2

Week One

“Aurora!” Luis’ voice bellowed through the office as it did all day long. I had been working for him for four days, and if he insisted on calling me Aurora instead of Rory, which he knew I hated, I called him Luis—in my head. For some reason that I couldn’t explain, working for one of the most challenging people I had ever encountered had done nothing to stop the full body flushes and inappropriate thoughts.

I took a deep breath, downed a gulp of coffee, and walked into his office.

“Yes, Mr. Pine,” I replied calmly. Half of the job of assisting powerful people was managing their personalities. Influential people liked strong support staff, but still liked to feel that they had all the power. So the most frustrating part of my job was feigning weakness without actually being weak. “Did you need something?”

“What is this?” He pointed to his steaming mug.

“It’s coffee, Mr. Pine.”

“I’m aware that it’s coffee.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Where did you get it?”

“Well,” I cleared my throat. “The coffee from the caterers isn’t that great, so I decided to make your coffee myself.” Silence. I continued. “It’s how my grandmother and mother make coffee. I grind the beans myself, let the grounds steep in boiling water for three minutes and—”

“I need the Andrews files so I can review the contracts.” He cut me off mid-sentence, and I felt my jaw set. “Have the files I need accessible at all times so I can do my job and make money to pay your ridiculous salary.”

He usually brought up my ridiculous salary when he was frustrated. My salary was only ridiculous by industry standards because it was basically a bribe. Finding a qualified person willing to put up with him was like finding a needle in a haystack. Not to mention, my ridiculous salary was actually pocket change to him. However, knowing his anger had nothing to do with me didn’t make being belittled fun.

Also, the Andrews file was on his desk. During his lecture, I glanced at it, trying to find a tactful way to bring it to his attention without the risk of embarrassing him and frustrating him any further.

“My apologies.” It was a Herculean feat to keep my voice calm. “I was sure I’d left it on your desk when I came in this morning. I put it in a blue folder, so it would be sure to get your attention. I’ll go recheck my file drawer.”

I quickly turned on my heel and hustled out of his line of sight, so I would miss the moment when he located the missing file that was never actually missing.

My day started way too early. It ended way too late. I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at my desk. He was a demanding perfectionist who had no tolerance for mistakes. Luckily for me, I hardly ever made mistakes.

He seemed continuously annoyed by my presence while continually demanding my attention. No matter what I did or how carefully I followed his instructions, it never seemed to satisfy him. Still, he never gave me any feedback, barely speaking to me unless it was to bark orders.

Three minutes later, the intercom buzzed on my desk.

“Aurora. Get Rick on the phone.” Richard Harris was one of the attorneys working on the Andrews deal. He had found the file. “And bring me more of this coffee.”

Week Three

“I have your revised schedule for the rest of the day,” I said after setting the paper on his desk. I updated his schedule in the company’s scheduling software continuously throughout the day. Still, he insisted on having me print out a new copy every hour. “And a fresh coffee.” I set the mug down. Luis’ eyes flickered over my chest as I bent over his desk to rearrange his papers and turn on the mug warmer. I glanced up, and our eyes locked for a moment, making my face flush with heat. His expression hardened, and he looked away.

“Is there something else, Aurora?” he said gruffly.

I stood in his office, shifting my weight from foot to foot. I took a deep breath and continued.

“Actually, there is,” I said.

He sat back in his office chair and steepled his fingers, his eyebrows raised in anticipation.

“I think you should work from the penthouse.”

“Excuse me, Aurora.” He tilted his head in confusion. “You think I should do what?”

“Not for the entire week, but more than you do now.”

He stared at me in disbelief, and his pale golden brown complexion reddened. I kept talking.

“I can arrange your schedule so that all of your in-person meetings are on Fridays and Mondays. I can have IT set up a video conferencing system in your office upstai—”

“Why in hell would I want to do that?” He slammed his hands down on the desk.

“Because you prefer working in the penthouse,” I said a little too loudly, but I didn’t care.

“I never said that I—”

“You don’t have to.” I was definitely shouting, and Luis was getting angrier, which pissed me off more. “You’re more irritable when you’re down here. The staff is more on edge. It’s eleven fifty-three, and you’ve already made three employees cry.”

He stalked around his desk, eyeing me like I was prey. My heart started to pound as he advanced. Common sense screamed for me to back away, but I couldn’t. Watching him slowly walk toward me, flexing and unflexing his large veiny hands while his chest heaved was sexy as fuck. Also, Luis Pine thought he could intimidate me, but I wouldn’t let him.

“Aurora, this is a workplace.” He swept a giant arm around his office. “This is where work gets done. It’s full of employees. They need a boss who is present.”

“Actually, they don’t.” I steeled myself and pulled up a personal research project I’d been working on for the last two weeks and handed him my tablet.

“What is this?” He snatched it from me and scanned the screen.

“Productivity is higher when you work upstairs. Both for you and your employees.”

“For me?” he said in shocked disbelief and began swiping his fingers across the tablet.

“Yes, you’re more relaxed—well, slightly more relaxed—when you work from home.” He was still reading the report. “Since your home is two floors above, it’s not much of an imposition to do most of your work there and come into the office as needed.”

“And where would you work when I’m not in the office?” His voice was loaded with sarcasm, but his temper hadn’t cooled.

“Well, my office is down here, but I could spend part of my day with you upstairs and the rest down here.”

He narrowed his eyes at my suggestion.

“If I didn’t know any better, Aurora...” His arm flexed like he wanted to reach out and touch me, or—God, help me—maybe it was wishful thinking. “I would think you were trying to distance yourself from me.”

I suddenly felt flustered; my brain couldn’t remember what words were or how to use them. “I’m not…I can’t…”

What the hell was I trying to say?

I gave up trying to speak. Instead, I licked my lips in anticipation. The gesture didn’t go unnoticed. Luis’ eyes dropped to my mouth, and his pupils went wide…with lust?

Maybe that was more wishful, inappropriate thinking—which may or may not involve his thick veiny hands. I was definitely not imagining the prickling heat between my thighs.

I licked my lips again, partly out of nervousness but also because a tiny part of me wanted to provoke him. I wanted something to happen, anything to happen to quell this ache that had been growing for the last three weeks. Just as the tension threatened to suffocate me, a shadow passed over Luis’ face. His expression hardened, and he backed away from me, crossing his beefy arms over his chest.

“No.” He gave his head a small shake. I wondered what he was actually saying no to. I soon had my answer. “This is a ridiculous idea. A CEO that never comes to the office.” He cast one more glance at my lips before he backed away and dropped into his chair with so much force that it jerked back. He slammed his finger on the trackpad, and the desktop came to life. He stared intently at the screen, but I could tell he wasn’t working on anything. “Why are you still here?”

“Do you need anything before I go to lunch?” I wasn’t planning on going anywhere for lunch, but I need to get away from him.

“You’re not taking a lunch break. I obviously don’t give you enough work to do if you have time for…” He picked up my tablet and shook it. “And I need you to stay later than usual. Everything needs to be perfect for the Sanders presentation. Bring me all the files for Sanders and Builder Inc., while you’re at it.”

“They’re already on your desk,” I replied. My anger was slowly replacing my lust in a repeat of my daily emotional dance of working for Luis Pine. One second I wanted to choke him, and in the next, I wanted him to choke me. “I also emailed you my notes for your investor’s meeting speech, scheduled your haircut for tomorrow, rewrote the report on the hospitality division for the third time, and went over the revisions for Andrews. I found a few issues, and I labeled them with color-coded post-its.” I walked over to his desk to retrieve my tablet. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Pine?”

Luis was staring at me, his expression unreadable.

“No. Get out of my office.”

“Good,” I replied. “I’ll see you when I get back from lunch.”

Week Five

“Aurora.” This wasn’t his usual bellow, more a cry of agitation, which was a welcome respite. We’d been working from the penthouse for almost two weeks, and the difference was night and day.

He had a large office built for me next to his in the penthouse. Working in his personal residence didn’t feel as unprofessional as one might have thought. I was mostly confined to the offices, and though I was dying for a tour of the entire penthouse, it would have been inappropriate to ask.

Because of our many late nights, Luis hired a car and driver to chauffeur me around, not just to and from work, but everywhere. I went to visit my family in Westchester on a Sunday, and the car and driver made the hour-long trip there, waited six hours, and drove me home.

His shoppers made sure his kitchen was stocked with my favorite foods. This couldn’t have been the way he treated his other assistants, but I’d never know.

It wasn’t all luxury perks and unlimited strawberries. I still earned every penny of my salary, but Luis seemed to be letting his guard down around me, trusting me a bit more. I also received an almost daily gift of flowers or candy on behalf of the entire forty-fifth-floor staff. Sometimes I laughed to myself, imagining them dancing around in gold bikinis to the tune of “Can You Feel A Brand New Day?” from The Wiz.

“Yes. What do you need?” I tried to plaster on a smile, but I hoped what he needed was actually important. Three days ago, he called me into his office to ask me my opinions on breakfast cereal. Sure, he asked because he was planning to invest in a food manufacturer, but we have a research department for that kind of stuff.

“What took you so long? This is important.”

“The investor’s meeting is tomorrow. I’m proofreading and reformatting the quarterly reports.” For the fifth time.

“Exactly,” he said. “The investor’s meeting is tomorrow. Which tie looks better with this suit?” He held up a navy blue tie and a silver-blue tie, raising and lowering them while wearing an inquisitive expression.

Are you fucking kidding me?

“What did Giselle say?” Giselle was his stylist, who got paid ten thousand dollars a month to tell him which five-hundred-dollar tie went with which twenty-thousand-dollar suit.

“I’m asking you, Aurora.” He gave me a pointed look. I rolled my eyes, stepped forward, took the ties from his hands, and placed them on top of a dark blue suit jacket hanging on the rolling rack in his office.

“I went to Columbia Law, you know. Graduated in the top ten percent of my class,” I said sardonically.

“My condolences,” he muttered, and I narrowed my eyes at him, eliciting a rare smirk from my usually stoic boss. “Now which tie?”

“The navy blue one,” I said in a sigh. “It’s less distracting, and you want everyone to focus on your face during the meeting.” I felt my cheeks burn again.

“Will you be focused on my face, Aurora?” he asked, and his tone was almost playful.

“I’ll be focused on your speech and hoping you took my advice about those terrible jokes.” I cleared my throat and handed him his ties. He took them from me, grazing the backs of my hands with his fingertips, causing a full-body shiver. I quickly turned to walk out of his office.

“Those jokes are funny,” he called to my retreating figure.

“No. They’re not.” I turned to face him when I was almost to the door.

“Giselle picked the silver-blue tie, by the way.” His smile faded, and he pinned me with a serious, earnest look one might almost mistake for gratitude, if they didn’t know Luis Pine. “That’s why I need you, Aurora. One of the many reasons.”

My heart thudded in my chest, and I felt the smile fade from my face. I pasted on a smaller, less genuine smile and nodded as I felt the oddest sensation. Tears were prickling in my eyes. Tears. In twelve years, I’d never cried at work. Granted, I can’t remember the last time any of my employers expressed anything resembling gratitude, if ever, and I was touched by it…but actual tears? Was the bar that low?

Get your shit together, Rory.

I blinked furiously and closed the office door behind me.

This was my typical workday with Luis Pine, minus the tears—which dried up before I got back to my office, so they don’t count.

Week Seven

I dropped off the latest revisions of the Andrews contracts on Luis’ desk as Magda brought in his dinner. It was a medium-rare steak covered in a huge dollop of herbed butter, with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. My stomach growled at the sight and the smell. Embarrassed, and hoping he didn’t hear my body’s complaint about working without eating dinner again, I turned to hustle out of his office.

“What was that?” He picked his head up from the file he was reading and eyed me suspiciously.

“That might have been my stomach.” I edged a little closer to the door.

“Did you eat dinner?” He looked at his watch and then back to me.

“Not yet,” I said in a sigh. “I had some stuff I needed to finish, then I was going to go home for the day…” I glanced out of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the black New York City sky, “…night.” My stomach growled again.

“Sit. You’re eating dinner with me.”

“That’s okay.” My belly tightened. We’d eaten meals in the same room before, but something about how he said the words with me resonated. “I have a salad in the refrigerator. I’ll just…”

“Aurora.” His voice was stern as he motioned to the chair at the small dining table Magda had set for him. “Please.”

I nodded and sank slowly into the chair, my heart racing.

“Magda,” he pressed the intercom button. “Could you bring in an extra place setting, a bottle of pinot grigio, and Miss Douglas’ salad from the refrigerator, plated please.” Magda’s response came before he left his desk and sat opposite me at the table.

Magda entered the room moments later with a plate, silverware, a napkin, my salad, a decanter of wine, one wine glass, and a rocks glass with scotch for Luis.

“Thanks, Mags.” He gave Magda one of his rare smiles, and she patted him on the head before she left the room. I must have been wearing a bemused expression in reaction to their exchange.

“Magda has known me since I was a baby.” He cleared his throat. He didn’t meet my eye but instead divided his dinner in half and placed it on the empty plate.

“Mr. Pine, I can’t—”

“You can, and you will.” He poured me a glass of pinot.

“White wine with steak?” I asked as I took a sip.

“Does red wine still give you a headache?” he asked with an arched eyebrow. I nodded. I had no idea he knew that.

He placed his napkin in his lap and began to eat the remainder of his dinner. He looked across the table at me, raising a stern eyebrow.

I picked up my fork. A shiver ran through my body and settled between my legs.

“Aurora,” Luis asked between bites of his steak. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You’re the boss.” I smiled at him and raised an eyebrow, poking my fork at my salad. “Ask away.”

He picked up his scotch glass and turned it in his hand, swishing the dark liquid around. “Why didn’t you take the bar exam?”

I took a large sip of my wine to buy myself some time before I answered. “Well, I planned to, but I worked two part-time jobs while I finished law school, so I planned to take a year for bar review while I worked my first EA job.”

“What happened?”

“This might be hard for you to imagine,” I said sarcastically, “but I worked ten to twelve hour days six days a week for two years, and it didn’t leave me a lot of time to study. Then, when I left that job, the salary at my new job was a lot more than I’d make as a law clerk or a first-year associate and…” I shrugged and looked away.

“Did you want to be a lawyer?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“What did you want to do?”

“Well,” I took a deep breath. “I wanted to do your job…at the time,” I quickly added.

“My job? You wanted to be a CEO?”

“Once upon a time, but things change.” I shrugged.

“What prevented you?”

“I was never given an opportunity to advance. I tried, but…” I looked away and took a bite of my salad. I hoped I hadn’t walked into a misguided lecture about making a path where none exists or taking what I wanted in life without worrying about the consequences from someone who wasn’t Black or a woman and basically had his career handed to him. I definitely wasn’t ready to defend my futile attempts at advancement by painfully reliving all of the times I was passed up for promotions in favor of less qualified people, had my ideas outright stolen, or had been explicitly told that a career as a high paid executive assistant was the best I could hope for and that I should be grateful.

“You deserved better than that, Aurora. I’m sorry.” He seemed to be reading all of the things I’d left unsaid in my expression, and I was grateful. “You’d be an exceptional CEO.”

“If I became a CEO, who would you trust to pick out your cufflinks?” I raised an eyebrow while trying to deny the effect Luis’ words had on me.

He narrowed his eyes, and a playful smile curled his lips. “You’re absolutely right. Let’s never discuss this again.”

I let out an unexpected chuckle that made my shoulders relax, and my stomach unknot.

Luis smiled again before returning to his dinner. I liked this more comfortable, relaxed version of him. My unprofessional fantasies entangled themselves with my professional admiration for Luis Pine until they were indistinguishable.

He must have felt me staring at him because he picked up his head and fixed me with a stern gaze.

“Aurora.” He pointed his fork at my plate. “Eat.”

I smiled and returned to my salad.