INvestigation (1)

RHYS REDMOND

Asking Kira to be my fiancée has to be one of the worst mistakes I have ever made.

I didn't lie about her not being my type—I prefer women who don't work for me. In all the years I have worked at Phoenix Industries, I have never dipped my pen in company ink. In fact, I don't even go out with women from the same industry.

A certain little blonde, however, has been getting under my skin ever since she became my assistant. When I questioned what strings she pulled to get the job, Kira made it her mission to prove me wrong; always doing things before I asked them of her. The way she grumbles about what an asshole I am when she thinks I'm out of earshot makes me want to spank her sexy ass.

That thought alone is enough to get me slapped with a lawsuit.

My dick doesn't seem to understand that. I was hard for hours after Kira left my office yesterday and all I could think about was those lips she kept licking wrapped around my cock.

Just when I manage to get her out of my mind after a sleepless night, I walk by her desk and find her engrossed in scribbling something. It looks like a regular notepad, but her expression tells me what she's writing has nothing to do with work. There’s a mischievous grin on her face, her pen etched between her teeth in a way that makes my mind go all sorts of inappropriate places.

As soon as Kira sees me, she swipes the notebook off the desk and shoves it out of sight. That reaction is enough to prove my little assistant was not working. A hundred bucks say she was drawing or writing something erotic.

I would like to grab that notebook just to mess with her and see her ears turn pink in embarrassment, but I have a mountain of more important things to do.

I've barely sat at my desk when Kira walks in. Today she is wearing a navy skirt and a more fitting blouse, unlike the baggy ones she usually dons. As usual, the scent of her mild floral perfume with a hint of vanilla fills my office.

"Do you need something?" I ask.

"You have a message from Claude. She said..."

"Delete it," I order. "Anything else?"

Kira is a little intimidated by my tone. It takes a while before she says, "I thought about your offer and..."

"It’s no longer on the table."

I see her eyes dim a little, but she holds her head high.

Is she disappointed?

While I generally have numerous women pining for me, I'm not so full of myself as to think the entire female population is in love with me. Kira is one of those who don't have any interest in me, or so I assumed. Her reaction makes it apparent that canceling the arrangement was the right move. There are already more than enough complications in my life without adding feelings to the mix.

"Do you need anything else?"

There's something on her mind, but Kira shakes her head. "No. Have a good day, sir."

When she walks out, my eyes once again land on her ass, watching the sexy way it sways. I need a shrink.

_______

When Kira Davidson was hired as my assistant, I was the only one suspicious of her. My skepticism started the moment I asked her to introduce herself, and she missed a few beats before saying her name, her ears turning pink ever so slightly.

She is nothing out of the ordinary: a young woman with no family, who has been struggling to make ends meet since finishing college, with a shit load of student loans. It’s easy to assume her to be a law-abiding citizen like any other.

But as soon as I laid my eyes on her and she said her name, the squeaky clean record seemed fake. I’ve been wired to sus out any inconsistencies in people, especially the ones that appear simple on the surface. Kira Davidson may appear as innocent as an angel, but there’s a calculative glint in her eyes. Her smiles are all practiced to near perfection, but she’s always twitchy and looking over her shoulder. This is not just about the notebook she scribbles in when no one is watching.

My gut tells me this is the behavior of a spy not quite good enough at her job, which is why I got Shane involved.

Shane Griffin can dig out millennium-old skeletons buried at the bottom of the ocean, but he is also constantly flirting with the line between sanity and insanity. You have to catch him at the right time to get desirable results.

It takes him a week to get anything substantial, which he relays to me over dinner at my house.

"You were right," he says as a maid pours wine. The maid has barely left the table when Shane ogles her. "Do your house staff moonlight as models? That one looks like she gets her exercise posing for magazine covers."

"Focus," I hiss. "And keep your eyes off my staff."

Shane grudgingly lifts his glass of wine and returns his attention to what I asked. "My investigation shows your assistant hasn’t always lived in New York, as her records suggest. She only moved here two months ago, having appeared from bum fuck nowhere. Her diploma is from a college in the city, yet when I contacted some of her classmates to ask about her, no one remembered her even when I showed them pictures."

It’s not far from what I expected, but I still want to give little Miss Davidson the benefit of the doubt. "Maybe she changed a lot since college and her class population was too large for anyone to remember her?"

"That’s what I wanted to believe, but her class only had thirty students. Besides, she isn’t in any class pictures, not even graduation photos."