“If I’d created Interface for myself, I would’ve called it MyFace.”

Laughter.

He calls on someone else.

“Speaking of you, Saint, is it true you have as many men followers as you do women?”

“I haven’t been following the statistics.” He smiles. “But it is true the world is made of both.”

My stomach, which had been all gnarled up, seems to like that smile.

“Your M4 conglomerate is the most powerful corporation in the state. Is it true a lot of your employees aren’t college graduates?”

He keeps eye contact with the silver-haired, bearded reporter who asked, and succinctly answers, “We hire people who want to make things different. We encourage education and partner with educators across the country, but we prize free thinkers and people who can get things done above all else.”

He scans the crowd then, and suddenly a shockingly brilliant pair of green eyes lands on me. I had forgotten I’d been standing there with my arm raised. He calls on me.

“Rachel Livingston from Edge,” I hastily identify myself, as is customary, but when I hear gasps in the audience—fuck—I just forget what I was going to say.

Scrambling, I blurt out the second question that comes to mind, bypassing the real one I want to ask: Why did you not read my speech? “Interface, as a word, is a shared boundary across which two separate components of a computer system exchange information. In choosing this name, did you mean to make fun of how dispassionate relationships can become through online communication, the loss of personal contact?”

A hush spreads.

The room blurs as he holds my stare from the podium; everything blurs but the chiseled perfection of Saint’s masculine face and the shockingly personal look in his gaze.

“No, I’m not poking fun at relationships, especially since I admire anyone who can endure one.” He looks directly at me with a challenge in his eyes.

When finally some people laugh, a trickle of warm heat burns in the center of my tummy, spreading down my thighs.

What does that mean?

Dibs, I remember.

It had annoyed and confused me at the time. Now, I would give a billion times more than any other woman in the world for him to call dibs on me.

He scans the audience afterward and I don’t remember being this shaken since the first live press conference I attended as a journalist.

The answers continue, along with the questions, and then Saint thanks the crowd. Their applause is enormous as he leaves the stage, and the emptiness seems greater after his commanding presence. Reporters rush to edit their videos and write their stories.

I’m lingering in the room, I don’t know why exactly, when Catherine approaches me in her usual brisk, professional way. “He wants to see you. Follow me to the greenroom.”

I follow her to the back of a hall, then hear her announce me.

When she waves me in, I step inside and it’s full of beautiful furniture, new Persian rugs, technology, and classical background music, a huge fruit basket and chilled wine, as if only the best will do for this man, even if he’s here for only a few minutes.

I look at him. Glorious in the room. Sucking the space around him, like a beautiful, commanding, energetic black hole. Sucking me so that all I know right this second is him.

He looks at me. “I see you made it.”

His voice rumbles through me.

“Yes.” My lips tug upward and I laugh a little. “Wonderful speech,” I mumble. “Are you taking one-on-ones?”

“No. I leave for a meeting in . . .” He checks his watch, then raises his brow as if the time flew. “Five.”

His assistant hands over a couple of note cards; his dark head bends downward as he quickly skims them. She leaves after a questioning look in my direction, and I take the moment he’s distracted to regroup.

I’m embarrassed to look at him. Amazing how we’ve spent so much time together, shared so many things, and he still manages to make me feel more girly than anything because he’s so masculine. And more shy than anything because he’s so confident. And also because I like him and care about his opinion so much.

Which is why admitting the following hurts: “You didn’t read my speech.”

He lifts his head at that. “I didn’t read your speech,” he agrees, leaving me no choice but to laugh a little joylessly.

“I’m not surprised. I told you I’ve been struggling. Would you give me pointers as to what would’ve made it work for you? Was it too impersonal or too fact-oriented . . . ?”