Page 67 of The Reading

“What?” I squawked. “Clinton’s not gay.”

“Oh, but he is,” he argued.

“How do you know?”

“Because I make sure to know everything about the people that I employ, Zara,” he replied like I should know that. “I want to make sure that the holiday gifts are all appropriate for their families.”

“So…he’sgay,gay?”

“I’m pretty sure there aren’t levels to being gay, Zara,” he replied as the elevator came to a stop. “I’m pretty sure that if you’re gay, then you’re gay.”

“Not nece-”

“His boyfriend’s name is Samuel, and they live together,” he continued. “Regardless of what you believe, I don’t always leave the office when you do, Zara. I know Clinton well.”

What. In. The. Fresh. Hell?

I walked out of the elevator feeling totally blindsided. If Clinton wasn’t my soulmate…well, there was only one other person in the building, and…nope.

Maybe New Year’s Eve was my holiday, not Christmas Eve.

*****

Hudson~

The woman was nuttier than a fruitcake but, fuck, if she wasn’t great at her job. If there was a national contest for the best personal assistant ever, I’d nominate Zara Domingo every year. The woman had to be the most organized person that I knew, and she didn’t take any shit. She kept my life running like a well-oiled machine, and that was the only reason that I’d never fire her, even though I’d thought about it a lot.

Why, you ask, when she’s the greatest assistant ever?

Well, Zara Domingo was also thirty-two with black hair, these exotic black eyes, a face that reminded me of Dafne Fernandez. Plus, if that weren’t enough, the woman had the body of a goddess. We’re talking hourglass with curves upon curves. I couldn’t count how many times I wondered how the buttons on her shirts made it through the day. The woman had a rack on her that made me fucking stupid. Paired with her dark looks, tiny waist, wide hips, sexy legs, and painted toenails, I should have fired her a long fucking time ago. My life would be chaotic, sure, but at least my nights wouldn’t be filled with nightmares of not being able to have her.

Now, while I didn’t care about the whole boss/secretary cliché bullshit, for four years, Zara hadn’t shown one ounce of interest in me. If she’d had, I would have wife’d her the fuck up ages ago, her nutty ways and everything.

“Nope,” she said, following me into my office. “He can’t be gay. No way.”

“Why can’t he be?” I asked. “Because I’m pretty sure that he is.”

“Because Christmas is my holiday, and Madam Brousseau can’t be wrong,” she answered, and I could only stare at her blankly.

“Who in the hell is Madam Brousseau?” I finally asked. “And how is Christmasyourholiday. I’m pretty sure that it belongs to everyone, Zara. Well, everyone that believes in Christmas.”

Zara shook her head, her thoughts all over the place. “She’s the psychic palm reader that we saw in Vegas,” she explained. “And she said that we already knew our soulmates, and that they pop up during the holidays.”

“What?”

“Well, the holiday thing is just my assumption, but that’s what she said.”

I ran my hands down my face, then looked at the beauty that was standing in the middle of my office, talking about psychic palm readers. How could she be so brilliant at her job, but be totally out of her mind?

“Christ, I don’t even know what to say to that,” I told her. “And I don’t even have your period to blame your nonsense on this time.”

Her head jerked back. “You know when I’m on myperiod?”

I nodded. “Four months after you started working for me, I overheard you on the phone, and you were telling a friend that you were having a hard day and that you had also started your period that morning,” I admitted. “Since then, I’ve tracked your periods.”

“Why?” she squawked.

This woman really had no clue how I felt about her. “Oh, c’mon, Zara,” I huffed. “Did you seriously think that business dropped during your periods? You never questioned why you didn’t get as many calls as usual, or why I could suddenly schedule shit for myself? You never questioned why you never seem to have to work late during that week? You never questioned why no reports are ever on deadline at the end of the month. Theendof the month, Zara.”

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