“Pardon?”

“Your work?”

“Engineer. A mechanical engineer-I spend most of my day out in the field, as you can see.” He motioned to his dusty work boots. “Laughlin’s the company; they’re busy moving into Greenville at the moment. If the building ever does get done, I hope to have a little time to put up a house. I’ve rented this apartment for six months, but I hope to move into my own place before then. You?”

“Um.” She swallowed the last morsel of food, feeling just slightly unnerved by his lazy stare. Old defenses were slipping, as he kept his eyes on her face, but she knew darn well she didn’t have that fascinating a nose. “I work for Love Lace. Lingerie.” Greer looked him straight in the eye, administering a little private test of her own.

“Doing…?”

Greer set aside the aluminum tray and twined her hands loosely around her knees, relaxing. He’d passed her tiny test by not indulging in sexual innuendo about her job. “I’m their ad psychologist. If you’ve never heard of that job before, it’s probably because my boss invented it. Grant hired me-directly out of college with an extremely useless degree in psych-to keep the marketing and design staff from killing each other. Since his wife’s our head designer, he had a vested interest in her survival.”

“I can understand that.”

“I’m glad you can. I don’t always. Basically, the lingerie industry’s gone boom; Grant wants to stay in for the count, and he needed an impartial woman’s viewpoint to back up his own business expertise. His wife wants to make French panties; the marketing staff says Jockey-type shorts for women are in. Somebody’s got to study the public to psyche out what they really want to buy. For instance, a man can stare at a Playboy spread of a woman in a satin G-string, but as to whether or not he’ll actually buy one for his wife- What’s wrong?” Greer asked cheerfully.