The young woman glanced uncertainly at Danny.
“She answered your ad, Jimmy,” he answered for her.
Jimmy’s shoulders unconsciously straightened. He caught the young woman’s alert smile out of the corner of his eye.
“Did Richard send you over with Danny?” he asked.
“No. He rejected me.”
“Why?” If she was as intelligent as she appeared, the woman probably read her eventual acceptance from that single word. Where had his poker face and voice disappeared to?
“He didn’t trust me,” she smiled. Her eyes added, but you can.
Jimmy struggled to retreat mentally. He trusted Richard’s judgment. There must be a flaw in the perfect woman.
“Why?” he repeated like a parrot. Where had his wits gone? Straight to the bulge that inflated his pants.
“He didn’t like it that I wrote from New York but I work in Cincinnati. I explained that I was visiting a cousin and used her box number, but he didn’t believe me.”
The young woman looked less than at ease for the first time since she had recognized his attraction to her. Richard was probably right. She was probably lying.
“Was there anything else?” he continued to probe.
“He asked me why I wanted the money and I didn’t have an answer right away.”
“Why do you want the money?”
“It’s not the money,” she began. Jimmy’s incredulous expression must have stopped her. After a moment, she carried on.
“It’s a lot of money,” she agreed. “I do want the money, of course, but I was more intrigued to meet a man who would write an ad like that. You’re not really an accountant, are you?”
The abrupt question caught Jimmy by surprise.
“No,” he admitted. He was saved from further comment by the waiter.
Once the orders were taken, the young woman went back on the attack.
“You own TransGlobe, right?”
“Yes,” Jimmy admitted.
“I’ve seen it on the Exchange. You must be worth a lot of money.”
“Lots.”
“I bet you got a lot of gold-diggers answering the ad.”
“Almost nothing but.”
“Well, I’m not after your money. Not any more than the one twenty K anyway.”
“Why not?” Jimmy was intrigued. He found he liked the sound of her voice.
“I like my job,” Aggie explained. “I like working. Big money scares me.”
“Why does it scare you?”
“You know the saying about power corrupts? Well, I imagine money corrupts too.”
“So you think I must be corrupt?”
The woman gave him a hard look. Jimmy mentally stripped himself bare before her. Their eyes held until hers lowered as her face flushed.
“No,” she responded thoughtfully. “I don’t think you’re corrupt. At least not yet.”
Jimmy laughed. Before he could think of an adequate response, the waiter brought their lunches. Jimmy ate raw oysters followed by clam chowder. Danny had ordered salmon and Aggie a seafood crepe. Aggie winced as Jimmy picked up an oyster shell and slid the gooey mollusk down his throat.
“I don’t see how you can eat those things,” she commented.
“They’re delicious,” Jimmy commented. “Just think, if Richard hadn’t rejected you, I could have made you eat them every night.”
“Oh, God.” Aggie made a grotesque face. “I thought you just wanted sex!”
Jimmy made up his mind on the spot. This was the one. Maybe not for the rest of his life, but definitely for the next twelve nights.
“If you still want the job, it’s yours,” he offered casually.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you still want to,” Jimmy fumbled for words. “To do what the ad said, for twelve nights?”
Aggie grinned.
“Would you make me eat oysters?” she teased.
“I might,” Jimmy teased back.
“I would throw up,” Aggie warned. “My mother wanted to give me some medicine one time and I warned her I would throw up. She gave it to me anyway and I did. Throw up, I mean.”
“What a lovely lunch table topic,” Jimmy commented.
“I just want you to know that I mean what I say.”
“You’ll agree to everything but oysters?”
“Yes,” the young woman answered without hesitation. She almost sounded eager. Jimmy was glad he wouldn’t be standing up for another few minutes. It would give him time to subdue the bulge.
“We’ll go back to the office when we’re finished with lunch. I’m sure Richard will be relieved that the hard part is over.”
“The hard part?” Aggie’s words held laughter and double entendre.
“The interviewing,” Jimmy clarified.
“Oh, that hard part,” Aggie nodded. “I assume there will be other hard parts?”
“You can put money on it,” Jimmy agreed. His cock pressed solid into the zipper seam of his trousers and he shifted in his seat. Jesus, she saw that, too. Her eyes caught too damn much. Maybe he should start tonight instead of tomorrow.
“I brought the contract.” Danny spoke for the first time in several minutes.
“You what?” Jimmy asked, ninety percent of his attention still on his cock and the young woman across the table.
“I brought the contract,” Danny repeated. “You can sign here.”
Jimmy looked thoughtfully at his younger brother.
“You knew she’d be the one, didn’t you?” he asked.
“I knew,” Danny admitted.
“So you brought her to lunch.”
“I knew.”
“And you brought the contract.”
Danny’s lips remained closed. He seldom repeated himself more than twice. Jimmy took the contract from his outstretched hand and offered it to Aggie with a pen.
“Don’t you want to read it?” he asked as she flipped through the pages to the signature lines.
“Oh,” she seemed startled. “Yeah, sure.”
Aggie turned back to page one. Her eyes widened at the diverse list of sexual activities. She took a deep breath that tightened the sweater across her breasts and appeared to firm her resolve. Jimmy’s cock throbbed. When she came to the time specifications, she paused.
“Twenty-four hours a day is too much,” she demurred. “We can’t do it for 288 hours straight anyway.”
“Two hundred eighty-eight?” Jimmy asked.
“Twelve times two for twenty four hours a day, times twelve days. I just multiplied the twelves first,” Aggie explained as Danny nodded. She added with a smile, “How do you keep track of your money?”
“I don’t. The ad said ‘companion’,” Jimmy reminded her. “That’s more than sex.”
“I need some privacy,” she insisted. “I don’t want to move in with you. Wouldn’t eight hours be enough? Like a regular work day.”
“Six pm to two am,” Danny suggested.
Jimmy thought for a moment. He would be running TransGlobe during the day anyway. He could afford to capitulate on the small points. He nodded his agreement.
“What happens if we don’t make it the full twelve days? Do I get a prorated amount?”
“No.”
“No?” Aggie frowned. “What if I break a leg? What if you break a leg?”
“The contract is all or nothing. Twelve days or no money.”
“Are you some kind of weird pervert? Are you afraid I’ll leave? Maybe you’re going to do something awful on the eleventh day so I’ll leave and you won’t have to pay me.”
Jimmy laughed. “You’re thinking like an American, Aggie. I’m just an ordinary rich Canadian guy. Nothing up my sleeves.”
“Ordinary,” he repeated. “Rich.”
Aggie shook her head, but she kept reading until she came to page four.
“This says I indemnify you from all claims for personal injury.”
“Lawyer talk,” Jimmy waved the words away.