“It’s all right,” I chuckle, trying to let her off the hook. “I was just teasing. You don’t have to be tied to me. We are not married or anything.”
“Teasing?” she asks, surprised.
“I have been known to do that from time to time,” I smirk.
Her stunned silence makes me think my “teasing” isn’t as widely observed as I assumed.
“So, okay. Anyway. I’d like you to be our point person in the office in case we need research or backup. It’s a request, not a command.”
“Oh!” she practically barks, then giggles nervously. “Oh, I didn’t think that. It’s just… I mean, yes. I’m on call. I will have my phone with me at all times. Practically have the text alerts implanted on my retina so I don’t miss any.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’ll do what? Are you serious?”
“No, I’m not serious,” she shakes her head tightly, brushing her cheeks with fringes of her silky hair. “I was just joking. Retinal text messaging sounds like a terrible idea.”
“Just because it’s a terrible idea doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be massively successful,” I smirk.
She squints at me, calculating, before deciding that I’m joking. It’s funny that people hardly ever know when I’m joking.
“You’re teasing,” she says.
“I told you: I do that.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she smirks back, finally relaxing.
As her blush fades, I’m tempted to tease her again to bring it back. But that would probably be a bad idea. Her eyes flicker around the room and settle on the top of my desk. She recognizes the Honduran mining report.
“Oh! You read that?” she asks.
“Of course I read that,” I answer.
She takes a tentative step forward. “Yes, of course you did. But I mean, you kept it? I am just surprised to see it, is all.”
“I keep things that have… potential,” I shrug.
“If it had potential, why didn’t we do it?” she counters boldly.
She rolls her shoulders back, unconsciously assuming a more defiant body position. I wonder if she works out? Maybe a dancer? She is so communicative on so many levels.
“The timing wasn’t right. The tech was good. The ideas were good. The timing was less than optimal.”
“I see.”
“Nothing ever happened with it,” I say.
“Oh?” she asks, clearly surprised. “Did you… follow up? Nothing happened?”
“Right,” I confirm. “You went back to campus, they didn’t find an investor, and the project was shelved. It still has potential.”
Again, a series of small expression changes dance over her features. What is she thinking? How long would it take to know her well enough to know?
“So they just… I mean, are they okay?”
The question startles me. “The business is… Well, it wasn’t a full business. It didn’t have a lot of employees or anything. That is stalled. The mining interests are still active, if that’s what you mean?”
She takes another step forward, dragging her fingertips along the edge of my dark, ebony desk. Her fingernails are oval and modestly shaped, painted in a nearly clear varnish. Subtle. Feminine. Distinctly different from Veronica’s long, violently red claws.
“So, Ernestine? Nigel? Are they still in Honduras?”