C2 CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

I'M meeting him. And interviewing in person with him. Although it makes sense, if it’s him I’d be working directly with.

Mr. Bryan Stirling 's eyes finally make their way to me.

But they don’t make it all the way up to my face. My excitement deflates. His gaze lands firmly on the real estate that is my chest.

Of course. Never my face. There obviously .

I keep my hundred-watt smile though. It doesn’t falter even a few degrees. I don’t know why I thought for even a few moments it would be different with this guy. Fortune 500 company or not.

You don’t do the beauty pageant circuit without getting accustomed to men ogling you at every turn, even when you’re only in the running for Miss Teen California. Not when you sprout double D’s at fourteen. He snaps out of it a lot quicker than most, at least. I slide my resume out of my faux leather folder and hand it to him. I keep that smile plastered as I take a seat in the chair set across his desk from him. Then I jump in head first. “I was very excited when I saw the personal assistant job opening and the chance to work here. Bryce Information Technologies is at the cutting edge of short-range drone technology.” Ugh, I want to punch myself. Why am I rambling about shit he already knows about his company?

I pause only to take a breath before refocusing my pitch, “I have extensive experience in public relations and communications. I also have a background in computer science, specifically machine learning and robotics, and I will dedicate myself to this job one hundred and ten percent.”

I only realize that I’ve been slowly leaning further and further over his desk, all but entreating him as I finished my spiel. Shit. Don’t look like you’re begging, look like you’re offering him an opportunity he can't afford to miss. I pull down the edges of my suit coat and sit up straighter. “In short, I know I can be an asset, both to this company and to you personally.”

Mr. Stirling stares at me with an unreadable expression for several moments, his head slightly tilted. Shit. What is he thinking? And does he have to be so handsome? It’s worse now that I’m closer. Even his haircut looks expensive, trimmed short at the sides of his head and perfectly edging into the longer hair on top. His face is shaved totally smooth though. The kind that makes you want to run your fingers across to see if the skin is as soft as it looks.

Shit. I’m weirdly staring at his face. And his hair.

I look away even as beads of sweat break out on my brow. Am I smiling? I smile. Shit, that probably looks weird. I just started smiling all the sudden. I drop my lips into a straight line. Dammit. That probably looks even weirder. I wasn’t smiling, then I smiled, then I stopped again. What. The. Hell. Am. I. Doing? And what is he thinking? He finally looks away from me only to glance down briefly at my resume. His mouth twitches. Was that a good mouth twitch or a bad mouth twitch?

“Background in Computer Science, you said? I’m to assume that’s from the undergraduate courses you listed, by name.” His eyebrows go up.

His deep voice doesn’t sound mocking, but I don’t see that there’s any other way to take it. I sit up straighter in my chair. “Yes.” My voice is firm.

“But you never actually finished college.” His eyes are brown. They meet mine. I still don’t know how to take him or his words. I can’t read him. Dammit. Even if he’s mocking me, I still have to fight for this.

“I understand that it might not be conventional to list an unfinished degree in the educational experience area, but those courses are relevant to the work this company does.” I hold my trembling hands together and hide them in my lap. “For example, in my advanced robotics course, we studied the real-time reaction simulation algorithm you and Jason Yale developed while at IIT. You were only students, but you pushed the state-of-the-art years forward from where it had been.” Good. My voice is coming out confident. I sit up even straighter, if that’s possible. Fake it till you make it, right?I continue. “I’m only on a short hiatus from Stanford, with just a semester left. So it’s not that I never completed college,” I smile a winner’s smile, “it’s that I’m about to finish and for now I’m just after some real-world experience.” He doesn’t have to know that with a toddler and a constant need for steady income, the thought of tackling my last twenty-one credit hours of college has been too overwhelming to even consider.

“Real-world experience.” This time the lip twitch is definitely a smirk. Bastard. It’s a struggle to keep my face open and pleasant, but I do it.

He glances back down at my resume. “Such as The Bridge Bar & Grill? And Hooters? I assume that’s where these communication skills you touted were

...developed?"

Fuuuuuuuuuck. I knew I should’ve left Hooters off. But if I had, I’d have no work history before a year and a half ago. I worked at Hooters for three years, from when I turned eighteen till I was twenty-one. I had to hide it from my parents when I was still at home and going to community college for my first couple years before transferring, but it was the only place to earn any real money in our podunk-freakin’ town. Plus, I