Page 7 of His Assistant

Sofia’s gaze flicks back to me. There is something almost amused in her face, but she tucks it away.

“I’ll be at my desk if you need anything else.”

When the door closes behind her, Rafe looks at me for several seconds.

“Shut up,” I tell him.

“I didn’t say anything at all,” he says with a smirk.

“Maybe not verbally, but your face is saying a hell of a lot.”

“She’s good at what she does,” he answers, throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“She is,” I agree.

“She’s also not bad to look at.”

I let out a deep sigh and try to decide the best way to navigate this conversation.

“Her looks are irrelevant,” I finally tell him.

“For now.” He shrugs. “Though I’d suggest you try to keep it that way unless you want a scandal on your hands.”

“I think it’s time for you to go,” I tell him.

He gets up and casually strolls out without another word.

I open the folder and look at page forty-two. Sofia is right. Legal missed the entity name. So did the analyst who reviewed it before Legal. So did the senior associate who sent it up with his initials on the approval line.

“Her looks are irrelevant,” I mutter to myself.

She’s a good assistant, and that’s all that matters to me. I hired her because she’s good with details and keeps a cool head in a crisis.

It takes days for us to locate the missing shipment, and when we do, it’s been ransacked. Calderone doesn’t take credit for it, but that means fuck all. He’s always playing chess. He’ll come out of the woodwork to take credit if he feels the time is right.

The following week, I meet with a few new investors. The meeting is a disaster, and I walk out of it ready to tear someone a new asshole. It’s nearly eight p.m., and I’m shocked when I get to my office and see Sofia still sitting at her desk. I thought she’d left hours ago. I told her not to wait for the meeting to be over.

She has her shoes kicked off under the desk, one bare foot tucked beneath the opposite calf. Her hair has come loose from its knot, falling around her shoulders in a way she’d probably fix if she knew anyone could see her. A half-empty container of noodles sits beside her keyboard. She’s glaring at her computer with focused fury.

“No,” she mutters to herself. “Dominic can’t be in Brooklyn and at a breakfast meeting in Queens at the same time. What the hell were you thinking, Peter?”

I stay frozen where I am, just watching her work. She’s so locked on the task at hand that she doesn’t even notice me standing there. She clicks on something, starts to drag it, then groans in frustration.

“That’s not going to work either. Fuck!”

I watch her lips form the word, and immediately picture her screaming it for another reason. A vision floods my head: her hair down, skirt bunched around her waist, bent over my desk as she screams my name. I have to clear it at once.

Sofia is, undeniably, attractive. I knew that when I hired her, and up until now I could ignore it. Fuck Rafe for being right.

She is the best assistant I’ve ever had. I don’t want to jeopardize that.

She looks up and startles. “Oh. You’re done.”

“I am,” I confirm, my mouth suddenly feeling dry.

She blushes under the weight of my gaze, but I realize, thankfully, that it has nothing to do with the way I’m looking at her and everything to do with how she’s lost her polish in the late hour.

“What are you still doing here?” I ask her. “I thought you would have gone home hours ago.”