Page 9 of Jealous Boss

She taps the stack gently, breaking the tension with a small smile.

“Anyway. These are alphabetized by client name. Should keep you busy for a bit.”

I nod mutely, throat tight. “Thank you, Maggie.”

She lingers a second longer. “He’s not a bad guy, Pia. But just remember he might chew you up and spit you out without even remembering he’d just had a snack. Okay?”

Then she’s gone before I can answer, the door swinging quietly shut behind her with a muted finality, leaving me alone in the quiet hum of the documents room.

I stand there for a moment, motionless, the weight in my arms growing heavier by the second.

He’s not a bad guy, Pia...

…chew you up and spit you out without even remembering he’d just had a snack.

Maggie’s words loop in my head, steady and warm and deeply inconvenient. Because contrary to heeding her advice, the thought of being a snack, Ethan’s snack, is making me feel all hot and bothered.

Making my thighs tingle alarmingly and my panties are dampening even as my cheeks grow uncomfortably hot.

I exhale and set the stack down with a dull thud.

The metal cabinet doors reflect my blurry outline—neat ponytail, cardigan sleeves pushed to the elbows, the tiniest smudge of pink highlighter still on my wrist from this morning’s meeting prep.

Crushing on your boss’s boss—great.

I’ve seen enough TV shows and read enough romances to know this is classic intern behavior. Except I know it’s more intense than your average crush.

It’s the way his eyes follow me—almost rabidly,compulsively—and when I stop at Maggie’s desk to speak to her, I sense he’s listening to every word.

And this morning, at the team meeting, he heard me out even when everyone else cuts each other off mid-sentence. It’s like watching someone chase something impossible like it’s already theirs.

But Maggie’s right. I’ve only been here two days but I’ve seen the way Ethan operates.

The sharpness in his voice when something’s not moving fast enough.

The emails timestamped at 3:43 a.m. when I helped Maggie with his diary this morning. His impatience with inefficiency.

The way he barely seems to notice the people around him unless they’re holding a contract or conquering a crisis.

I open the first cabinet, fingers brushing over the label stickers. “A–F.” A fitting place to start.

Maybe that’s all I am—an “F” folder: fleeting, functional, filed away before anyone even remembers what I was doing there in the first place.

I shake the thought off and start sorting, but my eyes keep flicking to the door like he might walk in even though I know he won’t.

Like this would be the moment he suddenly sees me—not as the intern who gets the lattes right or catches typos in quarterly summaries—but as someone who could matter.

But he won’t. Not really. Because Maggie’s right.

Ethan is chasing named partner the way other people chase love.

And I’m not sure there’s room for anything else.

Which should set my head straight.

Unfortunately, I’m a little terrified it won’t.

3

---