Entry-Level Mistress - By Sabrina Darby Page 0,4

his skin beneath that fragrance. I was crazy, no doubt about it.

Inside, two old men sat at a table on the far right of the otherwise empty room. A waiter came out from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. I half expected the man to come up and say, “Welcome, Mr. Hartmann!” as if this were a place that Hartmann frequented regularly, but there was no kiss on the cheeks, merely a polite welcome and a gesture to sit where we liked.

Hartmann liked a table on the left side of the room by the window overlooking the water. He ordered a bottle of wine and then after the waiter left, looked sideways at me.

“You are old enough to drink, aren’t you?”

“Maybe you should have asked before you ordered the bottle,” I teased, enjoying the flicker of response at the corner of his mouth. “I’m twenty-one.”

“A bit young for graduating college.”

“I have a summer birthday. It’s par for the course.”

The waiter brought out the wine, and without ritual poured us each a full glass. Hartmann didn’t protest and I wondered if he wasn’t a wine connoisseur at all. Weren’t billionaires supposed to be experts in all things luxury?

“To … ” He let the space hang there and finally, just as I was about to speak, he said, “twenty-one.” He had a small, ironic twist to his lips and I thought I would melt right there from the absolute gorgeousness of that expression.

Ridiculous. I was going to have to bring this strange lunch date to a head because I was out of my league at the moment and I had no idea what he wanted from me. He wasn’t flirting, but had I really mistaken that interest in his eyes?

Perhaps a better question was, what did I want from him? Why was I here? Why had I taken a job working for him in the first place? Was it really for some vague scheme of revenge or was it because I just wanted to see the man up close? Because if it were the latter, then here we were. There would never be a better time.

“Mr. Hartmann—”

“Daniel,” he interrupted with a murmur. I stopped. Closed my lips. Looked back to my hands, and then looked to my wine glass. I took a much-needed drink and then I wondered if I’d have brown teeth from the red wine.

“Daniel,” I said, emphasizing his name and meeting his eyes. I stopped again. Because saying his name while meeting his eyes was much too intimate. There was that something again, that intensity. Maybe this was flirting, the flirting of a thirty-something man of the world and I had no idea how to deal with such subtlety. College boys were as subtle as … well, who cared about them when what mattered really was that Daniel had these amber flecks in his otherwise green-as-glass eyes. Why didn’t that show up on the magazine covers?

“As much as I appreciate you taking interest,” I began again, forcing the words out. Why was he taking an interest? If he knew who I was, why hadn’t he had me tossed out on the street the minute he found out I worked for him?

“What did you major in, Emily?” he interrupted again. I let him. Postponed the inevitable confrontation. What else was I supposed to do?

“Studio Arts, with an emphasis in sculpture.” Another sip of wine. All right, a gulp. Perhaps the Excel document would swim in front of my eyes when I returned to the office.

“You sculpt, then?”

“A little.” Understatement, of course, considering my fall fellowship, but he didn’t need to know that.

“And why not advertising, or marketing, graphic design, or any useful skill?” I bristled at his words, and then realized from that small quirk of his lips that he was teasing me.

“I have a position in your company without benefit of any useful skill,” I reminded him.

“And why is that? Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?” There was that quirk at the corner of his lips again, but also his gaze was moving over me, as if he thought I was plenty grown up. Which, from the heated reaction of my body to his words, I knew I was. A thin, thrilling tendril of pleasure wrapped itself around me, tightening my awareness. I had never, ever known this before, this visceral attraction. But then, considering half the models he’d dated hadn’t been over twenty-three, he’d had practice seducing young women.

“Anything you