Page 5 of Sublime Target

But secretly, she thought he was a bit of a man-child. An only child, he’d inherited his vast family fortune. He was eccentric—as rich people were allowed to be—and had very specific requirements that Clarissa had to know right down to the finest detail.

He could be uptight and demanding. A right royal pain-in-the-arse. But to be fair, he wasn’t intentionally mean, either.

And quite by accident, she’d found that she was good at this sort of thing—juggling his many appointments and visitors, fielding highly specific requests, blocking people.

Oh, she knew how to block, obfuscate, and delay. How she could run defense against the most demanding of clients—even other trillionaires—who always wanted to see Garner urgently.

Sometimes, she almost found it fun putting up barriers against these entitled and powerful men and women. Her holo-demeanor was an impenetrable stone wall.

She was surprisingly good at it, too.

Not that she’d wanted this particular job. Actually, she’d found herself here by improbable chance. Five years ago, she’d been working downstairs, a new hire and junior member of Garner Corp’s executive PR team.

Until one day, Cooper Garner’s EA of fifteen years, the formidable Sandra Singh, had an accident. She slipped and fell while rock fishing and got stung by a deadly blue-ringed octopus.

Sandra had been very fortunate to survive, and it was at that point that she’d decided to take a well-deserved retirement after delaying it for many years.

Somehow, nobody had wanted to take Sandra’s poisoned chalice. Although being the EA to Cooper Garner himself sounded like a glamorous job, everyone in the building knew that Sandra had worked long hours and was always the last one to leave the building. Clarissa remembered a Friday night when she was in the pub across the road after post-work drinks with the team.

She’d caught sight of Sandra discreetly leaving the building, disappearing down the stairs that led to the metro station.

At 11pm.

Perfectly coiffed, smartly suited, and never missing a beat, Sandra had been indomitable. She was Garner’s right-hand woman; his smiling assassin.

Clarissa never could have imagined she’d one day fill Sandra’s shoes.

Until the day when Sandra the EA didn’t show up to work, and her boss demanded a hand-delivered, printed-on-paper copy of the marketing brief for Garner Corp’s latest project—Centauri SkyHomes. So Clarissa, being the most junior in the department and, as her boss Tanner said, the easiest to look at, was sent up to the thirty-seventh floor to deliver the brief to the CEO himself.

Those assholes threw her under the bus. And look what happened. Nervous as hell, she showed up in Garner’s chambers, brief in hand. And the old bastard just started giving her orders as if she were Sandra herself.

Clarissa had no choice but to jump. She delved into Garner’s world, all the while feeling like she was careening off a fifty-metre cliff-face. She carried out his commands, certain she was failing miserably and was going to be fired at the end of the day.

But as he was leaving—at 10pm, no less—he walked past her, not even bothering to look over his shoulder. And he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Lee.”

And that was how Clarissa Mei Lee, from North Parramatta, filled Sandra Singh’s very big shoes as the sole Executive Assistant to Cooper Garner, CEO and owner of Garner Corp, a multinational property development corporation.

She learned fast. She kept secrets. She knew when to be opaque.

Like now, for example, when the baker that made the three-grain sourdough that Garner liked to have his morning tea cucumber sandwiches made with suddenly announced that she was abruptly closing up shop.

And Clarissa had three days to find a replacement.

At the same time, she was tasked with researching a new market for Garner Corp’s next big development.

Garner wanted to know all about aliens.

Kordolians had arrived on Earth. They might blow up the planet at any given moment, but Garner the Visionary was convinced he should pivot toward building apartments for the silver-skinned aliens.

Clarissa was doubtful. Kordolians had colonized hundreds of planets and developed technology that allowed them to travel further than any other known species in the Universe.

Why would they want to buy apartments from a developer that was known for cutting corners? And why would any of Garner’s glossy glass-walled designs appeal to beings that preferred to dwell in darkness?

She shook her head as she turned toward her console, forgetting about the glorious view. After all, that reality was an illusion.

It didn’t matter what she thought about anything. She had to get back to work.

Find bread.

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