Page 73 of Saved By the CEO

I give them a smile.

Caught you, fuckers.

Neither of them says anything else.

My desk is exactly as I left it. Laptop closed. Notebook slightly crooked. A stack of papers in the tray. I sit down, turn on my computer, and then I do the same thing I’ve been doing for the last three years.

I work.

I answer emails. I move meetings. I update Andrew’s call sheet for the afternoon. My fingers know where to go, what to open, what to type. It is almost insulting how easily the job fits around me.

Then Andrew’s office door opens.

I don’t look up right away. I give myself one extra second, because I need to mentally prepare myself before looking at a man whose dick has been in my mouth.

“Good morning, Miss Michaels.”

I look up. He’s standing in the doorway in a dark suit, hair neat, expression controlled.

“Morning, Mr. Bennett.”

“I have a call with Singapore at nine-thirty,” he says.

“I moved it to conference room three. The screen in your office has been acting up lately.”

“Thank you.”

“I also sent you the revised notes for Westbrook.”

“I saw.”

It looks like he’s about to say something else. His eyes hold mine for just a beat too long, and my stomach twists. But then someone opens a door farther down the corridor, and the moment folds in on itself.

“I’ll be in conference room three,” he says.

“Of course.”

He leaves, and I stare at my screen until the words blur, feeling something ache deep, deep inside me.

At lunch, I head down to the cafeteria to pick up something to eat. It’s busy, full of voices, coffee machines, and forks scraping against plates. I grab a salad I don’t actually want and stand in line, pretending not to notice the way two women from Marketing stop talking when I walk past them.

That’s when I see Josh.

He’s by the drinks fridge with Tim from IT, both of them holding sodas. Josh spots me almost immediately. His mouth twitches, and then he leans in and says something to Tim.

Tim looks at me, then away.

I turn back toward the cashier as if I didn’t notice, even though nausea rises in my throat.

When I get back upstairs, I eat three bites of my salad and throw the rest away.

The afternoon passes in fragments. A phone call. A calendar invite. A printed agenda. Someone from Legal stepping out of Andrew’s office, offering me a smile that is just a littletoopolite.

At four, Andrew comes out of his office with a folder in his hand. “Miss Michaels?”

I look up. “Yes?”

“Will you join me for my next meeting?”