Page 59 of By His Rule

“Careful, Lorelei. I might get used to having you at my beck and call all hours.”

“I wouldn’t,” I mutter, making Tate laugh.

My confidence quickly wanes when he stalks behind me and studies my spreadsheet over my shoulder.

“How are you getting on?” he asks, his warm breath rushing across my exposed neck.

My hair had been down and wild most of the day, but I couldn’t cope this afternoon and it’s been pinned up out of the way, something that I’m now regretting.

“I-I…yeah. Good. Should be done in the morning.”

I gasp when he reaches around me and steals my mouse, moving my cursor and clicking on a couple of cells.

“Hmm,” he hums.

“Is it wrong?” I ask, hating feeling like I might have disappointed him.

I shouldn’t care. I’m learning here. But still…the need to please him, to prove that I can do this job takes over.

“No, not wrong exactly.”

Abandoning my mouse, he begins tapping on my keyboard, changing formulae and making numbers shift and change before my eyes.

My spreadsheet.

Emotion burns the backs of my eyes as I watch hours of work vanish before my eyes.

Well, not vanish. But…it’s not the same anymore, and I’ve no idea what he’s done.

“See?” he says, pointing at a column. “Now it’s pulling data from each sheet and populating the result here instead of up there.”

Unable to speak through the lump in my throat, I nod.

“Easy, right?”

“Uh-huh."

“Great. We’ll review it once you’ve finished tomorrow at eleven. You can then move on to the next stage.”

I nod, and thankfully, he steps back, allowing me to suck in deep lungfuls of air.

“Great. Can’t wait.”

“In the meantime,” Tate announces as if nothing just happened—I guess it didn’t, in her life. She didn’t watch her past few hours’ work evaporate with just a few taps of a keyboard.

He probably thinks he just helped me.

Maybe he has.

But…

Reaching out, I slam the lid of my laptop down harder than necessary.

“We are going out to celebrate my bestie’s new job. Something tells me that her boss will have been an asshole and she deserves a drink.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Kian mutters before picking something up from Melissa’s desk and disappearing out of sight, but not before calling, “See you in the morning, Lorelei. Our first meeting is at eight o’clock. Do not be late.”

I sink lower in my seat, all the air rushing from my lungs, my adrenaline and energy going with it.

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