“I mean, what if you never found a job? Anywhere?”
“Oh.” She sips her drink and takes a moment. “I don’t know. I didn’t think that far. Stayed with friends? Become homeless?”
Or married one of the Hundred. An untenable option.
“But I don’t have to worry about finding a spot under a bridge because you gave me a job. So thank you.” She beams.
She’s looking at me like I just saved the world from a super villain from outer space. Which makes me sit straighter and taller, although…
“It’s only for eight weeks.” I feel obliged to point that out. I wonder if I should replace Benedict with Yuna permanently. He’s going to be a famous writer anyway. I’ll introduce him to a few producers before I let him go. That’ll make him happy.
Her smile only deepens. “Don’t worry. My family doesn’t want me working forever. I’m pretty sure that they’ll wave the white flag within the next two months. Then I won’t have to work anymore, so actually, this position works out perfect for me.”
Chapter Seventeen
Declan
Yuna’s sunny declaration feels like a sledgehammer to the base of my skull.
Here I am, seriously considering letting go of the best assistant I’ve ever had, and she’s telling me she doesn’t see any future, professional or otherwise, with me beyond eight weeks.
I can’t quite process it.
“Should you be telling me about that?” I ask finally.
“Why not? It isn’t like you don’t know I’m done after eight weeks. Your assistant’s coming back, right?”
“Well…yeah. But what are you going to do after that? Seems to me you’ve still got the same problem. Your family’s still going to be pushing guys at you, right?”
She laughs. “I’m only going to marry a man who puts me above everything else. A guy who lets me know how much he loves me and cares about me every day of my life.” Her tone is very matter-of-fact. “And I’m perfectly okay with staying single for the rest of my life if I don’t find that person.”
“Because you won’t settle,” I say, starting to understand her better.
“Nope. Why should I? I don’t even keep presents I don’t like. Why would I keep a guy?”
“But how are you going to know if you won’t even date him?”
Yuna shrugs. “There has to be a, a…what do you call it? In French it’s a frisson.”
“A zing? A thrill?”
“That’s it. It’s like shopping. When I’m looking at shoes on display, some of them don’t do a thing for me—although they’re very good shoes—but some of them just scream my name. It’s the same thing with men.”
Popping my I threw away your number cherry, and now this. My ego is doubled over and wheezing, although part of me says there’s no way she felt zero zing. I didn’t imagine the changes in her body when I held her during our waltz practice.
The fluttering of her pulse.
The parting of her lips as she breathed faster.
The subtle flush on her cheeks.
No woman responds like that if she feels nothing.
Maybe she doesn’t understand what her reactions mean. But that’s ridiculous. She might’ve been sheltered, but she isn’t an idiot.
Well, we’ll see how long she can pretend to feel nothing when we continue to practice the dance. I plan to insist on it until I get together with Melvin. And maybe after. You can never practice enough. I might even tell her I need to learn to tango, because there could be some role out there that requires it.
I pay for lunch, and we leave. I open the door for Yuna, but she gestures for me to go first.