by Paige Cooper
The office staff typically looked away when I came around or put their heads down to avoid interaction with me. It made me feel like some sort of devil in the office, so it was nice to see her smile. Maybe things were changing.
I made my way past the empty gym and smirked when I noticed that no secretary sat at the desk outside my office. When would my brothers learn they wouldn’t win this one?
Without another thought about Nicole, I jumped straight into my caseload. There was a ton to do today, and it would be another late night.
I slipped into my office, prepared to flick the lights on, but they were already on. The curtain was drawn back and the morning light trickled into the office, casting a soft glow on everything.
This was odd. No one ever entered my office, especially if I wasn’t here. I scanned the room, making sure everything was in place. There were sensitive files in this office, and I couldn’t risk any of my cases being jeopardized. That was when my eyes settled on the cup of coffee in the middle of my desk.
No. No, no, no. Not again. What the hell was a cup of coffee I didn’t ask for doing in my office?
I glanced around the room, making sure no one was hiding in plain sight or waiting to jump out and spook me.
I didn’t have time for games, and that was what this felt like—one big, massive game.
With a few quick strides, I was beside my desk. The coffee seemed perfect, inviting even. I could smell the cinnamon hitting my nose as I lifted the cup for a sniff.
I couldn’t help it. I moved the cup to my lips and took a cautious sip. The almond and cinnamon enveloped my tongue in a hug. The medium roast of the beans highlighted the delicate flavor of the coffee and sent my taste buds into heaven. The shock of the caffeine made me feel a touch more alert.
“Goddamnit!” I growled.
It was the perfect cup. One of the best cups I’d ever had, and that meant only one thing. Once again, my brothers have meddled in my work life.
I wanted to throw the cup down and storm out of my office in a cloud of anger, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t waste a cup of perfection. It was rare that I found someone who could make my coffee even better than I did.
So, I sat for a few minutes, indulging myself in my coffee. With each sip, I let my anger at my brothers stew. They better not have meddled the way I thought they did.
My good mood was gone; I felt like a dark cloud had descended over me. I’d never be able to prove my worth if I had to keep backtracking and making things in my office the way I liked them. I could barely contend with having my brothers' opinions and doing things their way sometimes, and now I had to get used to a stranger?
Even if that stranger smelled like gardenias and made me want to bend her over my desk.
I felt a surge around my groin and shifted uncomfortably. I needed to stop letting my body have such a visceral reaction to the thought of Nicole. I was in control, not my body.
As if to prove a point, I stood up and stormed out of my office, slamming the door behind me.
The glass reverberated, and a few stares were shot down the hallway. I could have sworn I heard a snicker travel down the hallway from the reception area, but I chose to ignore it. There was no way the office staff would be having a chuckle at my expense.
Earlier, I had walked right by the secretary's desk, taking no real notice of it other than to appreciate the fact that there wasn’t a person sitting there. Now, I gave it a second more of my attention.
Nicole wasn’t here, but signs of her were everywhere. Yesterday, she hadn’t decorated her desk—it had been littered with nothing but files, papers, and sticky notes. Today was a different story.
Her purse sat underneath the desk, and there were a few pictures of her scattered around the surface. A photo of a Labrador caught my attention. So, she had a dog. I didn’t know why I cared, but it felt nice to learn this little tidbit about her.
For a moment, I wished I could ask her about herself and find out more. An ache pulsed through my body, and I shoved it away. This was silly. I didn’t indulge in distractions.
I stood back up and my eyes caught a card that was propped up on the edge of her desk. Against my better judgment, I picked it up and opened it.
Anger simmered through my veins, and for a moment, my eyesight went red with rage. I grabbed the card tightly and walked off.
It was an apology card. What the hell was John and David apologizing for? They clearly had gone behind my back to rehire Nicole after I’d fired her. They even seemed to have apologized to her that I had fired her in the first place.
Anger led the way to confusion as I walked over to the closest office—David’s. Never in all the years we’d worked together had my brothers gone to the effort to rehire someone I’d fired. This was new territory for them.
It was new territory for me, too. They went behind my back. I wasn’t entirely sure how to handle the situation.
I pushed my way past his secretary’s desk and barged through the door. I didn’t bother knocking, storming into the room despite his secretary’s best attempt at informing me I needed to wait.
“Mr. Allen, he’s busy!” Michelle called out hopelessly. I ignored her.
“You had no bloody right!” I shouted as I entered the room.
David hung up the phone call he was on, promising to look into a few details before he shot me a look that could have melted ice.
Unfortunately for him, I was seething, and it wasn’t going to work on me this time.
“How dare you sit here in your office and pretend to be insulted by me coming in when you and John are the ones that are meddling in my life!” I yelled, throwing the apology card on his desk to prove my point.
“What the hell is going on here?” John’s voice broke through my angry tirade. He strode casually into the office, unperturbed by my angry outburst.
“What’s going on here is that you two can’t stay out of my life. If I don’t want a secretary, one shouldn’t be forced onto me,.” I glowered at John and David together.
“Well, what we’re not about to do in an office full of people who are supposed to look up to us is throw tantrums,” John said diplomatically.
I wanted to wipe the smug look off his face. It irritated me that he was right, and it irritated me even more that it looked like there was nothing I could do.
“We have a say, too, and our votes are 2-1. So, your secretary stays for now, until one of us agrees she can be let go. You need help. There’s too much on your plate, and you’re letting things slip through the cracks,” David added, topping insult with injury.
He was right. If they wanted me to have a secretary, at least for now, there was nothing I could do. Other than walk out from the job I loved, and I wasn’t prepared to do that.
I sighed, looking from John to David. Neither one was budging on this. They had their arms folded, and they looked at me evenly.
I turned on my heels, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of this win, and marched back out into the open office. I pulled the door shut behind me, slamming it, and the glass reverberated once again.
Fuming was an understatement for what I felt. They were treating me like a child, with no control or say over my own life. I walked past the photocopy room and something possessed me to glance in, even though I never did.
Nicole stood there with her back to me, copying a few files and documents. It was like she felt my gaze on her, and as I wanted to look away, she turned around and our eyes met.
A slight smile curved her lips when she recognized it was me watching her. The noise in the office died down as our eyes focused on one another for a mere second before I remembered why she was here.
I didn’t want her here. Her presence was a reminder that I’d been strong-armed into having a secretary.
I shot her a look of contempt and broke our eye contact. My heart raced as I stormed off, the air filled with tension. This was my anger. The stammer in my heart, the tightness in my chest—it was anger. That wa
s all it was. At least, that was what I told myself.
I slammed my office door shut, making sure all of the blinds were down and I didn’t have to look at her or at her desk. I’d already lost so much time, I couldn’t afford to stay distracted any longer.
My chair enveloped my body as I sat down into it, hugging my back. That was one thing I could count on—my office remaining the same.
Except it wasn’t. There were piles of new papers on my desk, and I hadn’t put them there.
A hole settled into the pit of my stomach, and for a solid minute, I felt like the asshole I knew I was. Nicole had re-typed all the documents I’d asked for yesterday, ensuring they were error-free. There was a sticky note on top of the files explaining that she had fixed the photocopying errors in the system, too.
My eyes wandered up to the clock on the wall. 9:20 am. She had to have come in early to get this all done.
I felt a softening in my heart. She didn’t have to make sure this was re-done, especially not since I had dumped it all on her lap specifically to make her life hell yesterday.
But the softening hardened right back up as I remembered why she was here. John and David. I grabbed the notes I’d scribbled late last night and pushed myself out of my chair.
When I stuck my head outside my office door, Nicole was at her desk. She had a cup of something pressed to her lips as she reviewed a file. She looked gorgeous.
A random pencil was tucked behind her ear, intertwining with the waves of her hair. Her brows scrunched together slightly when she focused, and I wasn’t sure why I found that so endearing.
“Here, I need these typed out, and this specific document sent into an email to this client,” I said briskly as I dumped the pad of notes onto her desk with a thud.
If she was going to be my secretary, she might as well do some of the legwork, I supposed.
I didn’t look at Nicole when I spoke, turning away from her abruptly. I didn’t want to know what she thought of me or see the pity in her eyes. I’d made an ass of myself. I didn’t want to be reminded of that.
All I wanted was for Nicole to do the job she was hired for.
“Okay, what client am I sending this to?” Nicole asked, glancing up at me. I looked away again, focusing on a spot behind her.
“All the instructions are on the note attached to the pad. Please tell me you can actually read.”
I winced inwardly as I heard the derision in my own voice. I knew I was being an asshole, but I couldn’t help myself. Something about Nicole left me unsettled.
Without another word, I made my way back to the office. I couldn’t see the hurt in her eyes, but I felt the animosity in the air.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I recognized the sensation of her gaze on me. Is this what it felt like to be watched all the time?
I shook off a shiver and shut my door. With any luck, I’d make some headway on work and not think of Nicole at all in the next few hours.
A man could hope.
Chapter 7: Nicole
M y fingers hit the keyboard, flying over the letters as I double-checked the terminology that Mark wanted me to use in this memo.
He’d dumped a massive stack of notes on my desk without even so much as a glance in my direction. I wanted to take offense and call him out, but for the moment, it was easier to wait out his bad temper and see where things led.
While I did that, I’d show him that I was worth my salt as a secretary. I needed to remind myself that John and David had hired me for a specific reason. Even if Mark was hell-bent on intimidating me, I had to prove that it wouldn’t work. He didn’t scare me.
He simply made life a little more difficult than it truly had to be. I rolled my eyes as I glanced toward his office. The blinds were pulled down, and I had no idea if he was even alive in there.
Leaning over my desk, I peered at the glass walls, wishing there would be some movement or noise. Anything that would let me know what he was doing in there.
My hands hovered over my keyboard, and I chewed on my bottom lip. This was pathetic. I didn’t even know him, yet I felt desperate to know what he was doing.
I tried to push Mark out of my head, but the truth was that he intrigued me. I was curious about this man who took on such heartbreaking cases but seemed like a stone-cold asshole.
I hated myself for being curious. I didn’t want to care about what he was doing inside his office, but for some odd reason, I did.
I pulled my eyes away from the door, realizing that I needed to focus on my work instead of on the boss who had made it clear he didn’t like me. He hadn’t even been able to look at me when he had given me all these notes to type out.
Was I really that repulsive? I glanced at my reflection in the glass wall behind me and sighed. I hadn’t dated anyone in over a year. There was so much going on at home, and there never seemed to be time.
Maybe that was why I had this weird attraction to Mark.
I turned back to my computer. Human Resources had come by earlier and set me up as a company employee. I had to admit, it felt good to build some sort of permanence with the company.
Arthur from the IT department came by after them and gave me the rundown on my computer and the company technology. He’d looked less than his best dressed, but his smile was genuine, even if he did look nervously at Mark’s office door the entire time.
It was clear to me that Mark intimidated almost everyone in this office. Well, I wasn’t going to be another face amongst them. He was a little scary, sure, but I needed to prove to him that I was here for the long haul.
So, I did what I should have done on the very first day.
Yesterday, I hadn’t put anything out on my desk. I had been unsure and very intimidated by this scary boss everyone claimed Mark to be. Now that I saw him for the jerk he was, I wasn’t budging.
I made the desk my home and I fully settled in.
I had brought all the usual office decor clutter, and I made the space mine. Pictures of my dad and me were plopped on the desk, and I even included a picture of our old family dog, Rooster. May he rest in peace.
I had also left the apology card from John and David on the desk, but it had somehow mysteriously disappeared in the time I got up to use the copier.
The flowers they’d given me were still sitting in a vase on the desk, though. I honestly felt a sense of comfort now that I claimed my territory in the office.
“Fancy seeing you back here,” Abby’s voice registered in my ears. It was melodious, almost as if she sang the words to me. Again, I found myself wishing for half of her grace.
“Oh, goodness, hi!” I looked up from my screen, flustered to see Abby and three other people making their way toward me.
“Nicole, this is Michelle, Emma, and Luc. Luc works in the accounting department, Emma is Ella’s stand-in receptionist, and Michelle is David’s secretary.” Abby flicked her hair over her shoulders as she introduced the new faces to me.
Luc was short, and he wore a frown on his face as if everything around him was perpetually distasteful. He leaned against my desk, eyeing out the flowers and my photos. He was dressed in a suit that seemed way too hot for the temperature outside but worked for an air-conditioned office, I supposed.
Michelle glanced down at me with a kind smile on her lips, but it never quite reached her eyes. She nodded her head as if to say hello, saying nothing. I wasn’t sure if it was me, but I had the distinct impression that she wasn’t so ready to cozy up to me.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said simply, taking a glance at the notes I had left. In case Mark came out of his office, I didn’t want him to think I was chatting and not working.
“I’m impressed you’re back. I was convinced yesterday was your last day here,” Abby said as she sat on the edge of my desk.
“Don’t tell him I said this, but you deserve a medal for putting up with that bastard,” Luc whispered, throwing a worried glance toward Mark’s office door. He seemed wary of Mark
, and I found it a little funny.
“Are you all scared of him?” I asked, raising my eyebrow with the question.
“Girl, that’s not a discussion for a few seconds. It’s almost lunchtime. Why don’t you come out to eat with us today?” Abby clapped her hands gleefully as she spoke.
She seemed excited to relay all her gossip to me, and I found it hard not to get caught up in her glee. Michelle made a noncommittal shrug, and Luc’s eyebrows furrowed tighter together even as he nodded his head. I wondered if he was simply uncomfortable being in close proximity to Mark.
“Oh, I brought my lunch today,” I tried to say nonchalantly. I wasn’t keen for the entire office to know my dire financial situation. Besides, my first paycheck would cover everything and put me back on the right track.
“That’s fine, we can order in—we always do when it’s a working lunch,” Michelle spoke for the first time. I looked up at her and couldn’t yet decide if she liked me or if her personality was simply standoffish. This was the first indication I had that she’d like to spend extra time with me, and they’d been standing at my desk for a solid five minutes.
“It’s a date, then. We’ll see you in the break room at one for lunch. Tata for now,” Abby chirped, her hair flowing behind her as she ushered the others away before I even had a chance to decline their offer.
For a moment, I wondered how it would look to Mark if he came out and I was gone to lunch. Then, I realized I didn’t give a fig what he thought. It was lunch, and I was entitled to it.
It was easy to get caught up in the atmosphere of fear among the other staff when it came to Mark, but I wasn’t going to let myself fall for it. Even if I needed to remind myself ten times a day.
By the time the last half-hour passed, I finished typing out the documents Mark needed and found my way into the staff kitchen.
It was larger than I remembered from when Ella showed me yesterday. Abby and Michelle were already ensconced away in a corner of the kitchen at one of the tables.
Abby waved me over when she noticed me entering the room, and I had no choice now. Too late to back out. I grabbed the lunchbox I’d left in the fridge earlier and made my way to their table. I only had thirty minutes for lunch, but I wanted to savor every minute away from Mark Allen.
