I fail at everything.

It was technically true: she’d bombed school, every one of her professional dreams had died, none of her friends cared enough to hold her braids back while she threw up, and her last boyfriend had believed vaccines were a front for a government tracking system based around injectable microchips. She quite literally failed at everything, from meaningful employment to sound relationship choices. But she certainly wasn’t in the habit of admitting that out loud, and especially not to her employer.

“Erm,” she added after the mother of all awkward pauses. “Not that I’m going to fail you. I mean, this job. Or anything.”

Jacob looked down at her seriously. “That hadn’t even entered my mind.”

“Oh.” Tentatively, she smiled.

“Until you brought it up.”

“Oh.” Her smile was replaced by a scowl—until she caught sight of his smile in the moonlight, another subtle tilt of the lips, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Oh! You bastard.”

“You’re not supposed to call your boss a bastard. Pull.” As if following his own instructions, he began to heave Eve upward. She squawked and grabbed a fistful of grass with her free hand, until he barked, “Do not fuck up my lawn.”

Scoffing, she let go and grabbed his calf instead. “Fine. And I will call my boss a bastard when he teases me with such a ruthless lack of concern for my sensitive soul.”

“I don’t tease,” Jacob said, his voice low and strained as he dragged her bodily from the pond. For a moment, Eve thought of those same words in a different context. They flashed through her, hot and glittering and entirely inappropriate. “And,” he went on, “I don’t give a damn about your sensitive soul.”

“Clearly,” she shot back. She was almost out of the pond now, her upper body completely clear. Jacob’s muscles were straining and his jaw tight, yet somehow he managed to balance lifting a woman who clearly weighed more than him—one-handed!—with trying not to tumble back into the pond himself. It was slow, but it was steady, and Eve had the sneaking suspicion that despite her own best efforts to clamber out, she wasn’t doing much to help.

“Look,” he said, the word a rasp. “There are many ways to fail—”

“Trust me, I’m aware.”

“And very few of them are actually controllable. Life has too many moving parts.” He managed to sound resentful of the very nature of human existence, which Eve found impressive despite herself. “So when it comes to this job, and failing, or succeeding, there’s really only one thing you can promise me. And,” he added sharply, “you will promise.”

“What?”

His response couldn’t be more surprising if he’d delivered it while butt naked and standing on his head. “Try for me, Eve. That’s all. Just try.”

She stared. Had she misheard him? King of High Standards and Anal-Retentive Rules? “That’s . . . all? That’s all you think it’ll take, for me not to fail.”

“Why not? You’re a relatively smart woman—”