Page 32 of Sexting His Assistant

This cannot be how my Tuesday is going.

I’m Nina Hale. I’m organized. I’m competent. I color-code Luka Kazan’s impossible world so thoroughly that his legal team once asked if I would consider running their department. I know which board members are lying by the way they ask for coffee. I have prevented three public scandals, two private disasters, and one mistress-on-mistress violence incident in a hotel lobby in Vienna.

I don’t get eaten out on conference tables by my boss.

Except apparently, I do.

And apparently, I enjoy it so much my knees still don’t trust me.

I slide carefully off the table.

Bad idea.

My legs wobble. I grab the edge of the table again and glare at the room like it personally did it to me.

“Pathetic,” I whisper to myself.

My phone rings. I almost die.

My entire soul jolts out of my body, smacks against the glass wall, and comes back upside down.

I scramble for my phone, which has somehow ended up beside my notebook. For one insane second, I think it’s Luka.

It’s worse.

Misha. My brother.

My overprotective, dramatic, suspicious, six-foot-four older brother who once threatened to break a man’s wrist because he held an umbrella over me “too possessively.”

I stare at his name flashing on the screen.

No. Absolutely not.

I cannot answer this call. My voice is still not normal. My body is still not normal. There’s a high possibility that if I open my mouth, the only thing that comes out will be Luka’s name followed by a legal disclaimer.

The phone keeps ringing.

Misha will keep calling.

Then he will text. Then he will call Luka. Then he will call security. Then he will come here himself.

Because that is who Misha Hale is.

He’s my brother, my emergency contact, my second father when he’s being unbearable, and Luka Kazan’s oldest friend.

Which makes everything much, much worse.

I pick up. “Hi,” I say.

It comes out breathless. Horribly breathless.

There is a pause on the other end.

Then Misha says, “Why do you sound like that?”

I close my eyes. Fantastic start.

“Like what?” I ask.