Page 47 of By His Rule

“Um…”

“Tate, you’re meant to be telling me that I’m overreacting. That he’s not that bad. That it won’t be?—”

“It’ll be fine,” she says in a weirdly high-pitched voice that sounds nothing like her usual one.

“Tate,” I complain.

“What? It will be.”

“And how do you know that?” I demand.

“Because none of his previous assistants were you. There is no way Kian Callahan will send my best friend running from her new job in tears. Not a chance in hell.”

I can’t lie, her confidence in me does light a fire under my ass, and I stand a little taller.

“If anything, I’d say that he’ll be the one crying.”

A smile spreads across my lips. “Hey, what are you trying to say?” I tease.

“That he has never had an assistant like you before, and that he has no idea what’s about to hit him.”

A laugh breaks free.

“See? The Lorelei Tempest I know would never cower down to a man like Kian. She isn’t intimidated by money, or power, or good looks.”

“You’re right,” I whisper, more to myself than her.

“She’d stand tall on the other side of his desk and tell him how it is. She’d call bullshit on his stupid, irrational demands, and make him do better. She wouldn’t bow to his nonsense.”

“Is that how it is with you and King?” I tease.

“Oh, hell no. We both know that I’m the boss and that he’s the one running around completing my errands.”

“I think you’re going to have to share your wisdom. I need to know how to tame a Callahan.”

Tatum laughs, and I picture her in the new swanky office at Warner Group as she throws her head back in amusement.

“Oh, Lori,” she muses once she’s finished laughing at my expense. “You are in so much trouble right now. But it could also be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

“Struggling to see that right now,” I confess.

“Yeah, he’s going to be a hard ass to work for, but Lori…” She pauses for effect. “You made it. You are exactly where you’ve always dreamed of being.”

My new work cell begins buzzing with the alarm I set so that I wouldn’t get lost in my conversation with Tate and end up back at my desk late.

Something tells me that when Kian said he’d be unavailable for two hours, he meant it to the second.

And while I might want to drive him crazy, being late on day one is not the way to do it.

“Tate, I gotta go.”

“Oooh, duty calls,” she teases.

“We’ll talk later, yeah?”

“We should go out. Celebrate.”

There’s a part of me that wants to agree, but there is also another that is already exhausted and just wants to go home to sleep.

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