She stood up with a shaky surge, and as her eyes locked with his, Damien realized he was looking at his eight A.M. interview appointment.

He was the ogre.

She wanted to be his assistant.

And she was gorgeous.

With a heart-shaped face, chin-length hair that tumbled in soft waves, bangs sticking up a little from her previous position. Her brown eyes were huge, warm, vulnerable. Her cheekbones were high, her lips bowed, her skin a flushed pink and her breath rushing in and out on shaky little bursts. There were slight dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were a bit hollow, like she’d lost weight from the illness she was battling.

Germs were probably leaping off her and onto him even as he stood there, but he didn’t retreat into the hallway. In fact, he let go of the door and stepped forward. Found himself bending over to pick up her bag and her shoes.

Shoving them in her hands. “Here,” he said gruffly, as the elevator closed and started to ascend.

“Thanks.” She brushed her bangs back, making them stick up even more. Then she passed the coffee to him and kicked the brown Eskimo-looking boot off her foot. “You can have your coffee back. I don’t think I need it after all.”

Damien took the cup and tried not to curl his lip in distaste. He’d never look at a grande coffee from the cafe downstairs in quite the same way. Nor could he believe that somehow this woman had heard he was difficult, unreasonable, an ogre, before she’d even been hired.

When she bent partially to put on her black dress shoe, she made a small sound of distress. Afraid he’d be stuck on the elevator indefinitely, Damien grabbed her arm and balanced her before she wound up on the floor or worse. He wasn’t sure his dry cleaner could remove vomit.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.”

He admired her tenacity. While it would have been simpler and probably smarter for her to just reschedule the interview, she had toughed it out. Probably assuming that he would dismiss her as irresponsible for canceling and that he wouldn’t be willing to give her a shot.

Not that he would do that. He didn’t think. He mentally went through his tight calendar. He wasn’t the most patient of guys, and he’d had it with incompetent and lazy assistants. Being totally honest, he probably wouldn’t have rescheduled with her, assuming she wasn’t serious about the job.

Which annoyed him that his ogre reputation might actually have some minor basis in fact.

The elevator opened on twenty-four, and an older man got on.

Reaching over, Damien punched the eighteenth floor. No sense in riding this thing all the way to the ground floor again.