Chapter 1

Hannah had despised Hayden for two years, one month, four days, and fifteen—no, sixteen—minutes.

She remembered the exact moment he’d walked into the office, his suit impeccable, not a hair on his head out of place. She knew because she’d been glancing—okay, staring—at the clock that hung above her desk, counting down the minutes until her boss’s next meltdown.

She’d already heard more than she wanted to about this new hire, a graduate from Yale Law who also held an MBA from Penn. No one else at the firm had multiple advanced degrees, and Hannah knew this thrilled the partners; the trio of salt-and-pepper-haired men in the swanky corner office.

Hannah, however, was a little less thrilled. She was on track to be made partner, and she wasn’t about to let this multiple-degreed hotshot get in her way. Not when she’d given the firm sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week for the past five years of her life. She hadn’t gone on a vacation or a second date since law school, but it would all be worth it when she had a swanky corner office too.

If Hayden Walker didn’t get in her way.

So she watched as he flicked raindrops off his jacket and made his way toward his desk, which happened to be right across from hers.

He gazed down at her with electric-blue eyes. “Are you my secretary?” he’d asked.

Of course he had a British accent.