Then, I go to bed.
***
Monday morning, 5:00 a.m
I am ready. I’ve "Pretty Woman-ed" myself a wardrobe of seven outfits and comfortable heels. I look the part.
I arrive at Paxton, Gill, and Associates at 7:55 a.m. sharp.
“Great, you’re here. I’m Elinor, everyone calls me El. You’re Sabrina, right?” The woman at the front desk doesn’t even look up.
“Selena,” I correct softly.
“Right. You’ll sit here and take overflow calls. When this phone rings, you answer,” she pitches her voice up, “‘Griffin Calloway’s office,’ then log the message. Name, time stamp, message, number. He needs a record of everything for litigation purposes. Any questions?”
Griffin Calloway.
The world stops spinning. The air leaves the room.
The lawyer I am working for...
His name is Griffin.
7
GRIFFIN
“Hold all calls, except for those from Carl Besheir. I need to talk to that bastard. No one takes lunch until that call is logged,” I bark as I finally storm out of the conference room. I have been stuck in a deposition since seven this fucking morning.
I need an espresso. I need a massage. I need to fuck someone—either over or hard. I need to scream.
“Get me an espresso. Triple shot. No milk, no sugar,” I yell at the temp sitting outside my office, her head bowed as she scribbles furiously on a notepad.
“Did you hear me?” I yell again, because the stress is vibrating under my skin like a live wire.
She lifts her head.
I am met with the greenest eyes, a halo of golden, straw-colored hair, and the face of the woman who has been emblazoned on my mind for three fucking days.
She’s sitting in a task chair with a headset on, staring at me like I just shot her grandmother.
“Is this some kind of fucking joke? What the fuck are you doing here?” I shout.
My mood, already rotten, plummets through the floor.
This woman walked out on me.On me.She gave me the greatest orgasm of my life, then vanished while I was asleep. I was going to get her number, her last name, her address. I planned to track her down. But she ghosted me.
And now, I can barely look at her because of my traitorous dick. Just the sight of her—that lavender spice smell, the memory of her tits—damn. I need to get my cock back inside her as fast as I possibly can, but I can’t, because she’s sitting in my goddamned bullpen wearing a headset.
“Staff Savers sent me.” She’s staring at me, wide-eyed, like a deer in the headlights of a semi-truck.
A voice cuts in. “Mr. Calloway, I’m so sorry. I’ll get your coffee. Do you want a bagel or a breakfast sandwich to go with it? And no calls from Mr. Basheir just yet.”
Ah, El.
El is my lead assistant. She's twenty-nine, competent, and a mistake. I fucked her a few times late at night, after hours. All three—or four, or fifteen—times were lapses in judgment. Now, the way she looks at me, with that proprietary softness, grates on every single nerve.
I know I’m being a shithead. I should fire her, but I can’t fire her for no reason other than the fact that she wants more from me than I can give. I need to promote her out of the office. She wants to be a lawyer; I'll pull some strings with the Christopher Street Society and get her a paralegal gig at an adjacent firm. I just need her out of my face.
