“Lincoln tells me the Alcore proposal was your idea.”

My eyes widen in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting him to send it over. I just e-mailed it Sunday.”

“Well, he did. And I’m impressed.”

Despite myself, my heart does a little leap of joy.

“He’s pleased with your work,” Callan says.

“Thank you.”

“So I’ve been putting some thought into this.” His chair creaks as he shifts and strokes his chin with his thumb. “Tahoe asked me to take you under my wing at Carma, said that you wanted to learn. And I think the best way for you to do that is to finish your internship as my assistant.”

I’m shocked into silence. Confused at first, then scared, then a little flattered.

He explains, “Ivonne is taking her maternity leave early, and I’d really like you to step up and step in.”

A thousand nervous little pricks run inside my body. I shift restlessly in my chair. “Well I don’t know that I want to leave Mr. Lincoln.”

“You don’t want to leave Mr. Lincoln,” he repeats.

“It’s just that he’s very disorganized on his own. He needs someone to help him organize his thoughts,” I explain.

He looks vaguely amused for a second then deeply frustrated the next. Finally he seems amused again, and he adds, “I will be sure that Mr. Lincoln has someone very capable of helping him organize his thoughts.”

His eyebrows rise as he waits for me to say more.

Obviously he expects me to say yes. Maybe even do a happy dance right here in my chair. But the mere thought of being close to him makes me uneasy. Something tells me Callan is going to push me to my limits.

I know down to my bones it won’t be easy with Callan Carmichael at all.

Because he’s so goal-oriented and so cold in his business dealings.

And also because deep beneath that hot designer suit, there’s still that very real human guy I had sex with, and that might be the most disadvantageous thing of all. I have a freaking soft spot for that guy, my mail guy. I opened up to him, I . . . wanted him. And he’s not the guy I thought he was.

This second, as I look at the guy across the desk from me in a white shirt and gray slacks, his handsome face reserved, I feel only confusion because I want to open up to him again, and at the same time, I want to run as fast and far away from him as my legs and these slick corporate heels will take me.

“Why do you do this?” I ask him, pointing at the stock tickers on the screen.

“Why do you?” he counters.

“Tahoe is the one who made me so interested in business. My family wasn’t always rich. My parents were struggling, and Tahoe was always working at the oil rigs, until he met a guy with a struggling oil lease, and he invested the little he had, bought his first lease and rig, and helped the man out. Three years later he’d struck a gold mine, made his partner rich, and became independent on his own.

“I saw what he did for my parents, giving them a sense of financial security they’d never had. It intrigued me and made me want to do the same, not for me or my family, since we’re taken care of, but for others. Finding ways to bring their businesses back to a full working state.”

“And I do this because I’m good at it. I’m the best at it. FYI.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re so cocky it’s almost sexy.”

His eyes glint playfully. “Almost?”

I frown. “Almost.”

He grins back at me. “Do I get a yes now, as I am almost sexy when I’m cocky? I can be very persuasive too,” he says.

I wait.

He leans forward on his desk. “You’re so blunt it’s almost insanely attractive.”

“Almost?”

He nods. “Almost.”

His eyes darken as soon as he says that, and we both stop smiling when we realize we were flirting.

His office could’ve just fallen away, and we could’ve been up on that terrace again, nothing but a guy and a girl and that’s it.

He grins sardonically. “I expected you’d say yes, Livvy.” He raises a challenging brow and looks at me with the same eyes my Hot Smoker Guy used to look at me.

And because of the guy I met on the terrace, because I want to be honest with that guy, I tell him the truth.

“I . . . thank you, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” I hesitate before saying the rest, but he seems to read my mind. We were just flirting after all. Oh god. This is not good! “After what happened—”

He cuts me off. “I told your brother I’d help, and I want to come through. I told him you’d learn here, and I think the best way for you to do that is to be my assistant.”

He leans back and studies me.

Of course he doesn’t miss the fact that I still haven’t said yes.

There’s an intimacy in the room—something warm in his eyes. Something warm inside me that I’m struggling to cool down.

“I was hoping you weren’t asking me for my brother.”

“I’m not.” Calmly, he says, “When I started working at my father’s firm, my father put me through the wringer to get me where I am today. I worked twelve-hour days, doing anything I could—anything,” he emphasizes. “I couldn’t have built Carma without the experience. Someone needs to do the dirty work. I quickly learned none of my employees are willing to do it as effusively as when they know you’re willing to do it yourself.”

“I want the work,” I agree, “but I want to help people too. I don’t know that I’ll feel comfortable working so closely with you when you specialize in ripping companies apart. I joined the firm thinking I could learn here, but I wanted to remain distant from that aspect of it.”

Shadows cross his eyes, and his voice drops a decibel as he leans forward on his desk again. “Is that what you think I do? Just take a bite, chew them up and spit out the pieces, Olivia?” He seems both puzzled and slightly amused. “You clearly don’t understand what I do here. You have a lot to learn.”

“I know that,” I say softly.

“I’m not the devil, Livvy. I just choose to allow some to believe that I am.”

He gives me the smile that makes my pulse skip.

“Callan—Mr. Carmichael, you’ve got the wrong girl. Radisson in Austin didn’t even offer an internship. I’m really so green still . . .”

He eyes me with a hint of anger and shifts forward just a bit more. “I trust my own judgment better than anyone else’s. Olivia, everyone starts at the bottom. Hell, it’s better to start at the bottom. Sooner or later we all get acquainted with the ground. Starting from the ground up is what gives you a solid foundation.”

Well he’s kind of badass, and not in a bad way.

I think my nana would like him.

But she’d call him a scoundrel for sure.

He’s so young, it’s incredible to think of all the things I know I could learn from this guy. He could teach me. I could learn. At the price of what, though?

I can’t even look at him without feeling a big, warm T I N G L E! Urgh!

“I’m just not sure you’ve got the right girl,” I finally say.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he says as he stands and eases his arms into his jacket.

I nod and stand too, following him outside on automatic.

“We’re off,” he tells his assistant, tapping his knuckles on her desk as we pass. “Go rest.”

We ride the elevator, and I eye him, full of regret.

If only he had been seventy-year-old Daniel Radisson. Safe Daniel Radisson who helps businesses like I want to do someday, is supposedly kind and my father’s friend instead of my brother’s. I would’ve instantly, immediately said yes from the get-go.

“I’m hungry,” he says casually. “You hungry?”

“I . . . yes.”

He smiles.

I do anything but look at that hot, sexy smile.

We head down a couple of blocks to a hot dog stand and I regret blurting out that I was hungry.

“Tell me about Radisson.”

“I wanted Radisson Investments because they don’t make the big kills, it’s a company with heart so . . . they invest in struggling companies and sort of salvage some. It’s a very prestigious firm in Austin. Not as prestigious as yours but . . . but there’s a reason he didn’t want me,” I insist.