I Need to Get Over You (Over You Series Book 1)

by K. D. Black

  “I get an office?” I take the documents from him, but don’t try to read them yet. Of course, I’ll be checking them for useful information on Hayden before I send them to R&D. How do I do that, anyway?

  “Yes, although I wouldn’t get comfortable in it because you’ll be all over the building. For now, you can use the computer at the reception desk.”

  I glance at the desk, and the usual woman isn’t there.

  “She only works certain days. The desk downstairs can usually handle reception. Scan those and email them to David Wyatt, then come to my office.”

  As usual, the stern, forbidding set of his gray eyes deter me from asking any questions, so when he disappears down the hall, I don’t know what to do when I can’t log into the computer behind the desk. Damn it, I really don’t want to have to knock on Hayden’s office door and tell him I can’t even get into the computer, which means I haven’t started my job yet….

  Inspiration strikes, and I check the various drawers and notepads to see if reception lady is the type to write down her login information.

  Sure enough, on the back of the very bottom sheet of a block of sticky notes, I find two rows of half words and numbers that look suspiciously like a username and password.

  “Yes!” I almost pump my fist when the peppy “Welcome!” screen pops up. I already have my own company email and the scanning machine works just like any other I’ve ever used, so the rest should be easy.

  I scan each document with my eyes before I use the machine, but the information on the papers is very technical and I doubt any of it would help my cause. So, instead of examining every paper, after a few moments, I just check that I’m scanning them in order and work as efficiently as possible.

  “Excuse me?”

  Concentration broken, I glance up from the computer and locate the voice. It belongs to a short, elderly man wearing a suit.

  “Uh, yes, sorry, can I help you, Sir?” I ask, wondering why he’s talking to me.

  Shit. I’m behind the reception desk.

  “Yes. I have a meeting at 2:15 with Mr. Nicholson?”

  “Oh, um—” Glancing wildly around for something that tells me how to avoid sending in a man who might not even actually have an appointment, my eyes suddenly fix on a calendar app on the desktop’s screen. “One moment,” I say. My shaky finger tripleclicks the app and opens some random date, and I waste precious seconds figuring out how to close it and go back. Today’s date is highlighted in blue, and a green box surrounds a name and a time when I click it. “Mr. Stephens?”

  “Yes, that’s me,” he confirms.

  I check the time. The clock reads 2:13. “You can go ahead in to see Mr. Nicholson. His office is straight down the hall to the right,” I inform him, hoping with all my heart that this I’m allowed to do this.

  The urge to call out bubbles up in my throat as the man slowly makes his way down the hall, but I know that if I stop him I’ll just start babbling about how I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m not customer service, I think Hayden might fire me if I send someone in—

  Yeah, better to just let this train wreck happen and go ahead and finish what I know I can do correctly.

  The man doesn’t return immediately, so Hayden has at least allowed him to stay. That knowledge puts a tiny corner of my mind at ease, and that little, unburdened piece is all I need to finish my task.

  Just as I’m beginning to wonder if I should interrupt the meeting to tell Hayden I’m finished, the man reappears. “Have a good day,” I call as he passes the desk.

  “You too, young lady.”

  He wouldn’t be cheerful if Hayden had been a dick… right? I’ll find out very shortly if I made the right call. Time to tell Hayden I’ve sent the email.

  “Enter.” The voice that responds to my knock sounds so neutral that my palms begin to sweat. Hayden is sitting at his desk when I step inside, and I briefly forget why I’m here because he’s chewing on the cap of a pen and his gray eyes stare up at me through dark lashes and why does he have to be this stupidly handsome? “Did you finish?”

  His question interrupts the rambling path of my mind and I drag myself back on track. “Yes. Was it okay that I sent Mr. Stephens back?” I wait with bated breath. Am I about to make a record for the shortest employment of all time?

  “Of course. Why do you think the first floor sent him up here? Next, can you enter these appointments and times into Steph’s computer? The receptionist,” he explains impatiently, narrowing his eyes at confusion. “You met her when you interviewed.”

  Of course, excuse me! I apologizing for not remembering the name of the random woman behind the desk that I saw once when I came to interview for an incredibly important job. “Certainly,” I say with the utmost politeness and a big, bright smile as I take the sheet of paper from him and glance at the scrawls on it. “Is this how you usually plan things?” My smile slips a little.

  “My phone calendar usually works well enough. Since I have an administrative assistant now, I might as well use you.”

  Use. Like I’m a desk stapler or something. “Might as well,” I agree. Sad puppies and kittens, sad puppies and kittens. Do it for the sad puppies and kittens…

  Hayden stands and makes his way to the window. When I don’t move, he jerks his head at the door. “That’s all for now.”

  Of course, Your Majesty. “I’ll get right on it, Mr. Nicholson.”

  “Good.” He turns the shoulder of his expensive suit to me and clasps his hands behind his back, admiring the view.

  When I reach the office door, I suddenly think of something to say that can’t be construed as disrespectful, but will alleviate the burning pressure to have the last say. The snide remark never leaves my lips.

  Hayden stands framed by sunlight. The bright, warm rays illuminate his face, lightening his ordinarily forbidding features, but his face isn’t that of someone enjoying a view of the city. Instead, his eyes just fix on a single spot far in the distance—or, maybe even nothing at all.

  Maybe that’s why he suddenly looks so exhausted. Maybe he’s just human like the rest of us, stuck searching for things that are too far away to see or reach.

  Chapter Six: Hayden

  Two types of people dominate the business scene. First. you have the opportunists— the people prepared to wait forever for that one chance that spurs them closer to their goal, or the people who just take chances as they come with no real endgame.

  Second, you have the go-getters. Go-getters don’t wait around for things to come to them. They stalk potential enterprises with wolflike eagerness, using years of experience and instinct to search out opportunities.

  I consider myself to be a go-getter, and I prefer to surround myself with likeminded people. When I head down to R&D or visit Sales, I want to literally feel passion and dedication in the air and hear it in the voices of my employees. In the world of employers and employment, AutoVS has built up a reputation as a fair but demanding company to work for—you’d better come prepared to offer your all each workday, otherwise my company isn’t for you.

  During the interviews for an administrative assistant, I had specifically searched resumes, applications, and candidates themselves for initiative and that go-getter attitude. Nothing less than above and beyond would do for someone whom I would be required to work closely with and trust.

  Brooke hadn’t exactly shown me that specific quality, but her interview had given me a feeling that she could be a lot more than what she presented.

  And, turns out that I was right.

  The two-and-a-half day mark since Brooke’s hire is nearing, and already I can’t remember how I ever got along without an administrative assistant. She completes tasks efficiently, follows directions perfectly, and manages to be constantly available to receive new instructions as she completes current ones.

  And she has that spark. That need to get. Things. Done. Brooke has been here just two days, yet she orders my other employees around and makes use of company
resources to get her tasks done like she worked for AutoVS for years. I never have to tell her it’s fine for her to take an issue to a different department to solve, and she never comes to me to ask my permission to schedule meetings and appointments for me. She just does it. In fact, Brooke’s perfectly painted nails and lithe hands have already snatched my schedule completely out of my hands, with the result that everything runs more efficiently than I would have believed.

  Every day, I find myself wishing more and more that I’d asked more questions at the interview. Drive and integrity in business are… well, my biggest turn-ons, if I’m being honest. A businesswoman who can walk into a situation, take control of her surroundings, and go above and beyond doing her job is just so damn sexy.

  Which doesn’t matter, I remind myself sternly. Brooke is my assistant, nothing more. Nothing can happen between us. After all, I hired Brooke to reinforce my assertions to certain naysayers that I do actually know what I’m doing at the helm of AutoVS. Becoming involved with her would be like hitting an irreversible undo button and would have the entire board breathing down my neck like a pack of starving wolves.

  Even so, there’s no harm in at least getting to know the person I put so much trust in on a day-to-day basis. A perfectly professional thing to do, like, say, ask her to meet me for coffee to go over some business-related things as a break from the monotony of the office would be just fine.

  As I promised on day one, Brooke now has her own office on the same floor as my own. Hers, of course, covers fewer square feet and lacks the cornering floor-to-ceiling windows that give me views of the city from two sides of the building, but most employees would be jealous of it all the same.

  But, it’s irrelevant if some random customer service hire down in HR likes it. I want the space to impress Brooke and help her to continue to put out the level of work she has so far.

  I pick up the company phone on my desk and dial Brooke’s new office.

  “Mr. Nicholson,” she greets me almost immediately.

  “Do you have that slideshow ready?” I ask. I’m taking a bit of a risk in asking Brooke to prepare a PowerPoint presentation for me that I will use to present to the board of directors, but I have a surprising amount of confidence in her and I can already see myself gesturing to the first page and saying, “And now, let me illustrate my next point by turning your attention to this information my assistant compiled.” Of course, the attention of all those present would not only turn to the presentation, but also my beautiful, efficient new assistant.

  “I’m working on the last slide now. Shall I bring it over when I’m finished? I’ll only be about fifteen minutes more.” I can hear the rapid clicking of keys on the other end. Even after years of multitasking, I still find it difficult to type and talk at the same time.

  Careful. Even just hearing Brooke’s voice over a phone doubles my desire—my need—to see her again.

  This has to be some sort of brief obsession. Give these new arrangements a week, and then everything, including my focus, will revert back to normal.

  “Yes. Don’t forget to use the company’s colors,” I remind her before I hang up. Not that I actually think she would forget something so simple, but it never hurts to make sure and I don’t want to have to send her back to edit the presentation. The board meeting is in three hours, which means that’s how long I have to prepare with the finished presentation.

  It sure would help me concentrate on memorizing these numbers if I could just get Brooke out of my head. The sooner I learn more about her, the sooner I lose this insatiable curiosity that I can’t sate by watching her work.

  Fifteen minutes later on the dot, Brooke appears, holding a flash drive. “Here’s the PowerPoint you requested.”

  Our hands brush as I collect the drive from her. I turn away immediately to place the device into a USB port in my computer, shaking my head inwardly. Obviously, I need to get a better grip on myself than I realized, because there is no way Brooke just shivered at my touch like I’m imagining.

  I doubleclick the presentation, and the familiar colors and logo of AutoVS dominate the center of the screen. The bold colors leave very little white space, and I’m sure that I’ll find that the information past this point is overwhelmed by them. No, it’s only the first page. Throughout the rest of the document, the colors remain very distinctly in the background, working only to emphasize important details.

  A minute or so later, I’ve finished cross-checking the carefully laid out information in the slides to that I have committed to memory and paper on my desk. If she missed anything or recorded anything inaccurately, I can’t locate the error.

  “This looks fine.” Just like you. Why must she only wear tight skirts to the office? Today, she’s wearing a typical black jacket, but underneath, her pale pink blouse pops a little color into her outfit.

  She’s practically irresistible, and she doesn’t even realize it.

  Luckily, I didn’t get AutoVS to where it is today by falling for every woman with curvy hips and a sexy-fitting suit. “I want you to come to the meeting today at 5:00,” I tell her. “You don’t have to do much, mostly just hand me specific files when I ask for them. What you’ll need is here on the desk.”

  “5:00,” she echoes, nodding. “I’ll look over these in the meantime.”

  Good. Make sure you have a general idea of what’s there so you understand which ones I’m asking for.” I will not stare at her as she leaves. I won’t. My eyes ignore my determination and glance after her just in time to catch a shimmering wave of chestnut hair as she vanishes through the door. My fingers actually twitch, imagining how soft the gentle waves of her must feel to the touch.

  “Stop it.” My voice sounds weary and frustrated to my own ears, which won’t do—I still have a board meeting to attend and a presentation to make, after all. Coffee. I just need something to wake me up a bit and caffeinate me out of this daydreaming haze.

  A quick call down to the front desk, ten minutes of studying the PowerPoint, and my coffee knocks on the door. I take a sip, breathing in the warm fragrance. Who brought it up here again? Someone who said “here’s your coffee, Mr. Nicholson”, but that could be anyone in this entire building.

  Shrugging the detail off as unimportant, I finally manage to devote myself entirely to preparation. By the time my computer displays a time of 4:40, I’m confident and prepared to combine my knowledge with Brooke’s presentation.

  I leave my office, flash drive safely tucked into my suit jacket pocket. Brooke is sitting in one of the waiting chairs, her legs crossed as she taps at one of the company iPads. “I’m ready,” she states upon seeing me, standing gracefully and reaching for the stack of papers on the chair beside her.

  Suddenly, it occurs to me that anyone would struggle learning the material in those files well enough within two and a half hours to find the right one quickly. “Don’t worry if it takes you a few seconds to find the right file,” I say, just a tiny bit repentant at the difficulty of my request.

  “It won’t take long,” she assures me, her heels keeping pace with my expensive dress shoes as we head to the elevator together. “I organized them mostly in order with the presentation slides. Since I’m already familiar with that, I should be able to find anything easily even when you’re speaking without the PowerPoint.”

  Smart. Instead of just trying to remember what information resides in which document, she found a way to organize them. Excellent work. Excellent work over the past few days. “Good.”

  Her soft pink lips smile at me as we step into the elevator. A wash of clean-scented air fans my face when she adjusts her hair, tossing it over one shoulder.

  Which circle of Hell would I end up in if I forgot about the meeting, pulled her into my arms right now, and gave into the urge to kiss her senseless?

  A robotic voice announces, “Fifteenth floor,” and I almost dive out of the elevator. As someone who drunk his fair share in college, I can safely say that Brooke’s very presence
is more intoxicating than any alcoholic drink.

  “In here,” I tell Brooke, walking quickly to compose myself and also be on time. “Gentlemen,” I greet the members of the board already seated around the ovular table as I step into the room. A smile, a quick glance around the room, and I confirm that I’m not the last one here. It seems we’ll be waiting on two more members.

  Heads nod all around the table and curious glances follow Brooke, but Elijah and Mark were apparently right behind me and enter seconds after us. More nods, more murmured greetings, and then I take the opportunity to plug in the flash drive and retrieve the clicker from the table below the large screen.

  “Gentlemen,” I say again after the shuffling of papers and quiet murmur of conversation settles, “This is my new administrative assistant, Brooke. She has proved invaluable to the company already, and I have asked her to assist me today. Now, to begin. As you know, stock prices are….”

  Without breaks or stutters in my speech, I proceed to outline some current information that pertains to our meeting, lay out the reason for a board meeting, and seek to address the issue with examples and assistance from the slideshow. Throughout the presentation, heads nod and thoughtful voices offer insight on my points, we discuss the issue civilly, and manage to make headway toward solving the issue shareholders wish to have brought to AutoVS’ attention.

  In a sense, I am AutoVS. A large portion of who I am revolves around using these meetings to convince people I know what I’m doing and will pull in profit with my self-driving transportation, as well as address any little concerns shareholders might have.

  Thanks to my smooth delivery and the unusually good cooperation of everyone in the board, the meeting ends quickly. Many directors excuse themselves, but Elijah stays behind to speak with me as I shut down the screen and Brooke gathers her papers. “You always did have an eye for talent,” he tells me, nodding toward Brooke when she moves across the room, presumably out of earshot. “She’ll be good for the company if she always facilitates things this well.”