Especially since it didn’t look like that thought had occurred to Mandy. At least he figured that’s why she was curling her lip back in horror.

“Who thinks that?”

“A friend of mine just mentioned it.” And Damien shouldn’t have. “It’s no big deal,” he said, trying to backpedal and reassure her.

Mandy was an enigma to him, a blend of prissy efficiency, sly humor, and intense vulnerability.

Damien was glad she had draped that blanket over her like a tarp, covering every inch of her from neck to ankle. He was ashamed to admit that when she had been shivering with cold, he had been painfully aware of the effect on her chest. He’d gawked at her nipples like a teenage boy with a Victoria’s Secret catalog.

It was disturbing, an uncomfortable awareness growing in his body again. Something he’d really and truly thought was dead was rising back to life, no pun intended.

He was horny.

For Mandy.

She licked her lips nervously. “That’s a little awkward.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable in the office.” No, he hadn’t meant for that to happen. He had just wanted to corner Mandy, trap her into his presence, force her to look him in the eye.

Why, he wasn’t sure.

But she was here with him now, and he was sexually attracted to her, and intellectually attracted to her, and he now wanted to pursue both and yet knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t, because of his past. And he was acutely aware that she was his assistant and this was supposed to be a business trip.

The only person he’d backed into a corner had been himself.

Mandy had soft brown eyes, expressive and poignant, compassion sprinkled in them like the amber flecks around her pupils. “That’s okay.” She smiled, a sweet, secret, slightly wicked smile that did all kinds of riotous things to his gut. “Besides, they could be thinking worse things about me. I’d rather people envy me than feel sorry for me.”

“What makes you think they would envy you an affair with Demon Sharpton?” He’d overheard that moniker one afternoon when he’d stepped into the break room for a cup of coffee. It had mildly irritated him then, but now he didn’t care what anyone else called him—he just wanted to know what Mandy thought of him.

She laughed a soft, rich, tinkling sound. Her head tilted toward him, the blanket slipping down to the swell of her breasts. “Oh, come on, Damien, you have to know that they call you Demon Sharpton because you’re tough, yes, but also because you don’t pay attention to any of the women. It frustrates them.”