Page 10 of Until It Was Real

I settle in a chair in front of his desk.

“What’s wrong?”

I frown. “Why do you assume there’s anything wrong?”

He flicks a hand toward the door. “You locked it.”

Because I don’t want Dakota walking in on us. I’m not worried about my brothers. Zane and Miles aren’t in yet. As usual. And Kai and Jaxon stick to the distillery and avoid the offices.

“Dakota.”

He sits up. “What’s wrong? Did one of our idiot brothers upset her? I told you to talk to them before she arrived.”

“I did talk to them.” But it didn’t stop each and every one of them from spending time perched on her desk, flirting with her. Even Jaxon left the distillery to speak to her.

Eli sighs. “I’ll have another word with them. I don’t want them chasing her away.”

I scratch my neck as I contemplate how to say the next part.

“Out with it.”

I grunt. “Are you certain Dakota is the best assistant for you?”

“Why? What did she do?”

She’s entirely too sexy and too much of a temptation. I want to fist her blonde, curly hair while I feast on those bowtie lips before I lay her down and explore every curve she has. And she has a lot of them. I want to watch her green eyes flare as I touch her.

My cock twitches and I clear my throat before I follow those thoughts to their logical conclusion. I’m not spending another day fighting a hard-on because of Dakota. The woman is annoying I remind my cock. It doesn’t care. She’s sexy. It doesn’t need to know anything more.

“She was sleeping in her car.”

Eli’s nose wrinkles. “In her car? Is she homeless? Do we need to look into accommodations for her?”

“Accommodations for her?”

“Yea.” He nods. “Somewhere for her to live.”

“Wouldn’t you rather fire her?”

He rears back. “Fire her for being homeless? I’m not a heartless billionaire, no matter what the press says about me.”

I know he’s not. As one of the founding members ofApparoo– a game software company – Eli has more money than he knows what to do with. Thus, him founding this distillery so all of the Raider brothers can work together and stay on the island.

I hold up a hand. “I didn’t mean to insinuate you’re heartless. I was trying to point out how annoying Dakota is.”

“Annoying?”

“She doesn’t listen when I reprimand her. She snarks back at me.”

“Why have you reprimanded her? She works for me, not the distillery. If you have a problem with her work, you need to speak to me about it.”

“You give her tasks related to the distillery.”

“Because I’m the CEO and she’s my assistant.”

“I don’t think she’s the right person to be your assistant.”

Eli scoffs. “Do you know how hard it was to find someone willing to move to Smuggler’s Hideaway?”

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