But I could tell by his body language that he wasn’t.
“No, you don’t need to start any new employee paperwork for her. She’s been hired personally by me. Not by the company,” he said.
“Well, we’ll need a record of anyone who comes in and out of the building with you, remember? The security measures you put forth?” she asked.
“I’ll be taking care of those, and we’ll start by slashing that necessity,” I said.
Derek turned his head toward me, and our eyes locked. But instead of defying me like I figured he would in front of one of his employees, he simply nodded his head.
Interesting.
“It’s no longer your priority to know who comes and goes with me. This is Samantha Williams, and you’ll leave all new and evolving security measures to her,” Derek said.
“You can call me Sam. Everyone does.”
“Oh,” Emma said. “So, you don’t want me to take down any information about her?”
“No,” Derek said. “I do not. This is no longer any of your concern, Miss Emma.”
“Well, where are you headed? You know you need to stick to your schedule this morning. You have a very important phone call to take just after lunch. If that’s where you’re headed, you can’t be too long.”
“Miss Emma, thank you for your concern. Trust that I know my schedule as well as you do. I will see to it my schedule is handled today. You’re dismissed.”
“But Mr.—”
“Goodbye, Emma.”
She looked put off as we buzzed by her and kept walking for the door. Emma was jealous. Another woman was walking with Mr. Steele, and she wanted to know if I posed any sort of competition. But she didn’t need to worry. It wasn’t that I was competition.
It was that she thought she was when she really wasn’t.
“I’m sorry. My personal assistant isn’t usually that rude. I’m not sure what’s gotten into her,” Derek said.
I grinned as we got into his limo, choosing to keep my mouth shut. It would be interesting to see how that played out in his world, but if her possessiveness ever turned ugly, she very well could have been a suspect in all of this.
And the last thing I needed was for him to fire her.
“Not a problem. People have bad days. Maybe she’s having one. You never know,” I said. “Especially with women.”
“What? You didn’t analyze her every move while we were standing there? I’m disappointed. I thought that was your schtick.”
“Like being a pompous billionaire is yours?” I asked.
Our eyes connected, and I could tell he was studying my reactions, trying to play on the field level I inhabited. But no one played on the field I inhabited.
I’d created the field I inhabited. It was private property, and I kept it that way for a reason.
We took his limo to the restaurant he’d chosen for lunch, and I kept my glances to a minimum. I clocked all the exits and made sure we sat at a table where my back was in a corner with no windows. I wanted no one ambushing us, and I wanted a clear path toward the nearest exit if we needed it. There were seventeen windows with four of them locked. Five different exits with two routing through the kitchen. A ventilation system with no more than twenty vents throughout the main room and no more than twelve in the kitchen.
But to Derek, I was grinning and “enjoying his company.”
“I’m still not sure about hiring you,” Derek said. “Keeping you at my side is going to blow this out of the water.”
“Not if you paint me as someone you’re courting,” I said.
“One, you aren’t my type, and two, this is supposed to be professional.”
“One, your cock says differently, and two, you’re also keeping this quiet, which means whatever I need to be painted as to deal with that is par for the course.”
“Then you agree that having a bodyguard following me around closely is going to raise red flags,” he said.
“Which could lead to theories or admissions that could hurt your business. Slap you in your pockets and rob you of your millions. I get it. Is there anyone at your company who knows about the threats being made?”
“I just told you I wasn’t sure if I was going to hire you,” he said.