Page 16 of The Refusal

He nods and gives Janus an assessing look before they wander off to join the line for food. I take a deep breath and swing back to a smiling Janus.

He gestures toward the stairs, glancing sideways at me, eyes crinkling, as we head for the exit. “I thought you were looking forward to the day men were falling over themselves to chat to you up?”

I grin at him, shaking my head. “What was I thinking?”

He nods with a rueful smirk. “You get a lot of creeps, too.”

“Creepywomenexist?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He shakes his head. “Chances are I’m going to sound like a complete dick when I say this, but the airheads who think highly of themselves are the worst. I’ve hidden from women like that. Fabian isruthless. I mean he’s crazy to be honest, but he can’t stand women who are bitchy or silly. He even got to the point that he started asking them what their GPA was before he talked to them.” He starts to laugh. “He’s a fucker.”

“I’d like to have met you guys in college. You sound fun.”

“I’d loved to have met you, too.”

He sounds so unexpectedly sincere that it makes my insides twist. We’ve reached the outside of the conference venue and I’m flustered, like I always am whenever Janus makes one of his comments that suggests something more. I scan the street. Noticing a retro-looking coffee place, I turn back to him, only to find he’s staring at my mouth. Every time I’m with him, we’re plummeting into some new intimacy. I angle my head up the road, and he takes a deep breath and nods before we stroll in silence up to the steaming warmth of the shop.

“So much better than conference food.” I eye up the options on the counter. “Oh,God,look at that pastry.”

Janus laughs, leaning forward to ask the woman for a piece of pie and a couple of coffees. “You should come and meet Fabian; he’s got a bit of a cake fetish thing going on, too,” he says over his shoulder.

Something about the wordfetishcoming out of his mouth curls around my ribs and my eyes drift to the way his shirt stretches at his waist, the twist of his body. I examine his one-sided grin from the side before I realize I’ve been completely distracted from where he’s paying for our lunch. When he turns, I try to crumple some dollars into his hand, hand shaking, fingers brushing his, but he stares at me like I’m mad. My cheeks are flaming.

“Does he bake?” I’m desperate to stop my mind wandering, to take myself out of the sea of awkward I always seem to inhabit around Janus.

“I don’t know. If he does, he’s kept it pretty quiet. He codes for fun, though. He’s got serious kit.”

“Kit?” Now here’s a comfortable space I can settle into. “I can’t remember the last time I coded for the sheer joy of it.”

His face falls. “I can’t recall the last time I coded at all. How depressing is that?”

Woah, really?“You don’t write software on planes?”

He shakes his head. “Not anymore, too many emails.”

“That’s no fun.”

He screws his face up in a gesture that saystell me about it, and we gather our coffees from the end of the counter and head over to two red armchairs that are facing each other in front of a floor-to-ceiling window. The sun spills through the panes warming the wood of the low table between us.

As soon as we’re settled, Janus turns to me. “I’ve got a favor to ask,” he says as he swirls his spoon through his coffee and sucks off the foam. “I need someone to talk to.” He grins as I raise my eyebrows, but holds up a hand like he is expecting me to give him shit. “About thebusiness. I’m finding it hard to find anyone who understands. I can’t talk to people who work for me: Bob is an excellent sounding board, but I’m paying him to worry and track the detail. This is more strategic. Someone who’ll mull over those big decisions, be positive, help me step back and think about what I need to be working on. I’m spending way too much time firefighting.”

“Sounds like a tremendous idea. Who are you thinking of?”

“You. That’s the favor.”

“Me?” I sink back into the depths of the chair, staring at him. Then my eyes land on my frayed jeans, the token jacket I put on this morning.If we hadn’t got this contract, we wouldn’t have met payroll this month.

“You’re kidding, right? You’re way more experienced than me—if anything it should be you mentoring me.”

“Well, I’m happy to do that, too. Potentially we could help each other?”

“You’d actually mentor me? You do realize you’re kind of like … like the person in this industry I admire and look up to.” It just comes spilling out of me, and the familiar tightness starts in my neck that heralds a blush. I can’t meet his eyes. Is he seriously suggesting this? I’d love to support him, and to have his help with my business would be beyond awesome, but I can’t believe he thinks I would know anything about running a company the size of Janus Industries.

He’s giving me that cute smile again. “Can we put that out there somewhere, that people look up to me as some kind of shining example?”

I swallow. “We almost went under this month.” I want to be honest.

He laughs. “Yeah, it’s always like that at the start. Touch and go.”

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