“Alright, but first let me say this. I promise I didn’t know who you were when we started messaging. Not even when you sent me that picture.” He wasn’t smiling anymore, and his eyes were smooth and serious.
I wasn’t convinced. “How? I mean, you were buying my app.”
“I have a team that does purchasing. I actually didn’t have much to do with the basic research. I didn’t know your name until this morning, and even that didn’t ring any bells. Not my finest hour, I realize. I was a little distracted at the time.”
“Fine, even if that’s true and you didn’t know who I was, why did you lie about your name in the first place?”
He let out a deep breath and sipped his drink. I could tell this was difficult for him, and he glanced around the room before answering. He was clearly tortured over something, and I had no idea what.
“I’m a private person, Amy. Extremely private. I hate being in the public eye, but when you own a company like mine, you’re going to run into that sort of thing. I try my hardest to have a regular life, but for the most part it isn’t possible.” He paused and shifted his weight. “This is embarrassing, but the dating profile thing, it’s mostly to flirt with strangers. It makes me feel normal.”
I could understand that. I had read about his quirk, but hearing him talk about it, and seeing how physically uncomfortable it was making him, had an interesting effect on me. Instead of being angry or turned off, I wanted to run my fingers through his hair and kiss his mouth as hard as I could. This was clearly a man who was not used to having to explain himself, let alone admit to something as deeply personal as making a fake dating profile to feel normal. His vulnerability, mixed with his secrecy, was compelling.
“So then, what? You were going to ditch out on me?”
“No, absolutely not.” He looked me dead in the eyes and leaned closer. My breath caught in my chest for a moment. The light seemed to bend toward him.
“Is that what you do? Ditch the girls you flirt with?” I asked, my head swimming with images of his body.
“No. This is the first time it got that far, and I was going to tell you the truth when we met. I am sorry I lied to you. I never meant to mislead you.” He was inches away from me, and I could feel his heat. I was completely sucked into is gaze, and I felt like I would do anything he said.
“What am I supposed to call you, anyway?” I asked, breathing in his smell.
“Call me Shane. In the office, call me Mr. Green. I promise, this won’t affect our working relationship. I don’t wish to make you ... uncomfortable.”
He made me uncomfortable, all right. So uncomfortable, I was imagining taking him into what is probably a disgusting dive bar bathroom, unbuckling his belt, and sucking him off in the stall. I didn’t normally act or think like this, but something about this man made me need him.
“Thank you for saying that,” I said quietly. It made him lean a bit closer and I savored the intimacy. “I don’t want our professional relationship to suffer.”
He smiled that half grin of his and moved away to sip his drink. I drank mine too, if only to cover how much I wanted him to come closer again.
“So, where do we go from here?” I asked.
“You start work next week, and I’ll be overseeing your project for the first two months.”
“Is that your way of keeping me close?” I said jokingly.
He smiled. “I do that for all our new acquisitions.” There was a hint of something more in his tone, but I wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Oh, is that what I am? An acquisition?”
“Don’t undersell yourself, Amy.” His expression turned intense again as his eyes raked along my body. I felt myself wanting him to hold me in his gaze for as long as possible. I wanted to be the object of his attention, or maybe just his object. “You’re much more than that. We don’t always hire the developer of everything we buy.”
That gave me pause. I didn’t know his business practices, and because Adstringo wasn’t public, I had to rely on second hand sources. There were rumors, of course, but rumors didn’t always mean much.
“So why hire me, then?” I asked, confused.
“You have to ask?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“You created and developed a complex application in your spare time that not only has a revenue function, but also a positive social benefit. It’s impressive. I wanted to poach you before someone else did.”
I didn’t know what to say. It’s true that my app was a little complicated. Connecting low-income students with online tutors willing to help them for decreased rates has a lot of moving pieces, but I never looked at it as anything more than a worthwhile puzzle.