“Good, lord. What the hell is wrong with me?”
Cassandra was breathing hard and her words were loud in the silence. Her heart was racing, and she still felt a tingling all over her body. What the hell was that?
She was shaking and she got up, just so that she could figure out why she was being so weird. Cassandra had no idea what was going on with that dream. She knew that dreams were just her mind’s way of working something out, but dragons and mystery men she wanted to have sex with were too far out of her realm of possibility. She didn’t even have a love life, though Cassandra remembered some fantasy romance that she’d read recently. She didn’t remember a dragon in it, but that must be what it was.
Cassandra looked at the clock. It wasn’t even six in the morning, but she wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. Not after a dream like that. After a dream such as the one she’d just had, Cassandra needed to take a cold shower to cool off her ardor. There was something about the way she had felt, the way the dragon had felt. It felt familiar.
She pushed it out of her mind, trying to think of something normal when she got in the shower, so that she could orgasm and get it over with. She couldn’t, though. The last thought that flashed through her mind was one of her flying through the air on a beast. That helped her finish with lightning speed and an intensity that took her breath away.
The very idea that she would be turned on by that confused the hell out of her. Cassandra knew that people sometimes developed kinks. Was that how it happened? One dream and now she was a sexual deviant for fantasy characters?
Cassandra laughed out loud, trying to make herself feel better, but to be fair, she just sounded nervous more than anything else. It did nothing to help her mood and only the coffee in her mug helped that. She was full of anxiety about the job she knew nothing about. What was she even supposed to do? The guy did something with stocks, or she wasn’t even sure. It was all just strange how it came to be. In the light of a new day, Cassandra was concerned that it was too strange. Why would anyone hire her out of the blue, without knowing anything else about her?
There wasn’t a lot of time for Cassandra to talk herself out of it, because before long, it was time for her to leave and go to the address that she’d written down. Her stomach was in knots and Cassandra briefly remembered the dream. Usually she forgot them a few minutes after she woke up, but not that one. The last one was a doozy and it had filled her mind with too much. She wasn’t going to be able to think of much more.
When she got to the address, it didn’t look like a business that had been running for long. There wasn’t even a sign outside. It just looked like a small office building and when she got inside, it was sparsely filled with furniture. There were only two desks, and Cassandra couldn’t imagine who would work there as it was.
She was about to turn around and walk away when she heard a voice that almost sounded familiar. Where had she heard that voice before?
“Ah, you must be Cassandra.”
Cassandra turned around quickly and saw the man that she remembered very well. It wasn’t that she’d seen the guy’s face the day before when he’d stopped to see if she was okay. No, it was a feeling, and it came over her in an instant, and Cassandra was sure that Antoine was the same guy she’d been cursing.
At first, she was just too shocked to say anything. The guy was standing in front of her all nonchalant, like nothing was wrong, and she didn’t know how to respond. Then, Cassandra remembered that she needed the job. Was she really supposed to pretend like she didn’t know who he was? Did he think that she was that much out of it or something?
Nothing made sense, so Cassandra just went along with it. She found her head nodding and she took the large, outstretched hand. He barely touched her, before he was pulling back and showing her to the desk she would be using. It was one out of the two and Cassandra looked around.
“So, you don’t have a lot of people that work here, huh?”
He was tall, devastatingly handsome, but his dark blue eyes barely met hers. It was like he was avoiding her, and Cassandra wanted him to meet her gaze. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to get some answers as to why he just took off like he did. Cassandra convinced herself that she would get them, too.
When he waved his arm around, she could see the tattoo on the inside of his wrist. It was much like the one that was on the other guy’s wrist, and she wanted to know what that was about. So many questions…
“Not really. I have been doing it from my house for years, but a friend of mine convinced me that I needed to take it to the next level. So, I did.”
“Looks pretty recent.”
He surprised her by laughing, a rich sound that she decided that she liked.
“Yeah, you could say that. So, what kind of experience do you have?”
She paused and then launched basically into her resume. She’d asked him if he wanted a copy of it, but he had declined. Cassandra felt like he had never given an interview in his life and he was just winging it. The whole time she was rattling off the last few places she’d worked, another part of her mind was trying to piece together the man in front. Why was she here? Why would he obviously give his friend Nathan the go-ahead to give out his number?
“What kind of job were you looking for?”
“Well, I had an interview yesterday for a remote job. It might be helpful to do it that way. Then, you wouldn’t need to keep this ‘office’ up.”
“No, I want you right here where I can keep an eye on you. I don’t think anything would get done another way.”
Cassandra wanted to balk at the idea of working so close to him. He was the jerk that left her bleeding, after he slammed into her. She didn’t want to see him every day, smile in his face… It was already exhausting keeping it up right then, and it had only been a few moments.
Damn, Cassandra wished that she didn’t need the job so bad.
“Right, okay. Just tell me what you’re looking for, and I will get right on it.”
Cassandra had never done a blog before, not about finance. She’d never worked with a guy that was obviously well off, but had slammed into her the day before in his truck and did a runner. So many contradictions. It was strange, and she didn’t know why she sat in the chair like neither of those things mattered. Cassandra wasn’t even sure about any of it, but she knew one thing for certain. He was the man that had wrecked her car the morning before. He’d hit her, then he’d left. Cassandra needed time to wrap her mind around everything.
Antoine gave her several assignments that were already printed up, and she was surprised that they even had substance. Not much else about the office did. He also needed a few letters written. That was more something for a secretary, but Cassandra guessed she was putting that hat on as well. She didn’t know how long the arrangement would last, but she was willing to do it for a little while. If nothing else, Cassandra would learn more about Antoine and why he’d done what he’d done. She was waiting for an apology, though by the looks of him, she wasn’t going to get it. People like him didn’t think about what they did to others.
