“Amanda, wait—”
She fixed a frozen smile on her face. She needed to get out of there. “Welcome to PARA, Jacob. I’m sure everyone will be as delighted to meet you as I’ve been.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Is that sarcasm I hear?”
“You’re very insightful. You must be psychic.”
He studied her closely. “I guess first impressions are misleading. I thought we might hit it off.”
Amanda had no idea why she wanted to cry. Why was she letting this guy affect her so strongly? It felt as though he could see right through to the vast and varied weaknesses she tried desperately to hide from everyone. Hell, maybe she did put up psychic walls around herself without even realizing it.
Just being near him suddenly made her very uncomfortable.
She gave him a practiced withering look that helped to hide when she was feeling more than a little vulnerable. “I guess you thought wrong.”
“Well, then, it was delightful meeting you, too, Amanda.” He turned away, but then glanced back over his shoulder, his green eyes narrowed. “By the way, that was also sarcasm.”
And then he returned to his waiting swarm of admirers and didn’t look back.
Vicky ran over to see how everything had gone during her conversation with the new hottie. Amanda had kept her answers vague and then excused herself from the party early. She’d had enough.
It was definitely true what they said—don’t judge a book by its cover. Jacob Caine had a mighty fine cover, but she wasn’t interested in reading any further.
But for a moment there, when their eyes first met…that rare instant attraction she’d felt…
Well, it didn’t really matter. Amanda was much too practical to believe in love at first sight.
She’d felt strongly enough about their unpleasant meeting that she’d asked Patrick not to pair her and Jacob for any assignments together and he’d agreed. PARA had over two dozen agents so it was an easy problem to avoid. If she saw Jacob in passing, she’d make polite small talk about the weather or traffic, but even then she tried to get away from him as quickly as possible.