the heat creeps up my neck again.

“Tell me the map was real,please,” he mumbles, as he raises his eyes to the ceiling like he’s praying and runs his hands down his face.

I can’t hold back the broad grin spreading across my face. “Yes, I’m messing with you. It was genuine, but”—I circle his face with a finger—“I’m loving this response so much that I could happily start a rumor about it being a trick of mine …”

I can tell I’m grinning like a maniacal idiot, enjoying the joke far too much to make any kind of sensible comment.

“Has anyone told you you’re nuts?” He responds to my wide smile with one of his own.

Like my mom?The thought is there before I can squash it. I swallow it down and wave my hand at him in a dismissing gesture. “Yeah,yeah.But is there any other way to be? You can’t be sensible in this business.”

Janus puts his head on one side. “You know, I kind of like you,” he says, and I’m almost sure he didn’t mean to say this out loud. He looks away and bites his lip, a faint pink tinge resting high on his cheekbones.

Yes, but how long would you like me for?I’m not exactly arm-candy.

We’re rescued by the elevator grinding to a halt, and I leap out like a cat avoiding a sprinkler into an almost empty lobby. I say the first thing that comes into my head: not a strategy that works well for me usually.

“I’m sorry about earlier.” It bursts forth before I can stop it.

He frowns at this as we head across the atrium toward the doors.

“What do you mean? In the elevator?”

“No—well,yes—in the elevator, of course. That was so stupid, pretending not to recognize you.” Words are stumbling out too fast. “But I meant in the meeting. You made a comment about my map and I suppose I … I guess I thought you were being sarcastic about producing a silly little drawing.”

“Ah, that!” His face relaxes. “I wondered why you looked so sort of … off.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder with guys who ridicule what I do: a surprisingly common experience for a woman working in this industry. They don’t expect me to understand anything and are often thrown when I do.”

Janus shakes his head. “No need to apologize—I’ve come across enough prejudice in my time about my age, my appearance, my reputation,my hair. Being told things ‘aren’t possible,’ that we should ‘take time and think about it.’” He makes air quotes with his hands. “As you can probably tell, my nickname here is Mr. Impatient, although no one says that to my face; they all call me it behind my back. I’m raging mad half the time, and don’t get me started on how often I yell at people.”

I can picture him doing all this. “Glad I’m not the only one.”

“What you shout at people too? Somehow I can’t imagine that.”

His wide smile reaches right down to my toes and my head is empty, not even a hint of any coherent retort. I mumble out a “no,” desperately swinging back to concentrate on where we are going. I’m so out of kilter here—saying inappropriate things, turning into a blathering idiot. God help me.

We emerge out of the building, and I lift my hands over my head as a downpour hits my shoulders. The traffic swishes past, cars throwing cascades of water onto the sidewalk of rushing pedestrians.

3

Janus

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