"Dane … " she whispered into the quiet room.
I pulled away, needing to see her face. I had to make sure she wasn't crying, because it'd been so long since I'd seen her eyes without the sheen of tears lining them. But what I saw beneath me made me stop everything. The world quit spinning and all the air had been sucked from my lungs.
Instead of wide, brown eyes, I was met with the darkest shade of green I'd ever seen. Rather than the dry, cracked lips I'd spent so long staring at, longing for, I found perfectly plump ones painted red, curled into a heart-stopping grin.
I sat back, not understanding what had happened. I was with Gabi, making love to Gabi … but beneath me lay Eden. Bare. Smiling up at me.
She reached out and held my face. "Don't stop, Dane. Keep going."
I glanced down and realized I was still inside her. Although, her body was nothing but a blur. I could see she was naked, but other than that, I couldn't make out any features.
"I can't … " I tried to get away from her, but I couldn't. I was frozen, unable to move.
"I want to make you happy, Dane. Let me make you smile and laugh. You deserve that much."
Before I could respond, a buzzer sounded somewhere far off, but loud enough to echo in my head. My thoughts became fuzzy, my limbs tingly and heavy, and then finally, I opened my eyes, realizing it'd all been a dream. A dream I didn't care to dissect.
On my way into work, I stopped by the front desk and immediately earned a welcoming smile from Gina. There was a reason I'd given her this position. No one could come into this office and feel like shit after a smile from her. It helped when clients came to me, on the brink of losing their companies, and were greeted so warmly.
"Morning, Gina. Have you by chance seen a young woman come in? Red hair?"
"The one from yesterday?" She drew her brows together in thought. "I haven't seen her yet. But you know no one comes in before you. Do you want me to give her a message or call you when she arrives?"
I tapped the desk and stepped away. "No, but thank you," I said as I left her and headed for my office.
I had a lot of work to catch up on after skipping out so early yesterday. My inbox was full and so was the stack of missed call memos. The light on my desk phone blinked, alerting me to voicemails I needed to retrieve. But I couldn't focus on anything other than my dream.
Shortly after sitting down at my desk, a soft knock came from the door to the adjoining room-Eden's office. My heart raced and my palms grew clammy. I couldn't understand it.
Eden opened the door but didn't make a move to come in. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I don't know what I should be doing." She offered a shy smile.
I took a moment to appreciate her. She had her hair down and in loose curls that hung past her shoulders. Her makeup was light, like yesterday for her interview. Black pants and high heels made her legs appear to go on for miles-long, curvy miles. And a light sweater covered her arms. For some reason, I found myself yearning to see her ink.
"Can we talk?" My voice practically got stuck in my throat, coming out hoarse and gravelly. I cleared it away and tried again, pointing to the chair in front of my desk. "Please, Eden, take a seat."
With her hands clasped in front of her, she did as I asked and walked toward me, meekly.
"About last night-"
"No," she said with a stern shake of her head, interrupting me. "Please, let's not go there. It's embarrassing enough not talking about it. I'd prefer if we pretended it didn't happen."
"I just need to explain."
"There's nothing to explain. I made a move I shouldn't have, and you led me to believe you were available … which you shouldn't have. No need to make ourselves look more foolish than we already do."
"It wasn't that I didn't plan on telling you." I ignored her protests and decided to explain anyway. I needed to get it off my chest. "You made me laugh, and to be honest, I'd forgotten what that felt like. I had hoped to hold onto it a little longer. This … " I wagged my finger in the air between us. "This is what I didn't want to happen. Things changed. You're acting differently. I'm acting differently. And all I cared about was continuing to laugh." My breathing grew deep and my voice quieted down. "I didn't want to stop living."
She didn't say a word. She sat there and stared at me as her face softened and her eyes grew wide. Her tongue peeked out from between her lips as she licked them and all I could do was stare. I couldn't believe I had blurted all that out. It wasn't my intention. But regardless, I'd opened myself up for the first time in years.
"I don't know how else to act. Yesterday, you were some random guy I had met at a bar the night before. Last night, you were … " She shook her head and wrung her hands in her lap. "And today you're my boss. With all due respect, Mr. Kauffmann, things would've changed regardless."
"Dane. Everyone here calls me by my first name."
She nodded but didn't correct herself. "I would really like to get to work, but I don't know what you need me to do. Is there some kind of training I should start on?"
"Dane," I repeated. "Call me Dane."
I couldn't explain it, but I needed some sort of normalcy with her. It was a ridiculous notion, considering I'd only known her for a little over a day, and honestly, I didn't know her at all.
"Is there something for me to do, Dane?"
The uneasiness was still there, but I could tell she was trying. The corner of her lip quirked up into the slightest smirk, and her tone held a note of teasing.
"Sure is, Eden." I gave in to my own grin and settled a bit. "As you already know, when companies are faced with bankruptcy or closing, they call me. I go in and help them change things in order for them to stay open and operating, and for them to understand how to keep doing so successfully. I invest money into the company and hold the decision-making authority. I pretty much buy the business for a limited amount of time."
She kept her eyes on me, her nod urging me along as I spoke.
"I do this, in the event the company doesn't succeed, to prevent the owners from selling off its parts and pocketing the profit. If that happens and the organization needs to be chopped up and sold off, any remaining profit goes to the employees. But that's only happened a handful of times. I pick and choose which companies I bail out for that reason. I won't take on one that's too far gone. And my payout at the end of the contract is based upon my initial investment, plus the success of the company. That's where you come in."
I waited for her acknowledgment before continuing.
"I have too many prospective options coming in for me to research them all on my own. I outsourced that part once, but it ended up screwing me in the end, telling me ventures were solid returns when they weren't. I was taking on companies with far too many risks, and it cost me too much money. I won't make that mistake again."
"Should I be taking notes?"
I chuckled under my breath and shook my head. "I currently have a department that weeds out the good from the bad and sends me a list of the ones that pass initial inspection. Even that list is too extensive and time-consuming for me to shuffle through alone. I need your help graphing them, charting them, showing me risk factors and where the money flow is. I need extensive information on the organization, starting at its inception. I need statistics and data that a Google search can't provide. Can you handle that?"
"Absolutely." Her eyes brightened and her smile lit up the room. As soon as I'd begun to discuss her duties and my expectations, her disposition had changed. For the better. She now exuded confidence, and that was exactly what I'd hoped for.
Feeling invigorated, I grabbed a file from my desk drawer and passed it to her. I had already gone over the information inside, but I was interested to see the conclusions she'd come up with. It was one I had discarded due to the blatant risk factors. From the cover, it looked like a pretty solid business. I called these jumpers-the ones you jump on quickly because they were smart investments. But once I dove into the owners' personal backgrounds, the risks became too high and the red flags were glaringly evident.
I knew it would take her all day to digest the information I'd handed over. I decided to use it as a way to test her to see what she would find, how long she'd spend on it, and ultimately, what decision she'd come up with. Her transcript from NYU was impressive, but I had hired people with impressive résumés before, only to learn later their intelligence didn't transfer from college to the real world. But I knew what Eden had to offer and that's why I'd hired her. Just like I knew which companies to take on. Gut instinct. Now I was interested to see if my gut instinct was right where Eden was concerned. And the only way I'd be able to tell was by analyzing what she returned to me and advised me was a wise investment.