No soft pinks and golds in her makeup today. Thick liner around her eyes and lipstick like a ripe, black cherry made her look like she was ready to ride into battle. Ms. Julia Anderson had come to meet him in full armor today.
“Hello, Ferro, how has your day been? No steel aquatic creatures in your office I see.”
“Not my thing.”
“Right. Well. I’ve brought my ideas for the navigation system.” She reached into her leather bag, also black, and pulled out her tablet computer, bringing up a three dimensional model on the screen. She turned it with her finger, showing different angles, the dimensions for each part of the system, fading in and out depending on what she was featuring.
“It will be touch screen. And voice activated. It will be able to look things up by landmark or by street, state, zip code, whatever. It will be especially handy when you’re lost, and say, you’re on Third Street, but you need to get to the wharf. So you can push a button on your steering wheel, activate voice recognition and say, ‘How far am I from the wharf?’ And it can tell you and map a route.”
“Good ideas,” he said. And they were. Julia did have a way of thinking like the kind of person who would need to use this piece of technology.
It was harder for him. Maybe because he didn’t understand people especially well. Not normal, functional people.
They spent the next few hours altering her rendering, discussing features, modifying specifications and fighting over things one of them found necessary and the other felt was useless.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed the conception of a product so much. And it had to do with Julia. With the fact that she felt so deeply about what it was they were doing. It made him want to put more into it. To match what she was giving.
By the time they were finished, there were five empty cartons on his desk that had once contained Chinese food, and they were on their fourth pot of coffee. And the sun had gone down, their afternoon meeting extending long past work hours.
“This is it!” Julia said, standing up from her position at his desk. “They’re going to choose our design. How can they not? It’s genius. Beyond genius, if I say so myself. I mean, really.”
When it came to work, Julia was unable to disguise her passion all the way. And he was glad. She tapped into a part of herself, a part of life, that was off-limits to him. Watching her, being near her when she was overflowing with energy and exuberance was intoxicating.
Nearly as much as sleeping with her had been. No, he wasn’t going there. He was determined to put that out of his mind. To forget it happened. It opened up too many doors he simply didn’t want opened. Let in too many ghosts from his past.
And it almost felt like it might be worth the cost. Almost.
“It is a good design,” he said, trying not to betray his thoughts. Trying not to show just how badly he wanted to push her onto his desk and have a repeat experience of what it was like to have sex on his own terms. With a woman he wanted. Wanted so much it made him burn.
“It’s an amazing design.”
“I think that should be all, then,” he said, standing and straightening a stack of papers on his desk. Something to keep his hands busy, to keep from touching her. She was like fine porcelain, and he was afraid his hands were far too rough from all his years on the street. He had been foolish to think he could touch her without breaking her.
Foolish to think he could play with sex again and walk away unaffected. It never worked that way. It was why he hadn’t gone there again since escaping Rome. Not until Julia.
And he wouldn’t do it again. Not with her. There would be another woman, one who wouldn’t challenge him so much. One who wouldn’t make him feel like he was being torn apart from the inside out.
“That’s…all?” she asked, her blue eyes round.
“Yes. There’s nothing more for us to discuss today. We can pitch this to Barrows in person next week. Until then, we can both get back to our businesses.”
Julia only stared at him, her mouth parted slightly, her cheeks flushed. And then she reached out and grabbed his tie.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JULIA WASN’T QUITE sure what possessed her. Only that she’d been waiting, their entire eight hours together, for Ferro to give some indication that he remembered sharing the most intense and intimate moments of her life with her. But he’d refused.