Make Me Forget (Make Me, #1)(24)
Nancy closed the door behind her with a hushed click. Dylan Fall studied her while Alice’s lungs burned for air.
He suddenly whipped off the glasses he wore and stood. Alice willed her ungainly limbs to move. He reached out his hand.
“Alice. Dylan Fall. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you,” he said, his voice low with just a hint of gravel to it. Her spine flickered with heightened awareness at the sound.
“Thank you for taking the time to see me,” she said, gripping his hand firmly and giving it a perfunctory pump. He held out his other hand in an elegant “please, sit” gesture and lowered into his seat. She sat in the leather chair before the large desk, feeling like her arms and legs were glaringly out of sync with her brain . . . worse, like she were a beggar supplicant at the polished altar of the god of wealth and power. She absolutely refused to be impressed or cowed by Dylan Fall.
You can refuse all you want. You are.
“I’m glad to have the opportunity to meet with you. From what I’ve gathered, much of the statistical brilliance from the philanthropy and profit article in the Journal of Finance and Business is owed to you,” he said, picking up a pen and tapping it on the desk. He moved the pen in an absentminded fashion, running long fingers over the smooth metal cylinder, flipping it, and repeating the process.
Alice ripped her stare off the vision and focused on his face. Her heart had started to beat uncomfortably fast. He played with the pen in a distracted way, but his gaze on her was razor sharp. The thick drapes were drawn, blocking out the spring sunlight. The contrast of shadow and glowing lamplight made his strong jawline and near-black eyes appear even more dramatic. Enigmatic. She’d already known what to expect from his looks, or at least that’s what she’d told herself. He had dark brown hair that was smooth, despite its thickness. It was longer in the front than in the back. He wore it combed back, the style suiting his business attire, even if it did look like it could be sexily disheveled in a heartbeat by a woman’s delving fingers. A pair of lustrous, drilling eyes advertised loud and clear you better give Fall exactly what he wanted, or he’d freeze you to the spot. Dark lashes and slanting brows added to a sort of sexy gypsy-gone-corporate-pirate aura about him. His face was handsome, but in a rugged fashion—full of character and strength. He was far from being a pretty boy. There was something rough about him, despite the expensive suit and epic composure. The cleft in his chin only added to the sense of hard, chiseled male beauty.
The media loved him. She’d seen photos of him clean-shaven, sexily scruffy, and even once with a beard and mustache. Currently, he wore a very thin, well-trimmed goatee. His skin wasn’t pale, but he didn’t look like the type of man who tanned as a matter of course, either. Alice imagined that, like her, he spent a lot of his time reading reports and squinting at numbers on a computer screen, or else sitting at the head of a boardroom table.
Durand Enterprises was well known for not only its strong philanthropic practices, but its financial robustness. Alice herself had suggested it right off the bat for their multifactorial, longitudinal study about the correlation between company philanthropy and profit. Alice had poured through journal and magazine articles, collecting relevant data on Durand, so she’d seen photos of Fall.
She’d stared at those photos a lot. So much so, in fact, that she’d started to think she was getting a little obsessed with the business mogul.
She was pretty unimpressed by men as a rule. She’d had to deal with her share of strutting, bullshitting, worthless, and dangerous males in her life. Good-looking men usually had even fewer redeeming qualities than the plain or ugly ones, in her opinion. The ugly ones had to compensate somehow in order to compete for women. She didn’t usually blink twice when she met a hot guy, but Dylan Fall was the kind of rough-and-tumble gorgeous that had all sorts of involuntary chemical reactions sparking in her body.
At the moment, she damned him straight to hell for it. Didn’t he possess an unfair amount of advantages as it was?
She straightened her spine and cleared her throat. “I was one of four research assistants on Dr. Lopez’s project. We all did our share of research and running numbers.”
His sliding fingers slowed on the pen. His gaze narrowed on her. “You’re a team player, then?” he asked quietly.
“I’m just stating the truth.”
“No. You’re not.”
Her chin went up. She almost immediately ducked her head when she felt how muscle and skin tightened, making her thrumming pulse probably more obvious to him, exposing her vulnerability.
“I spoke to Dr. Lopez about it in person before arriving here today,” he said. “She says that most of the innovative statistical analyses run on the project were not only completed by you, but designed by you.”
She couldn’t think of what to say, so she just held his stare.
“You don’t want to brag about your accomplishments?” he asked.
“Is that what you’d like? A little dog-and-pony show?”
His long fingers stilled, holding the silver pen mid-flip.
Shit.
Her cheeks flooded with heat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” she said, flustered. “I’m just a little confused as to why Durand is here at Arlington College. We all are, to be honest. Did you come because of the article?”
“Does that surprise you?” he asked, tossing the pen on the blotter. “Durand was one of the main companies featured. You single-handedly vindicated our strong philanthropic principles using hard statistics to do it. I’m impressed,” he said starkly. She swallowed thickly when he leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and met her stare. “Very.”