Marie ignored his approach. Her heart beat so she could feel it in her chest.

This was ridiculous. Why was she reacting so strongly to him? She should just tell him to go.

She wanted to say that she had no reason to think otherwise, but Marie thought about what he said and realized it was true. In the three years she had worked for Tony Stark, she had never seen or heard of Loki Odinson conducting himself in anything other than a professional manner with the employees. And some of the typist pool had tried. He was rich, of good family, handsome, and single. But all of the gossip she'd heard about him where he was in any way wild took place outside of work.

Maybe that was the problem. They'd met outside of work.

She swallowed and said, "I have no doubt that you would do whatever you felt was necessary in order to win whatever game you think this is. I thought we'd called it even last night." Professional, professional, leave him an out. You need to keep this job. "We have to work together. I need this job." That was saying too much, Marie, he doesn't care about that. "You don't need to do this."

As she spoke, she continued to stare straight ahead.