Page 25 of Scandalous Secrets

A reminder for me. For him. I didn’t know.

I couldn’t be the only one who felt this tension crackling between us, like a fire that had just been lit.

He studied me a moment longer, the faint smile leaving as quickly as it had come.

“I hired you as a favor to Daniel,” he reminded me.

Touché.

“But you are proving to be a valuable asset. Even if it’s only been less than a week,” he said.

“Dry cleaning can be a hard art to master,” I said, cursing myself immediately for letting my usual sarcasm escape my mouth on someone who didn’t know me well enough to take it well.

That same smile reached his lips again, traveling up to his eyes this time. He let out a chuckle and sat back in his plush desk chair. His green eyes danced this time, and they didn’t leave mine. It was a beautiful sight, and reminded me of the photo on the news, so devoid of joy.

I knew if I had to hear that recognizable laugh every day or see that vague smile that most wouldn’t even know was there, then this was going to be much harder than I thought. Especially because I now knew how good it felt to make him laugh. On top of how good it felt to make him tremble inside me.

Chapter 12

Troy

Iwatched Monica walk out of my office to write up a few email drafts I had assigned her. She was wearing those damn black pumps again. The ones that made her smooth legs look like they were ten feet long underneath another fitted skirt. I swore she wore them to torture me. Everything was to torture me. The skirts. The peek of cleavage. The stain on her lips. The hair pulled back to reveal the nape of her neck where my lips once were.

I knew it was cocky to think it was all for me, but the way she looked at me today—the way our eyes met and she didn’t back down from the intensity I knew burned between my forest of pupils—it couldn’t all be for nothing.

I let my eyes linger longer than they needed to before going back to the screen on my computer, Monica’s smart words still gnawing on my brain. She had a bite to her. A sarcasm that no one had challenged me with in a while, and it made her even more enticing. It made her mouth even more fuckable knowing she could hold her own and call me on my shit.

Focus, Troy,I told myself.

That was what I kept telling myself for the next two weeks as we spent just about every hour of every workday together. When we weren’t working together, she was right across from my office in plain sight. I thought with time I would get bored of this feeling, but it kept growing inside of me. Persistent. Irksome. Damn irresistible.

I watched her now, sitting at her desk as she took an incoming phone call. She held her pen up to her lips and I remembered how they felt around me. It was impossible not to grow hard at the memory. She listened intently, her brown eyes dancing as she brought the pen away from her pillowy lips and began jotting down a message on a pink post-it.

To distract myself, I opened my calendar and looked at the carefully color-blocked schedule I had for the day to see what Monica would be joining me for. Meetings on top of meetings, plus an 8 p.m. meeting with an investor in Australia. I realized it would be our first late night together in the office.

I wondered if I could sneak in a dinner together. Her accompanying me wouldn’t be out of the norm. All of my previous assistants may as well have been my third arm with how much time we spent together. That was the nature of the job. I didn’t want it to look any different with Monica, especially under the suspicious eye of Kathy.

More so, I just wanted to find a corner booth and order a bottle of wine to calm the nerves that bubbled inside of me.

I typed Monica a quick message on my computer and sent it to her, trying not to make it obvious that I was watching her from the corner of my eye for her reaction to me throwing dinner together into today’s schedule. I heard the message bell on her computer ding, bringing her brown eyes to the screen. It read…

Today’s agenda

10 AM meeting in conference room

11 AM phone meeting

12 PM lunch

2 PM shareholders meeting

6 PM business dinner at Ocean Club

8 PM phone meeting with overseas client

She seemed to smirk as she typed out a response. A moment later, my own notification bell dinged. I couldn’t help but smile as I read her message.

You do know I have access to your calendar, don’t you?

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