He tilts his head to eye me, and I can’t miss the way his gaze runs to my shoulders and to the fall of my hair. I become breathless.

I glance at my reflection in the elevator doors. Blonde and blue-eyed, fair-skinned, I look small and weak and he looks big and hot in that stupid suit.

“Will you be at the terrace this afternoon?” I blurt out.

His brows rise in surprise, and then his eyes run over my hair again, slowly and thoroughly.

It feels like forever before he speaks, his voice smooth and calm in a way that his stare is not. “I’ll leave you my cigarettes, how’s that?”

“Oh no, it’s not the cigarettes. I don’t even smoke, not really. I just . . . well, I don’t have a lot of friends here, really. I like it when we share a cigarette on the terrace.”

His eyes look a little tender, but that gorgeous mouth of his doesn’t speak.

Thank god that finally my floor is up.

“Well, bye.” I wave, smiling, and I step out awkwardly and force myself not to look back. Shit. Fuck. Shitfuck! I’m cursing to myself, feeling a flush creep up my cheeks, wondering why I care so much that he didn’t say yes.

I still end up showing upstairs.

Still wondering why I even care. The last thing I want is a guy. In fact, I’m even wearing the small diamond ring my parents gave me on my fifteenth birthday on the fourth finger of my left hand, so the guys will leave me alone in case I ever go to a club or out with some of the other interns.

I suppose I just want a friend. And I like his energy. All easy confidence and male strength. It’s something I adore about my brother. He makes me feel safe. But this guy is a stranger, so I don’t understand, exactly, why I crave talking to him except that maybe I’m curious, and I feel a buzz of excitement when he’s near.

He’s standing by the ledge when I step out of the elevator. My heart leaps a little, and I have to take a deep breath in order to act cool when I join him.

He looks at me as if challenging me to walk close to the ledge.

I stop a few feet away and finger the hem of my black jacket. His eyes snag on the ring I’m wearing.

“Who’s the guy?” he asks, casually, frowning down at the ring.

I laugh and glare at him. “Wow. What happened to your antics? Not ‘who’s the lucky guy’? I didn’t miss the omission.”

“I’m not sure if he’s lucky, or terribly, terribly unlucky,” he says.

I want to say a name out of the blue.

I sigh.

“It’s a gift from my parents and the ultimate commitment to giving my goals my all.”

“Really.”

“Really.”

He moves and I step back.

“So it’s a phony.”

“It’s not a phony, it’s a real diamond!”

“It’s a phony engagement ring.”

“It’s not. I’m engaged to myself.”

He shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “Ahh, surely because nobody else would want you?” he asks, looking deathly somber.

I nod, also deathly somber. “Actually, that’s precisely why. I’ve got clusters of freckles on every part of my body and a personality that’s even worse.”

“Worse than freckles.” He scratches his chin.

“Clusters of freckles.”

“You might find someone one day,” he eyes the ring and then eyes me, “with a freckle fetish,” he draws out, laughing. “And he’ll see exactly why you’re special. But that ring could deter him from even trying to discover all those clusters of freckles underneath.”

I wonder what that would feel like. To be loved like that. In the way my brother loves Regina. My dad and mom love each other. “If he can’t take a little competition and would let something like hardware prevent him from knowing me then I’m not interested. He gets none of my freckles.”

He smiles quietly, and I wonder about him.

If he’s ever loved, if he’s ever been loved, if he even wants to be. But don’t we all want to? Even when you think you don’t want to, there’s this feeling of waiting in the back of your head. Of waiting for that to happen. To know what it’s like and to be swept away.

“I think I’ll have a cigarette now,” I say, flushing.

I can’t believe I opened my big mouth, but I’m desperate for some real conversation and some silly conversation and to just be me, to talk with someone who won’t judge me or look at me like the lowly little intern whose brother got her the job.

He lights up, and this time when I set the cigarette to my lips, there’s a low throb deep in my stomach just knowing my lips are on the exact spot his were.

The wind tosses his lovely brown hair about recklessly. He gives the impression of control but in a way that makes you wonder what happens when all that power is unleashed.

“So. You have a brother,” he says.

I nod. “Yep. He taught me to put my thumb on the hose and aim the stream at an angle to the sun so I could make a rainbow. We were silly like that. Though I hate his big-brother condescending bullshit. He wanted me to stay in his building in some posh apartment. I insisted I pay for an apartment I could afford with my salary.”

He lifts his brows, impressed.

“He put money into a trust for me when I turned eighteen, but I haven’t touched it. It’s not mine. I want to know I can earn my keep . . . and then give it away to something special. Some noble cause.” I shrug. “He makes plenty of donations, but I want to give something that comes from me so I can earn points up there.” I point to the sky.