Rule of Three Read Online Free PDF Page B

who never had to work that hard, someone for whom things just fell into his lap.
    They sat at a small table on the patio under a red-and-white-striped awning, surrounded by pots of scarlet geraniums and blue lobelia. Jazzy music played in the background for them alone, as they were the only ones there at that in-between-breakfast-and-lunch hour. Kassidy ordered coffee and Dag requested a Coke, making her smile, and the waiter left to get those while they looked at the menu.
    She wasn’t hungry. She was burning with curiosity. She wanted to know what Dag wanted to talk to her about. All kinds of wild thoughts ran through her imagination, none of them appropriate. At all. But then, Dag had called Chris about where to find her, so it wasn’t likely that he wanted to talk to her about…inappropriate things.
    He slapped his menu shut. “Steak sandwich,” he ordered when the waiter returned. Kassidy requested a spinach salad.
    “A steak sandwich isn’t exactly breakfast,” she pointed out.
    He laughed. “Why not? I’ve never liked following rules.”
    That she could believe. Coke for breakfast.
    He leaned back in his chair and linked his fingers behind his head. His snug black T-shirt outlined his buff torso, his arm muscles bulging from beneath the short sleeves, exposing a sexy tattoo. His teeth flashed white in his tanned face as he smiled at her. The power of that smile to captivate, to make her feel like she was the center of his attention, of his world at that moment, astonished her.
    She looked away from him, down at the white mug full of black coffee. “So,” she croaked. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
    He leaned forward, forearms on the table, hands clasping his glass of Coke. “You work in training and development, right?”
    “Yeah.” She eyed him.
    “And RBM is a big company, right? With more than one location?”
    “Yes. We have offices in Detroit, Minneapolis and Seattle.”
    He started asking question about traveling to design and deliver training programs. She’d been doing a lot more traveling over the last year and really didn’t enjoy it. She didn’t like being away from Chris, and there always seemed to be so much time wasted sitting in airports, traveling to and from the airport, sitting in the hotel, even with her BlackBerry.
    “What about informal learning?” he asked. “Social learning?”
    She eyed him. His knowledge surprised her. “What about it?”
    “How do people in different locations learn from each other?”
    “They don’t.”
    “Tell me what you know about social learning.”
    “What is this, a job interview?”
    He grinned. “No. Just checking some things out.”
    “Well, supposedly eighty percent of what people learn comes from social learning, on the job, just talking with coworkers.”
    “That’s a lot.”
    “Yes.”
    “What about networking?”
    She frowned. “Once again, I say, what about it?”
    “The role of networking in developing staff.”
    She could see how his mind was bounding ahead of their conversation and he had to slow himself down so he’d make sense to her. His intelligence was almost scary.
    “Oh. Well, that’s huge too, of course. It’s not just what you know, but who you know. Knowing who to ask.”
    “Are there a lot of younger employees at RBM?”
    She nodded. “Sure. We’re a tech company. We’re always recruiting.”
    “But being a tech company, I’m sure your older staff is comfortable with technology too.”
    “Yes. I suppose. What’s this about?”
    His grin was infectious and teased an answering smile out of her even though she had no idea where this was going. “I was talking to this guy yesterday. We got this idea for social networking.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Not another social networking site.”
    “You’re not into the FriendSpace thing?”
    She hitched a shoulder. “I am. A little. It keeps me in touch with friends who’ve moved away. Obviously I’m not into it to meet people.”
    “Okay,