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1 " Without seeming to think about it, he turned sideways, dropping his feet over the arm of the couch and—shockingly—his head into her lap. He tugged at his tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons in an effort to get more comfortable and then turned to face the TV.“What are we watching?”The “we” undid her, and she allowed the tension to leave her body at this unexpected turn of events. Her hands, which had been hovering in midair as she tried to figure out where to place them, dropped—one to his hair and the other to his shoulder. "
― Natasha Anders , A Ruthless Proposition
2 " I’m sorry.” The words were hurried and a little garbled but unmistakable. She raised an eyebrow and noticed that he had trouble meeting her eyes.“For which item on your long list of indiscretions?” she asked as she toyed with the pen.“All of them?”“Please. I don’t do blanket forgiveness.” She waved her hand dismissively and was delighted to see a grin flirt along the corners of his mouth. "
3 " I’m walking you to your door,” he said, glancing at the lurking boy with palpable distaste. “For obvious reasons.”“It’s not that bad,” she protested. “They’re all mostly students.”“Well, that particular student”—he said with a nod toward the sinister-looking young man—“must be putting himself through college by dealing dope. And those two over there . . .” This time he nodded toward a giggling, swaying pair of young women in tight miniskirts and thigh-high boots. “Are probably hooking to pay their tuition.”Cleo peered at the girls in the gloomy light and gasped when she recognized them. They saw her at the same time and screeched in delight at the sight of her.“OMG! Cleo!” Coco screamed, and Cleo caught Dante involuntarily flinching at the sound of that high-pitched voice. “It’s so weird to find you waiting down here for us. It’s like you knew we were coming.”“She did know, remember?” Gigi reminded her in an only slightly less shrill voice. And Cleo hadn’t really known they were coming, since nothing definite had been arranged.“What the hell?” Dante muttered beneath his breath, and Cleo smiled at the consternation she could hear in his voice. "
4 " She was so focused on the movie that she didn’t even notice the front door swing open and wasn’t aware of Dante’s presence until he spoke.“What are you watching?” he asked from almost directly behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.“Crap,” she squeaked, lifting a hand to her chest. “You scared the stuffing out of me.”“Stuffing?” He raised an eyebrow at her language, and she wrinkled her nose.“I read somewhere that the baby can hear my voice. I don’t want him to pick up any bad language before he’s even born.”“He can hear us?” Dante looked completely disconcerted by that bit of news, and after shrugging out of his jacket and neatly placing it on the chair, he sat down on the couch next to her. “Seriously?”“Yep. Shocked the shi—sherbet out of me too.”He grinned, the expression so infectious she found herself grinning back.“How long do you think you’ll be able to keep that up?” he asked, his voice wobbling with laughter.“I don’t know, but I’m going to try my damnedest not to . . .” She paused, frowned, and then her shoulders sank as she grasped what she’d said. “Shit.”“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he chuckled, toeing off his shiny shoes and propping his feet up on the table next to hers. "
5 " Do you often cook?” She would never have guessed it of him.“Sí. I enjoy it. I have never really cooked for anyone before now, though.” The confession surprised her, and her eyes widened.“Really?”“I don’t bring women here.”“Really?”“Will you stop saying ‘really’? It’s . . .”“Aggravating?” she supplied without thinking.“It’s . . . ,” he continued, ignoring her.“Frustrating?”“Annoying.” The word was gritted out between teeth so tightly clenched, Cleo actually feared he’d break them.“‘Frustrating’ and ‘aggravating’ are synonyms for ‘annoying,’” she pointed out.“I wanted to use ‘annoying.’ Which is what you’re being right now. In addition to being frustrating and aggravating.”“And you’re being redundant.”“You’re really difficult to talk to sometimes,” he accused, his accent thickening with every word, and she shrugged a little shamefacedly.“I know,” she confessed. “It’s a defense mechanism.”“I don’t mean to put you on the defensive, but it seems to be your natural state.”“It’s my natural state around you. "
6 " Miss Knight.”She paused, her hand on the doorknob. She didn’t turn to face him, merely waited for him to say whatever was left to say.“I would prefer someone older. Someone less like you.”Now what the hell did that mean? Someone less like her?“You know,” he said lamely when she turned to face him quizzically. To his credit he looked as confused as she felt.“Nope. Don’t have a clue.” Her voice was so icy that her words practically froze as they left her lips.“Someone with more experience. With less personality.”“What?”“You talk too much,” he said pointedly. “Your attitude is too familiar and too sarcastic.”She opened her mouth to say something, and he held up a finger to stop her.“And that was before everything that happened in Tokyo. You’re completely irreverent and have a bizarre sense of humor. I also have no wish to hear about reality television shows, pop music, manicures, Brangelina, Star Trek, or anything that’s trending on Twitter—not even secondhand through whispered telephone conversations when my assistant thinks I’m not paying attention.”Well, he’d certainly been a lot more attentive during those half hours in the mornings than she’d given him credit for. But one thing struck her as odd.“Star Trek?” she repeated. She loved the new movies but hardly ever publicly discussed them.“You’re constantly talking about how sick you are of the Cardassians,” he elaborated uncomfortably. Her eyes widened and she stifled a laugh.“Different kind of Kardashian,” she corrected. It would be hopeless to explain it to a man who clearly had no interest in pop culture—even while every model or actress he was publicly photographed with inserted him into the very scene he was so scornful of. Quite frankly, she was impressed that he even knew about the Cardassians in Star Trek, which attested to a level of geekdom that she would never have suspected of him.“So you’re looking for the anti-me?”“It shouldn’t be so hard to find the complete opposite of you. You are quite . . .” His brow lowered as he tried to find the correct word. “Singular.”“Thank you,” she said, ridiculously flattered until a closer glance at his straight face told her that it hadn’t been a compliment. Her fledgling smile died, and she once again—as she often did in his presence—fought the urge to roll her eyes.“Okay, so you’re looking for an old, boring, and competent assistant,” she itemized, and his lips thinned but he said nothing. “I’ll get on that right away, sir. "
7 " The painfully prolonged polite greetings finally over, she stealthily drifted over to the table of goodies. She was just a finger’s length away from a chocolate-glazed precious with her name written all over it when a firm hand clamped down on her elbow. Her empty stomach sank to the bottom of her sensible shoes, and she stared up at her boss with what she knew was the most effectively pathetic hangdog expression in her arsenal. But he was having none of it; his jaw was clenched so tightly she was amazed his teeth didn’t crack. She gave one final forlorn look at the doughnuts before he led her to the long conference table in the center of the room.“Try to pay attention,” he muttered in her ear as he planted her into a seat that, cruelly, faced the delicious spread just a table’s breadth away from her.What followed was the longest, most boring and torturous three hours of Cleo’s life. The meeting was conducted entirely in Japanese, which Cleo didn’t speak but Dante most certainly did, and quite fluently too from what she could tell. She didn’t know why she was there. He had a Dictaphone recording the meeting, so even if she’d been able to understand what was going on, she wouldn’t have had to take notes anyway. All she could do was stare at the doughnuts and other delicious goodies in front of her and imagine how they tasted. At one point a fly landed on her doughnut. It took everything she had not to jump up with a primal scream and chase it away. Instead, she watched in revulsion as it crawled over every inch of her beautiful doughnut. She nearly sobbed in disappointment, gave up on the chocolate one, and shifted her attention to a gorgeous éclair on a different platter. But when that bastard fly, which she had now named Damaso Jr., landed on her éclair as well, she slumped back in her chair and stared glumly down at the blank notebook in front of her. "
