“So, is Cliff going to be ok?” Lucas asked me a few minutes later. We’d snagged a table out on the patio of the Lone Star Lounge, and I’d been explaining why our meeting was an hour late.

“I think so,” I told him, sipping at the beer he’d recommended. It was a Hefeweizen from a local brewery—Live Oak. I liked it. I liked it even more with the orange slice he’d insisted I add. “I apologize. This isn’t at all how our initial client meetings usually go. I can’t even show you the PowerPoint, since my coworkers took the rental and all my stuff to the hospital.”

I could already tell that this meeting wasn’t going to get more normal, either. He wasn’t a normal client. About the only similarity between Lucas and our average client were the thick rimmed glasses he wore. He was young, at least thirty years younger than usual—possibly only a handful of years older than me. He was also wearing a Metallica t-shirt and beaten up jeans rather than a suit. Lucas was well built, too, broad shouldered and with defined muscles visible beneath his clothes. Most of our clients were potbellied, middle aged CEO’s. Honestly, I had to do my best not to stare. The man was gorgeous.

“Well I would hope not,” he laughed, drawing me back from ogling him. It was a good-natured, pleasant laugh that made the corners of my mouth turn up. “I’m glad your boss is gonna’ be ok. I’ll take a rain check on the PowerPoint.” His sandy brown hair was tousled in a way that was either totally unintentionally sexy or carefully coiffed to look unintentionally sexy. Either way, I wanted to touch him. It. I wanted to touch it.

Get it together, I told myself firmly. You’re in a business meeting, not on a date.

“So,” Lucas continued, “tell me about yourself, Rae.”

I blinked at him. Me? No. That couldn’t be what he meant. He meant the firm.

I launched into the canned answer: “The Azure Group was established in 1996 at the beginning of the tech boom. Our portfolio is excess of sixty billion dollars and we specialize in acquiring the best in emerging software. We’ve got a full service—”

“Management and consultancy team, as well as an in-house evaluation and due diligence operation,” Lucas interrupted with a smirk. He knew my pitch as well as I did. “I read all about the Azure Group before accepting this meeting,” he admitted. Clearly, he had a photographic memory, too. The consensus in the office was that he was a genius, and I had a feeling that I was about to find out if it was true. “Of course, I’m familiar with your firm. I was asking about you, Rae.”

My lips parted in surprise. “I’m part of the evaluation team. I help investigate new prospective portfolio companies, like yours.”

Lucas smirked at me and arched an eyebrow. “And?”

I fought the urge to shift uncomfortably in my seat. Why did this feel like a date? “And I work with a technical and financial subject matter team to determine whether we should make an offer to acquire those companies.”

If Lucas already knew all about the Azure Group, he probably already knew all about the team that had been sent to meet with him. Actually, I was certain that he did. I wrote him an email myself explaining about each of us, although Cliff had been the one to attach his name and send it. He loved to take credit for another’s work. He called it ‘delegating’.

“What about you, Rae? I want to know about you.” His hazel eyes were an incredible color, green on the inside near the pupil, and golden brown on the outside. I couldn’t help staring deeply into them.

“Me?” I was feeling very out of my depth. I thought I was ready to conduct one of these meetings by myself. I’d seen Cliff do it dozens of times. But none of those meetings had been anything like this. I took another nervous sip of my beer. “Ok. What do you want to know?”

“Where are you from?”

“Um, I’m from Flushings.” Then I remembered we were in Texas, and that Lucas probably didn’t know what that was. “It’s a neighborhood in Queens. I’ve lived in New York my whole life. How about you?” It seemed only fair to turn the tables on him. After all, he was asking me personal questions.

He smiled. “I’m from the west coast. I was born in LA and moved to Texas for school and just… stayed. I like it here. So how’d you get into the private equity business?”

That was easy enough. “I went to NYU and double majored in business and economics. I worked at a hedge fund for a year after college and the pay was good, but I hated every second of it. So, when a former classmate of mine told me about an opening at Azure Group, I jumped. I’ve been portfolio building ever since. I finished my JD this spring and am waiting to find out if I passed the NY bar exam.”

“Do you like working for Azure Group?

What sort of a question was that? That wasn’t what this meeting was about. And how could I answer it honestly while still being professional? I tried. “I enjoy puzzles. Deciding whether to acquire a company and pricing our offer fairly and appropriately requires a lot of the same skills that I enjoy.”

“That’s not an answer. If I say that I like water, and then say that sharks also like water, that doesn’t mean I also like sharks.” His tone was challenging. My heart fluttered. I loved a good challenge.

“Cum hoc ergo propter hoc,” I answered. I took logic in college too. In Latin, the fallacy translated to ‘with this, therefore because of this’. It was also known as the correlation-causation fallacy.

His incredible hazel eyes widened, as did his smile. He was clever. Probably much cleverer than me. “So, you don’t like it?” His question was teasing.

“Assuming that conclusion would be a logical fallacy too,” I told him, still feeling like I was being evaluated.

“That’s a fair point. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.” Lucas grinned. I’d clearly just won a point. The Latin translated to ‘after this, therefore because of this’ and it was also called the questionable cause fallacy. “Do you like your job, Rae?”

What I really enjoyed most about my job, and what was still incredibly rare, were conversations like this one. Times when I was able to match wits against someone who was my equal, or better. I lived for negotiations and the chance to be challenged. But I didn’t say that to Lucas. It would reveal too much.

“I like a lot of things about my job,” I told Lucas, deciding to be halfway honest. He was quick to display his intellectual ability, but he was a genius. I could hardly blame him for acting like one. “I like learning about companies and distilling what makes them profitable. I like making the argument for or against their acquisition. And then, once I’ve learned everything I can, I like moving on to the next one. Obviously, there are some things that I dislike about my job, too. But on the whole, I can’t complain.”

That answer didn’t seem to satisfy him. “Why do I get the feeling you’re only telling me the positives?”

I smirked. “Because you’re a client, of course.”

“And if I wasn’t?”

I didn’t know what he was getting at, but if he had reservations about the company, I could maybe do something about that.

“If you weren’t a client, I’d tell you that Azure Group is a gigantic faceless corporation that has more yearly profit than some countries have GDP. Employees like me are cogs in wheels within wheels. Our lives don’t matter to the machine. It can be hard to work for a big bureaucracy sometimes, especially if you’re like me.” I shrugged.

“What do you mean, like you?”

I shook my head. This was getting too personal. How could I tell him I was dissatisfied with my job but too afraid to ever complain? That wasn’t professional.

He was looking at me carefully, as if weighing two alternatives. We sat in silence for a moment.

“I have a proposition for you, Rae.”

“Isn’t that my line? And a bit premature?” I arched an eyebrow at him for a change. We were nowhere near the negotiation phase of this process. There were weeks of investigation and due diligence that needed to happen first. I wasn’t authorized to make an offer, and I definitely wasn’t authorized to accept one.

“It’s a proposition for you, Rae. Personally. Not for the Azure Group. I find myself far less interested in them than I am in you.”

My lips parted in surprise. This conversation was wildly out of control. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder where it would go. This was fun. “What’s your proposition?”

“Are you single?” His hazel eyes were bright.

I blinked at him. “What… um, I mean yes, I am. Single, that is.” I felt another hot blush on my cheeks.

He likes me? He must like me!

“I want you to pretend to be my girlfriend.”

Oh.