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The wood slams painfully on my dress shoes, which makes me wish I’d had the foresight to wear boots. But what sort of man wears boots with a three-piece suit? If I made a habit of showing up to meetings dressed that way, there would be a whole lot fewer robots in the world than there are now. Which, judging by the expression on Jane’s face, would be a good thing.
She scowls down at my foot. “Really? You feel so entitled you think you can force me to talk to you?”
Yes, I think. I didn’t get this far in life by walking away from what I want. And right now, I want her. I just know better than to admit it.
Jane clearly thinks she knows me, but she only knows my reputation. She knows what I want the world to see: the reclusive billionaire whose latest invention, the DocentDroid—a robot that leads tours at museums, art galleries, and zoos—just made headlines all over the world.
I straighten my shoulders with pride. I can’t help it. I worked hard on that prototype. And all the others, too.
My mansion may not be overrun with bots fulfilling my every need, the way one viral video some teenager posted seems to suggest, but it’s still pretty damn epic. I have five bots, all of which are custom designed and run my code. But the one I truly care about is Byron 2.0, which I use to keep my personal library organized.
Jane doesn’t know that. Yet. But I plan to show her. Once I figure out how to convince her to keep filming her videos.
I know her. Really know her. Even though I’ve never ‘hearted’ a single video, or commented in a single thread, I’ve watched every one of her Book Talk with Byron videos a dozen times.
For the past six months, I haven’t taken a meeting between 9:30 and 10:00am, since I know she posts right before the library opens. I want to spend those spontaneous video minutes with her… which I won’t be able to do if she stops filming. And I know that’s not what she wants, either. The way she smiles in those videos—I know they make her truly happy. And—I suddenly realize—I will do whatever it takes to put that smile back on her face.
“Hello? Are you even hearing me?” Jane kicks my shoe. “I said let go of my door.”
“Jane, please. Just listen?—”
“No. You listen. You need to leave.”
I feel a twinge in my chest at her words. Almost like… desperation, which is a feeling I’m not used to. But I can’t walk away and never see her again.
I don’t just watch her videos. I laugh at her jokes. I listen to every bookish word she has to share with my robot. I always feel like she’s talking to me. And I suddenly get the urge to tell her all the things I wished I could have said while I’ve watched her talk.
“You know I didn’t originally name the shelving robot Byron? It was Bryan, prototype 1.0—named after me—but some dyslexic librarian mixed up the label.”
Jane doesn’t look the least bit fascinated by that tidbit of information.
“I was going to contact the library and have it changed, but then I saw your video on Lord Byron’s poems…” I shrug. How could I ask her to change it when she’d said she was reading them as a respectful way to get to know her new coworker?
“You mean you saw the free publicity,” Jane fires back.
“It’s not about that. It’s about you.”
“Sure it is.” She bites her lower lip, and I can’t seem to look away.
I’ve never reacted to a woman like this before. Never had this urge to pull her into my arms. I have to ball my hands into fists just to keep myself from touching her, because there’s something about Jane that hits me straight in the gut.
She isn’t just the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. She’s also hilarious and sweet and has amazing taste in books. Well, fine, not all books. Sometimes she picks things I would never read—but her commentary more than makes up for it. And I’ve read everything on her list—even the romance novels—just so I could be in on the jokes.
The mere thought of her reading those particular books makes my cock hard. I want to do every single thing I’ve read with her, and then some. And damn, she was sexy that one time she quoted from Outlander. When Jane read Jamie and Claire’s foreplay scenes to my soulless stand-in, I swear… if robot steel could get any harder, all of Byron’s bolts would have popped. I know mine did.
I drop my free hand in front of my traitorous cock. “I’ll leave you alone, but on one condition; you let me show you my library.”
“Is that a euphemism for something?” she demands.
“What?” I stare at her blankly. How could the word library ever be misinterpreted?
She scoffs. “So what? You want to rub salt in my wound?”
I’d like to rub something in you, but it’s not salt and it’s not in any wound.
I shake my head. “You have the wrong idea about me. I never thought that donating Byron to the library would lead to you losing your job.” And, because you’re mine, whether you will it or not, my inner Scottish highlander growls in my head. “I don’t regret donating him, or I wouldn’t have—” I’m about to say ‘met you,’ but she doesn’t let me finish.
“Let go of my door. Now.”
