Page 11 of Not As Advertised

Finally, after an eternity, which might have been two minutes, he handed the notebook back with a completely neutral expression.

“Very interesting. Once you’re back at your desk, type up the minutes and send them to me for formal approval before sending them out to the team. Then, you will give me yourhandwritten notes for my reference. This goes for all future meetings as well, understood?”

“But Mr. Sullivan, I really think that the typed minutes will be much more…” My mouth clamped shut with his interruption.

“Abigail, I’ll stop you there. I’ll let you know what I need, and I require your handwritten copy. Remind me whose assistant you are?”

“Yours, sir.” There was nothing else to say. I had no idea why he wanted them, but this wasn’t the hill I was going to die on.

There was a hill made of coffee beans for that.

My words had his jaw tightening and eyes darkening before he shook whatever emotion he was feeling away. What had I done now? He hadn’t left me any opportunity to disagree.

I edged toward the opposite side of the doorway, hoping he would get the hint and release me. No such luck.

“Tell me one more thing. What was so amusing to you during the meeting?”

His eyes never left mine as he surprised me with the question, like a naughty student caught cheating on a test. Oh god, what was with him today? I had no experience being called out like this. His penetrating gaze left no room to lie.

“It was great to see Phillip put in his place. A couple times at lunch, I’ve heard his team gossip about him pushing his own agenda. Anne did great work, and he was wrong to ignore that.”

I slapped a hand over my mouth. I had blurted out my thoughts without filtering them first. It wasn’t my place to criticize a senior team member. Yikes. What was it about this man that allowed him to get under my skin so easily?

Trying to recover, I ducked my head and tried to move past him, but he took up even more of the doorway. Unless I wanted to brush against him, I had no clear path to exit the room.

He leaned down to catch my gaze. Looking away, I was not keen to listen to the dressing-down that was coming. I had been out of line, and we both knew it.

“Abigail.”

Ugh. He insisted on calling me by my full name, despite me telling him to call me Abbie. Even though I’d been irritated at first that he’d ignored my request, the authority in his tone made my stomach erupt in butterflies. His commanding aura was annoyingly hot.

One word. My name said in his deep tone of voice was all it took to have my cheeks heating furiously. Embarrassment and arousal swirled inside me.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” I couldn’t hold eye contact with him any longer.

“You’re correct, Abigail. You shouldn’t have.”

My shoulders slumped. I felt deflated because he wasn’t going to let it slide. Why had he asked me if he didn’t want to hear what I had to say? Unless he wanted me to get myself into trouble so he had something negative to use against me?

“However, in this case, you are right about Phillip. I can’t stand it when an employee takes credit when it doesn’t belong to them. Keep yourself out of the office gossip, though. Your involvement in that kind of thing will only hurt you in the long run. It’s clear you’re going places—don’t let anything get in the way of that. That is, if we can get the coffee situation sorted out.”

I thought I saw him wink before immediately schooling his expression.

Before I could reply, he turned on his heel and walked back toward his office. I stood there, stunned for a moment. For the second time in as many hours, he had surprised me by the way he reacted to a situation.

Had he actually made a joke?

How could he go from avoidant overlord to supportive boss in just a morning? What was going on with Aiden Sullivan?

She was going to kill me. There was no other outcome for this situation. I could not be in the same room with Abigail Summers for more than ten minutes without getting worked up.

As the days passed, I realized her effect on my body and mind was not lessening. I’d fought to separate myself from her as much as possible, only in close proximity to her during the morning briefings and in essential meetings, determined to harden myself against how much I wanted her.

Oh, you’re hard all right.I shut that inappropriate thought down quickly.

Perhaps if I had only been attracted to her on a physical level, the situation might have been manageable.

But while her beauty captured my interest, her genuine goodness held it. A day didn’t go by where I didn’t see an example of Abigail going above and beyond what the average person might do. I knew she was struggling with some areas of the job, but she showed her determination by sticking with a task until she figured it out.

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