Protege(13)
She couldn’t justify the longing she suffered to be somewhere more meaningful than where she was, the pull to discover more. It seemed a homesickness for something she never knew.
“And were you honest?”
“Yes.” Her glance slid sideways, mocking his. He too seemed to be teasing.
“Don’t be coy, Ms. Banks. Our last encounter showed what a talented little liar you can be when you want. Take a seat.”
Familiar with the office, she lowered herself into the same chair she’d occupied last time, only this time she was obsessed with who’d sat there since. Her eyes combed the office for any changes but found none. Mr. Duval was a very tidy man.
“Are you looking for something?”
She folded her hands on her lap. “No, just curious.”
“About?”
Well, if he was going to give her the floor . . . “How often do you host interviews like this?”
“I can’t divulge that information.”
“How many members does Fernweh have?”
“Enough.”
“What’s the divorce rate?”
“Two.”
“Percent?”
“No. Just two.”
She frowned. “How many marriages have you orchestrated?”
“Somewhere just above five hundred.”
If one in three American marriages ended in divorce and Fernweh had arranged five hundred marriages but only two ended in divorce, and Tommy was traveling on an eastbound train carrying two dozen apples—there was a reason she taught French.
Mr. Duval chuckled. “The statistics are as follows. According to the latest census, there were just over two million marriages per calendar year, over a third ending in divorce. If our fail rate matched the rest of the country’s we’d be on our one hundred and sixty-sixth divorce, but luckily for us, we’ve seen only two divorces since our company was founded.”
“Why did they break up?”
“One found a God that required a more traditional arrangement than they had contracted, and the other fell in love with someone else.”
“But shouldn’t your company make sure that doesn’t happen?”
“We do our best, but nothing is foolproof.”
She supposed that was true. “Well, you’ve certainly had more success than the traditional methods.”
“One might ask which method is actually the true traditional one. Before men and women based marriage on love, there was the practice of arranged matrimony, be it for strong lineage or the magnetism of a female’s dowry.”
She laughed. “You’ll note on page six, I have no dowry.”
He grinned and paged through her résumé. His brow arched at a few parts, but she wasn’t sure what caught his eye. The silence carried on as he took his time perusing her responses. She tried her best to accommodate him, but the longer she sat there, the more impatient she grew.
After trying to read the spine of each book on his wall and deciding she needed to visit her optometrist, she sighed.
“Am I keeping you?”
“Sorry. No.” Chastised, she tried to still her fidgeting. If she listened carefully, she could hear the soft hum of cars passing below and the glide of a filing cabinet opening and closing nearby.
“Is this true?”
She jumped, his voice startling her in the mix of buffered silence. “What part?”
He arched a brow. “The fact that you need specifics to verify the truth of your answers does not bode well, Ms. Banks. The part about your fantasies.”
Oh. That. Her face heated. “You asked for honesty.”
“Did I get it?”
She nodded. “Does that make me weird?”
He smirked. “No. That’s not even that extreme. Fantasies are meant to be outlandish. I’d say this is a healthy one.”
Relieved, she sighed. Having someone take her aggressively and hold her down wasn’t something she’d categorize as timid. It seemed hot and something—for some reason—men never really did, perhaps for fear of their legal safety. She didn’t have rape fantasies. She only wanted intimacy to be a bit more . . . intense. But he made it seem like her fantasy was wimpy. “I could probably come up with more, but you only asked that I describe one.”
“One suffices.”
She’d hoped they’d continue to chat, but when he went back to reading and the unwelcome silence threatened to return, she panicked. “I can never tell if it’s going to be a warm afternoon or if I should bring a jacket. This weather’s nothing like what I’m used to.”
“Yes,” he answered, turning the page. “You’d be wise to keep a jacket with you until May.”
Her foot tapped irritably over the carpet. Why hadn’t he asked her to e-mail the paperwork so he had time to familiarize himself with her answers before she arrived?
“Ms. Banks?”
Grateful for the interruption, she sat up. “Yes?”
“You’re tapping. Please sit still.”
She huffed and sagged into the chair. When he glanced at her she made a contrite face. “Sorry.”
Removing his glasses and folding them, he studied her for a long moment. Maybe it was better when he was reading. “What color panties are you wearing today, Ms. Banks?”