Engaging the Boss (Heirs of Damon) Read Free

corner of a table. “What did you say?” He’d
been talking, but she hadn’t tracked with any of his words. Her head ached and
her stomach churned, and her damned chair wasn’t working right.
    Jonathan
glanced at his watch, as if he just realized it was late. “You’re exhausted,”
he said. “Go on home. We’ll pick up again tomorrow.”
    She
let out a relieved breath, but still felt a bit guilty. “I can hold out a
little longer if you—”
    “No,
no. It’s late. Sorry I kept you so long.”
    She
got up to leave, since he’d already gotten distracted again, jotting down notes
on his pad of paper as he studied the monitor. But she’d been thinking a lot
for the last several hours and, before she left, she had to clear up a few
things.
    “This
wedding, it’s going to be really fancy, isn’t it?”
    He
blinked, as if he’d just remembered they’d talked about that earlier today.
“Yeah.”
    “I’ll
need to do some shopping. Is it all right if I have a day off sometime this
week to go into Reykjavik?”
    “Why
do you need to go shopping?”
    Her
lips parted slightly as she stared at him. “Are you serious? I don’t dress up around
here. I don’t have anything close to appropriate to wear.”
    “Oh.”
He wrinkled his forehead, as if shopping were something foreign to his
experience. “I guess so. Sure, take whatever day you want. Or, better yet, we
can leave a day early and you can shop in London. I’ll be happy to pay—”
    “No,”
she interrupted, stiffening her shoulders. “I have plenty of money for my
clothes. But London would be great. Thanks.”
    He
peered at her like she was an odd specimen under the microscope. “I didn’t mean
to offend you. I just thought, since you’re doing this for me, it would be only
fair—”
    “I
know,” she interrupted. “But it would be weird if you bought my clothes. I can
buy them myself. You pay me well, and I hardly spend anything here.”
    It
was true. She worked all day, almost every day, so she spent almost nothing on
recreation or a social life. The lab provided food and housing for its staff,
since they were in such an isolated part of Iceland. Her generous salary had
been accumulating in her bank account for the last three years, and she’d
already paid off her student loans.
    “I
hope you don’t mind that I’m not beautiful and glamorous,” she said, the words
tumbling out before she could stop them. She couldn’t help imagining herself
among the well-dressed, sophisticated guests at the wedding, and it wasn’t a
pretty picture.
    Sarah
wasn’t particularly shy, and she was confident about her intellect and the
trajectory of her career. She knew she was better looking than she’d been as a
child, but she was realistic about herself, and beautiful and glamorous she
wasn’t.
    Normally,
it didn’t matter. In the life she lived here, it didn’t matter if she wasn’t
attractive. It simply wasn’t a relevant factor of her existence, since Jonathan
was obviously never going to think about her as a woman. But it would be
relevant at a fancy house party at Damon Manor.
    Jonathan
stared at her. “What?”
    She
felt herself flushing again but pressed on. “I mean, I’m sure you would prefer to
have a beautiful and glamorous fake fiancée. So I hope you won’t mind that I’m
not.”
    “Oh,”
he blinked, as if he’d finally processed what she’d said. “What do I care about
that? My uncle wouldn’t expect me to get engaged to someone like that. You’ll
be fine.”
    “Oh.
Good.” She went to her desk to get her purse and tried to convince herself she
didn’t feel disappointed that he’d agreed she wasn’t beautiful or glamorous.
    It
would have been crazy if he’d thought she was.
    ***
    Three hours later, Jonathan
realized he’d made a huge mistake.
    He’d
fixed the bad wheel on Sarah’s chair and then gone to run on the treadmill with
his normal reading material—an alternating stack of scientific journals and
comic