Page 4 of Secretary Crush
Boyfriend? At least he’s out of the picture.
“And do you have any experience in office work?”
She nods. “I was a secretary back in the city. Although, I’m not sure that title is all that correct. It felt like I was more of an assistant with all I did. It went much further than answering phones and delivering messages.”
“How old are you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Twenty-nine.”
My brows lift. “Wow, you look much younger than that. I wanted to make sure you were legally allowed to work here.”
She smiles. “Thank you. I’m told I have good genes.”
That you do…
3
ELLA
This man is big. He towers over me by at least several feet. Not only is he tall but he’s also muscular. He’s wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and black ink covers both of his arms. His dark hair is cut short but kept a little longer on the top with a purposely messy look to it. He has dark scruff growing on his sharp jaw, and as I look into his dark eyes, I can’t help but wonder how it would feel scratching against my skin.
Hudson couldn’t be any further from my typical type. My ex-boyfriend was only six feet tall and had no facial hair or tattoos. He wore nothing but suits throughout the week, and on the weekends, he usually dressed in khaki pants and polo shirts. Most of our dates were to the country club or to five-star restaurants where he managed to get us reservations, thanks to his friendship with the chef. My point here is how can I go from one extreme to the other?
The way this man looks at me has chills racing up my spine and goose bumps prickling my skin. Now that I think of it, Josh never looked at me how Hudson is looking at me. I also never had this feeling in my gut when it came to Josh.
“So this is the office. You’ll have to excuse the mess. We haven’t had an office worker in quite some time, and as you can probably guess, the guys and I aren’t so good at it,” he says. “This place needs to be cleaned up, and by cleaned up, I mean really cleaned up. We don’t need any records more than ten years old, so half the junk in those filing cabinets can be thrown away. I want to be able to walk through this room and think it’s actually a professional-looking office, so all the trash needs to be taken out of here. Once all that is done, your duties will be to answer the phones and take messages, place parts orders, and call customers to update them on their bike’s progress. We may even ask you to grab us lunch from time to time. Keep that bathroom clean for yourself and the clients. That also means keeping the guys out of there. They’re nasty and have trashed the shop bathroom so much that they now refuse to use it.”
Right then, the door opens, and some guy walks in. He sees us, stops, and motions toward the bathroom.
Hudson shakes his head, and the man backs out and closes the door. He turns and looks back at me. “Are you sure you’re up for this? I have to warn you, this isn’t your typical office job. These guys, they’re rough and crude, and they don’t keep their mouths shut for anything. You’ll hear nothing but curse words, dirty jokes, and farts.”
I smile. “I’m sure I can handle a bunch of grown children.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what they are.” He pauses. “There’s no air conditioner, so it gets pretty hot in here. Can you take the heat?”
I nod. “I think I can manage.”
“And you might as well throw all your dressy work clothes away. That dress”—he points at my white dress—“is nice and all, but it’s way too white to be wearing in a dirty, greasy garage. You need shorts, jeans, work boots, and sometimes a hard hat with these jackasses.”
I laugh. “No white clothes, got it.” I nod.
He lifts his brow. “The job is Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturdays but rarely. Hours are nine to five.”
Standing, I hold out my hand. “I start tomorrow?”
He laughs and tilts his head to the side. “You’re bound and determined, aren’t ya?”
I smile. “I need this job, and if putting up with a group of overgrown children and hearing some dirty words while cleaning is what it takes, then count me in.”
He seems to think on it for a moment, then he puts his hand in mine, and when he does, my body flashes with heat. “I will see you first thing in the morning then.”
I nod, hoping he doesn’t notice the way my face flushes under his gaze. I remove my hand from his and start out of the office, keeping a rather clipped pace until I make it outside, where I can finally take a deep breath. Having him look at me and touch me was enough to have my heart racing and my lungs doubling their pace, and I was starting to feel dizzy. No matter how hard I tried to suck air into them, it kept leaking out. I was fighting a losing battle, but as soon as I walked out into the warm air and felt the sun on my face, I could breathe and breathe deep.
I climb behind the wheel of my car and head back to the apartment. As I’m unlocking my door, the door across the hall opens, and Gage and Zoe come walking out.
“Oh, hey. How’d the interview go?” Zoe asks.
I smile. “Great. I got the job!”
