What they didn’t know was that same asshole had been so deep in me that I saw stars. It was something I had tried to forget, but was failing miserably at. It made me hate him even more. I should never have let my walls down, not even in a rage of passion. The fact that I was trying to forget he was the best sex of my life made it even easier to keep him at arm’s length. The distance had to help to get over it.
Despite our pretty much non-existent relationship at work, I still kept tabs on what he was doing within the company. That was partly my job, after all. It irritated me that he was actually doing a decent job as CEO. He was ballsier than my father, making moves that my father would never have the guts to make, and the payoff was well worth it. The company was seeing numbers it hadn’t seen in years. I was glad for it, but at the same time my hopes of my father coming around and realizing his mistake were flying out the top floor and crashing down to smithereens on the sidewalk below.
But despite his smart business moves, Chandler still treated every employee here like shit. They were terrified of him. Especially Bernice. It was a wonder he had kept her on as his assistant, although he probably wasn’t sending much work her way because it all seemed to land on me. I wanted to bring this up to my father. Tell him that I’m no one’s assistant. But after our last heated conversation, I decided against it.
Speaking of, my phone buzzed on the desk and I was relieved to see it wasn’t a call from the tyrant across the way. I quickly picked up.
“Hey,Dad,” I said, mustering up as much cheerfulness as I could.
“Gabriella,” he said in his all business tone. I knew it wasn’t a father-daughter call, but a business one. It usually always was.
“What’s up?” I asked, reaching for the mouse on my desk and hitting the send button on the email I had been working on.
“All ready for review night?” he asked.
I swallowed hard and looked at the date on my computer that now seemed to be screaming at me. How could I forget? It was the one night of the year the CEO stayed all night to work on employee reviews. I usually stayed with my father to help him, not leaving the office until usually 5 a.m., but I was hoping this year I wouldn’t have to stay. I mentally crossed my fingers as I feigned obliviousness.
“That’s right. Chandler has quite the night ahead of him.”
“You both do.”
“What’s it have to do with me?” I asked more pointedly than I intended.
“He doesn’t know the employees that well yet. You have to stay and help him.”
I clenched my teeth as I glanced over at Chandler’s open door to his office. He sat at his desk, focused on whatever was on his computer screen. His green eyes darted back and forth, his lips pressed into a thin line of concentration. Damn him for looking so good.
“Hello? Are you there?” My father interrupted my thoughts.
“Yes, I’m here. Okay. Got it. I’ll stay and help.” I let out a sigh of defeat.
“Good girl.” He hung up without so much as a goodbye, leaving me annoyed with his way of talking to me like his pet.
I sat back in my chair and ran a hand through my hair, looking around the office. In just a few hours, it would be cleared out, and all who would be left would be me and Chandler. The man who I could still taste on my tongue. I wondered if he realized I would be staying with him the entire night. After weeks of keeping our distance, how was this going to go?
I heard his phone ring. I quickly glanced up and could see by the look on his face that my father was delivering the same news he had just laid out to me. I wanted to laugh at the sheer terror on his face. I quickly looked back at my computer, pretending to focus, knowing full well he would be looking over at any second. The same way I had when the bomb was dropped. This night was sure to be interesting.
Shortly after 5 p.m., when the office had emptied out for the night, I lingered at my desk as long as I could, trying to delay the inevitable. I knew if we just got started, the sooner it would be over. I took a deep breath and walked to Chandler’s office to find him buried in stacked files that HR had brought over earlier. He looked overwhelmed, his hair slightly unruly as if he had been running his hand through it. It looked stupidly sexy. It was one of the rare times he showed anything other than his “can do” attitude.
I knocked on the frame of his door and he looked up, his gaze sharp now.
“You ready for this?” I asked, gesturing to the files.
“Just so you know, I didn’t ask for a babysitter…” he said.
“And I didn’t sign up for sitting with a toddler all night, but here we are.”
He blew a quick breath out his nose and nodded to the chair in front of him.
I sat down and looked around the mess of his office. It was a shitshow.
“You didn’t organize any of these?” I asked.
“Isn’t that HR’s job?” he snapped.
I ignored the bite in his voice and kept my voice cool.
“It’s easier to organize them by tenure. Then we review from longest tenure to least.”
