A Lot Like Love

“It’s better if I give you a visual of the job I’m offering you,” he said cryptically. “Before we talk details. I’m having my car brought around. You game for a change of venue?”

If it got her closer to a place where she could smash the box a terrorist named Azeem had put her in, she’d ride the train with him to Timbuktu. The whole goal here was to get out of the box.

The air conditioner blasted through the vents as Scott rounded the car and slid into the vacant spot next to her. A uniformed driver shut the door and took the wheel, pulling out of Scott’s reserved parking space at the resort, then headed toward town.

Scott had a driver. A living breathing dude in a uniform who ran around doing stuff like opening doors and bowing and scraping. She had the distinct impression Scott had hauled the older man out of mothballs solely for her benefit so she’d be forced to share this tiny backseat space with a man whose physical presence leached over into her space, leaving her on edge and not a little breathless.

“Do you take all prospective employees on field trips?” she asked Scott, not bothering to check her sarcasm.

If any Great Scott employee had ever seen the inside of this expensive smelling car, she’d eat her combat boots.

“Only the ones who interrupt my schedule and demand to be interviewed,” he told her with an enigmatic smile that could totally turn her knees to jelly if she lost her mind and took any of his attention seriously.

She wouldn’t. Couldn’t. It was laughable, honestly. A billionaire wanted to go out with her? Please. Besides, everyone knew he was still hung up on Havana Hardy, who had married the mayor and broken Scott’s heart. Which meant Scott had some kind of angle she hadn’t quite figured out, but she would.

“Are you going to clue me in on what we’re doing?” she asked. “I’ve been to the housing development before. You flirted with me at the groundbreaking, remember?”

“I remember every conversation I’ve had with you, Vanessa,” he said.

She rolled her eyes to cover the goose bumps that erupted across her skin when he first-named her. Mostly because it confused her.

He was the only male in her life who didn’t call her Emerson. And the way he said Vanessa…if there was a description for the quality of Damian Scott’s voice, it should grace a bottle of whiskey. Whatever it was called would sell out instantly.

She wasn’t buying.