I should have told 86'd his number, put my phone to sleep and feigned I didn't hear Damian Blackwood tentatively say he would send a car.
But an hour later, I was standing at the window, eyeing the black sleek car idling outside my apartment.
I wasn't stupid. I also knew that men like Damian didn't give casual dinner invites. This wasn't a date. It was something else.
Heading into something I absolutely should not.
But my feet took me to the door anyway.
At most, the driver spoke as he pleaded open the car door for me. The interior wasley what I imagined grandiose, muted and uncomfortably intimate.
The very first time I walked inside it, I could sense it.
Power.
In the leather seats, in the tinted windows, in how the engine rumbled softly as we drove away. Damian Blackwood's world was the opposite of mine, and here I was about to enter it.
We traveled through neighborhoods that I knew so little about I hardly recognized them as the city lights faded into the distance. I gripped my purse more tightly as my brain pleaded with me to turn around.
But it was too late for that.
A few minutes later, the car arrived at a private entrance to an upscale restaurant I only had seen in magazines. I opened the door, and opening it for me, The driver opened it for me, and opening my door before I had even had a breath.
Damian was standing there.
His black suit, crisp and easy going, was tailor made. But it was not what was on their bodies that got my blood going.
It was how he looked at me.
Like he already owned me.
"Elena." His voice was smooth as silk. "You came."
I swallowed. "Did I have a choice?"
Something played in his dark eyes amusement? Challenge? "You always have a choice."
I opened my door, not wanting to notice how his eyes burned on me. "Then why do I feel like I just made a deal with the devil?"
His lips curved slightly. "Because you're smart."
A shiver ran down my spine.
The inside of the restaurant was dark and crowded, the patrons exuding both wealth and importance. People turned to stare at me as we passed but Damian didn't even notice.
It was unsettling. The way people watched him. How they twisted theirs and got out of his way.
Like they feared him.
They ushered us to a private booth in the back, away from prying eyes. Damian sunk into his chair, his eyes following me as I settled into mine.
A waiter arrived immediately to pour us a deep-red wine and said nary a word. Damian didn't even glance at the menu.
"I'll take care of ordering for us," he said smoothly.
I stiffened. "I can order for myself."
Something inscrutable flashed in his eyes. "I know."
But he didn't give me a menu.
I nipped back, but I didn't fight it. Not yet.
First, I had to figure out what this was, exactly.
"Or," I said, crossing my arms. "Are you going to tell me why I'm here?"
Damian leaned back, studying me with those dark eyes of his. "You lost your job."
I was tense. "Thanks for the reminder."
"I told you I had an offer."
I exhaled sharply. "You never said what it was."
His lips curved slightly. "Because you weren't ready to hear it.
There was something in the way he said that that twisted my stomach.
I lifted my chin. "And now I am?"
His fingers traced the rim of his glass, slow, contemplative. "Now you are so desperate you will listen."
I hated how well he read me.
I glared at him. "I'm not desperate."
Damian chuckled. "Someone sitting here across from a man she can't trust, unable to work all day … Sounds desperate to me."
I was bursting out a fist under the table. "You're an ass."
He smirked. "So I've been told."
I exhaled sharply. "Just tell me what you want."
Damian's expression shifted. The teasing note was gone, replaced by something darker.
More serious.
"I need an assistant."
I blinked. "What?"
"You will work for me," he said, smoothly. "You will be scheduling my time — in meetings with me, doing the things that I don't have time to do."
I frowned. "You mean like a secretary?"
"No." The voice sounded crisp and sure. "I have plenty of those. "I want someone who can take care of things … discreetly."
I hesitated. "What kind of things?"
Damian's eyes darkened. "The sort, in which words shouldn't be spoken."
A slothful chill crawled down my spine.
This was a mistake.
I was supposed to rise up and walk away and never return.
But when she walked toward me, I said, "And why me?"
Damian leaned closer, voice low, dangerously soft.
"Because you're interesting to me, Elena."
My breath caught.
He hadn't been trying to get to me, but he had.
Damian Blackwood, he wasn't much of a compliment giver.
And yet … he had just told me I intrigued him."
I made myself hold his gaze. "And if I say no?"
His expression didn't change.
"You won't."
A shiver ran down my spine.
Because the terrifying part?
I wasn't sure he was wrong
I could have given Damian Blackwood an exact location for where he could shove his offer and walked out, never looking back.
But I didn't.
Instead, I sat there, pulse pounding and fingers furled in my lap, staring at the man opposite me opposite me, the man in the jacket the man who a brief moment earlier had told me I intrigued him.
And I would hate that a small, treasonous part of me took such pleasure in hearing it.
I swallowed hard. "So let me get this straight. You want me to work for you, doing things that don't go on paper. So that's a nice way of saying you need a fixer."
Damian's mouth quirked a little. "Smart girl."
My stomach twisted. I knew it.
I leaned in and spoke in a low voice. "And what problem am I solving, exactly?"
Damian sipped his wine, unblinking. "Does it matter?"
My jaw tightened. "It matters if it's illegal."
He let out a low chuckle. "I'm a businessman, Elena, not a felon."
I wasn't convinced. Not for a second.
"Then why do they need me?"
Damian leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on me. "Because I have a lot of issues trusting people. And you…" He tilted his head. "You're that desperate, but you're not a fool. That makes you valuable."
I cried and snatched my glass. "I haven't said yes."
His dark eyes gleamed. "But you have not declined, however."
I hated that he was right.
Dinner was tense and silent. The food was heavenly and the wine costly, but barely tasted. It was turning me inside out in my head trying to understand.
Damian Blackwood wanted me to be his bitch.
He was wealthy and powerful and obviously dangerous in ways I somehow couldn't even imagine.
So why me?
I wasn't special. I was just some broke woman, unemployed, futureless, with no business sitting there in a restaurant with food that was probably more than my rent.
Unless…
My stomach twisted.
Unless he had something more than an assistant in mind.
I put down my fork. "Tell me the truth, Damian."
He arched his brow. "I always do."
I scoffed. "Sure you do." I folded my arms. "Could this be just an offer of employment really? Or do we exist hoping for something else?"
His smirk disappeared.
This time it was, for once, really … serious.
"I keep work and play separate, Elena." It was smooth, his voice, but there was an edge to it. "If I wanted in bed, I wouldn't have made it a job."
A chill ran down my spine.
The confidence in his tone that God help me, the way he said it is just…
It did something to me"The child in me constricted."
I exhaled sharply. "Good. 'Since I don't fuck my boss.'
Damian's lips twitched. "Not yet."
My pulse spiked. "Excuse me?"
He tilted his head to the side as he watched me. "You're already thinking about it."
I nearly choked. "I am not"
He smirked. Appears with a New York ti byline as "Lying Doesn't Become You, Elena."
I fisted my hands, beneath the table, and fought to breathe. This man was infuriating. Dangerous. Too damn sure of himself.
And worst of all?
He wasn't entirely wrong.
By the time dinner was finished, I was more exhausted than I'd been in weeks. Not physically. Mentally.
Damian led me out of the restaurant, one hand resting lightly on the small of my back. I should have waved it off, but my body betrayed me, far too cognizant of how he'd touched me.
A shiny black car already sat curbside. Damian flung the door open and stepped back so I could come inside.
I hesitated.
This felt like a moment.
A choice I couldn't undo."
I looked up at him. "And if I accept this… job?"
Damian's gaze was unreadable. "Then your life changes."
A warning.
A promise.
I swallowed hard. My heart pounded in my chest as I moved forward, past the poi
nt of no return.
And when I got into the car, he leaned closer to me, his breath warm in my ear.
"Welcome to my world, Elena."