Ross

It was just before seven and I was sitting at my desk. Fuck, you would think that I was waiting on a date or something. Olivia hadn’t responded since I sent her the message telling her to get her butt in here. Part of me was nervous that she wouldn’t show up. I’d sent her a very generous offer after I calculated how much I was paying Scarlett and the pennies she was making and I tripled it.

My laptop was closed, and my phone was in front of me.

What the fuck did this Olivia look like?

I had seen her hands, feet and even the top of her damn head on her financial investment blog. At one point, it seemed as if she was going to write a book, but then she stopped posting on the blog over the last few months. It’d gone from a post a week, to a post every two months. There was no photo of her face; it was so fucking weird. I had a vision of her being devastatingly ugly, until I saw her feet. They proved that she wasn’t hideous unless they weren’t even her fucking feet. People do some fucked-up shit on the Internet. I remembered hearing a story about an author who stole a Brazilian model’s photo just so that everyone could think that she was some sexy chick writing sexy shit.

Alec, my best friend, barged in, completely distracting me from waiting for Olivia to show up. “Why are you sitting there like that? That’s weird.”

I stood up to try and save face; he was right. I wasn’t the type to sit down and wait, but I’d snooped the previous night when I got home. And then I’d started to get scared that she was one of those women that were wanted by the police, and that was the reason she was hiding her identity. Scarlett wasn’t coming into the office today, I told her to take a break. I managed to let her know that she needed a break and maybe time apart would be good for us.

“All couples take a break sometimes, it’s good for them. It makes them miss each other more,” I lied, because I’d never been in a relationship. What the fuck did I know about it? I couldn’t tell her that I wouldn’t miss her secretarial skills only her sexual ones.

My mind diverted back to Olivia, this must be the reason that she’s hiding her face, she was a wanted woman. That was the only thing that made sense, she didn’t live far so it couldn’t be a transport issue.

Shit, I thought that women were paranoid. Then again with my track record I had the right to be fucking paranoid.

“Scarlett’s left?”

My best friend was the one person on this planet that I couldn’t lie to.

“Not exactly.”

“So, you fired her?” Alec asked, trying to get an answer out of me. I was being cagey, but I was doing it to save face.

I knew that he would laugh, so I just told him the truth, “I made the mistake of fucking her.”

“For a change,” he said as he threw the apple that he planned to eat if he could stick to his diet in the air. Alec wasn’t tactful, like me, that was why we were best friends. There was no bullshitting between the two of us, all of the time. We’d known each other since college, and we clicked. As soon as I wanted to open the company, he was a natural choice to work with, someone that I could rely on and most importantly, someone I could trust.

“And then the next thing I know, I come into work and she’s demanding that I say I love her. It was weird enough that she left some fucking photos on my desk.”

“Of what?”

It was too early in the morning to talk about this, but I knew that I couldn’t fob him off and decided to tell him the whole story. I decided that I needed a shot of bourbon so I headed to the small bar in the corner of my office; normally I wouldn’t drink this early in the morning but I needed something to take off the edge.

“Her engagement ring. Oh, and I missed out the part about her wanting me to tell her that I loved her. I don’t even say that to my mom. Let alone, someone that I've been fucking for a week. I had to get rid of her and tell her that she was on temporary leave, that it was best that couples spent some time apart. I had a vision of coming to work today and seeing her wedding dress on my desk.”

“Virgins!” Alec signaled for me to pour him a glass too.

I shook my head, “Did she look like a virgin to you?”

I handed him his glass, and he said, “She was young, came from Kansas and had only been working in the city two weeks before you hired her. She was all of what, twenty-one? If that. Sure, she was hot, but she was inexperienced, she had no qualifications and I am sure that you didn’t hire her based on her skills. Did you even look at her resumé?”

I ignored his question thinking that I did hire her for all the wrong reasons as I shot back my bourbon and headed to the bar to grab another one. After this I would need an espresso and then I would lay off the booze for the rest of the day.

“We only started fucking last Monday and now she wants to be Mrs. Hamilton. What the fuck?”

“So, you want the company to be fucked up by the employment agency because you can’t stop fucking the staff?”

I hesitated for a moment before getting his glass, as he indicated that he wanted a top-up too. I was tempted to ask him about his wife, Erika, or even his kids, just to completely change the subject. He was the CFO, and back at Yale he was only interested in fucking the head cheerleader, whereas I had my sights set on fucking the whole team.

He put a ring on Erika, and the moment we finished at Yale, they were married. They’ve been having babies nearly every year since. I would have thought that after the first one, they would have slowed down. Yet there’s been more additions to their family almost yearly, which is why he wanted to slow down and not work so much. He wanted to merge with another firm and take a back seat or a lighter role in the company. That’s why our fucking company needed to be squeaky clean. We needed to look as if we were in control and knew what the fuck we were doing. Which is why I didn’t want to tell him the truth about Scarlett, but I knew that he would find out. In this company, women had big mouths and men even bigger; they all loved to gossip.

“No of course not. But listen, I had an idea.”

He arched an eyebrow after he took a shot of the bourbon. He handed me his glass and nodded for me to fill it up again and I realized that he was more stressed than I was. Which was weird because usually it was the other way around between the two of us.

“Remember that virtual assistant? The one that I had as a back-up when I found out that the assistants weren’t that good. She’s been filling the gaps in between.”

“The ones you fucked, the ones you were fucking or the ones that you were about to fuck?”

I handed him the glass and ignored his comment again.

“Well, she’s coming in the office. I thought that you were her. Which means—”

“You need to keep your dick in your pants and not put her into any of those three categories I just mentioned. No, I don’t want another glass and neither should you; I was just giving you the glass back seeing as you’re the bartender this morning.” He sighed as he headed to the sofa and sat down.

“I came here to say that we had a meeting with Rogers and Company, but now I feel like fucking canceling it. You just had to—”

“What did you say?”

I’d heard him, but for the first time in a long time, I was excited and not in a sexual way. Just fucking happy that things were going better than I expected, because in NY, it was hard to join any company that was bigger than yours. They tended to turn their noses up at small fishes like us and we weren’t that small, I had over 200 employees, but they had ten times that, so I was surprised at hearing this news.

“Did you say…?”

He nodded his head; I was afraid to say the words in case I jinxed it. Our top competitor was willing to merge with us. We’d sent out feelers to companies, but we never expected them to be one of them. That meant that if they did, we would be the biggest, and let’s not forget baldest, investment company in America.

“How come? What happened? I was too busy thinking about us merging with Jones Investors.” I was shaking thinking about the names that we’d thrown up into the air, that Alec said that he would contact. Companies that were our size, or just a fraction smaller. Companies that would make us bigger, but not particularly large. Rogers would make us fuck huge.

Shit. I grabbed him and kissed him on the lips. I wanted him to be my business partner, but he didn’t want his name in lights. He just wanted to support me from the sidelines and keep me on the straight and narrow. Alec was a true friend. One that I knew I could cherish forever, because he always had my back.

“Don’t do that again, it’s fucking gross! Besides Rogers would be a better match than Jones.” He laughed as he pushed me back as I was about to either kiss or hug him again, I hadn’t decided which one. Maybe he was right, I should lay off the bourbon, because it had clearly gone to my head.

“Sorry, I knocked earlier, but you were…”

Alec stood up, embarrassed that we had been caught in a kiss that was not what it looked like. But shit, I would do a lot more than kiss him if he pulled this thing off.

“Sorry, Ross was a bit excited earlier. I’m Alec, the CFO, and I’m just about to leave in case he tries to kiss me again!”

“I’m Olivia, the virtual assistant,” she said quietly. Alec looked at me and mouthed, “Behave!” before turning and heading out the door. I sat in shock at this dark-haired, emerald-eyed beauty—with hips that could ride me and a mouth that could suck me whole—being my assistant.

This really wasn’t going to go well. I needed help to make sure that this deal went through. I’m off girls, but Olivia’s far from a girl. She’s a hot, stunning, fucking temptress. One that I don’t need. I found myself stumbling like an old fool when I tried to move towards her.

Shit, I’m in trouble.

My dick agreed as it said, “Oh yes you are!”