Page 21 of The Boss Problem

She looked up at me, her expression telling me her thoughts were innocent, while mine had been painfully wicked. I cursed myself mentally. She met my gaze without a flinch, suggesting to me that, somehow, my frowns and bad mood hadn’t scared her. Yet.

“You’re here,” I grunted. I looked at her foot. “Is your leg better?” I asked before regretting that question already. Why did I care?

She was wearing sensible flats, and her face looked cheerier, less pained than she’d been last Friday.

She nodded, looking pleased that I remembered. “Thank you. I’m much better. I rested my leg?—”

“I don’t need the details,” I said, interrupting her, and her cheeks went red.

I didn’t want to imagine more scenes of her at her home, tending to her leg. I didn’t want to feel more sympathetic to her, not when I’d decided that she should move out of here—soon.

“Of course,” she added.

My gaze went to her white blouse, eerily similar to what she’d been wearing—or not wearing—in my early morning dream.

Feeling frustrated at the direction my thoughts were going in, I told Chloe, “I didn’t want you as my assistant.” As though that would help my body decide to hate her too. “HR forced my hand.”

My blood rushed to my groin nevertheless, and I had no way of fixing that.

Chloe nodded, looking unperturbed, as though I’d just told her I disliked decaf lattes. “After all, they are the powers that run this organization.”

I really did a double take at that. “Excuse me?” I asked, puffing up my chest and just about refraining from beating my fists like Tarzan. This woman thought I didn’t have any say in how things ran here? “Theyaren’tthe powers that be.”

Chloe was nodding with an expression of extreme understanding. “HR is extremely powerful. They make or break a company,” she said.

“No, the CEO runs a company,” I added, feeling foolish as soon as I uttered the words.

Chloe didn’t seem to have heard. “Edith Simons in HR is a force to be reckoned with. I admire her.”

She ought to be admiring me.

“I know it’s your first day here, Chloe, but I need you to know that I don’t tolerate assistants who slack off.”

I was frustrated with myself, and I was taking it out on her. It was a dick move, even for me.

She stood up and nodded, affording me a view of her slim waist. Just the right size for me to put my arm around and …

Damn it. I was doing it again.

I needed her gone, and I needed her gone quickly if I couldn’t take her praising someone as innocent as HR.

“I know it’s your first day here, and you haven’t gotten the hang of my schedule yet. But tomorrow, I need you to have my breakfast on my desk by now and my nine a.m. meeting notes printed out and ready for me,” I said, rambling to stall any thoughts I might have of pulling her to me.

She glanced through the open doors to my office, and I followed her gaze. Waiting for me on my desk was my breakfast—a grande cup of coffee that looked to be from my preferred store and a protein shake—as well as a stack of papers next to the keyboard, which I now guessed were the damn meeting notes I’d just berated her about.

“It had better be Columbian roast,” I muttered as I looked at the coffee, finding that I couldn’t find much to criticize even if I set my mind to it.

“It is,” she added brightly. “And I’ve printed your meeting notes for the nine a.m. meeting with the C-suite team, as well as the eleven a.m. one with Horace Stafford from Wheeler Inc. I’ll get your afternoon meeting notes typed up before your one p.m., and I booked a table for you at Slate for your lunch in case Horace Stafford decides to join you. Will you be needing anything else?”

I swallowed. “You missed my mid-morning coffee,” I snapped at her. “I need a cup of Ethiopian roast at exactly ten ten. Not a minute sooner or later. If it’s too soon, I end up needing to use the restroom in the middle of my meeting, and I’ll hold you responsible for that. If it’s too late, then I’m still too sleepy and cloudy-headed to be functional in my eleven a.m. meeting.”

Her eyes widened, and she nodded. “Ten ten a.m. I’ll remember,” she said, her voice as smooth as butter.

I turned and strode into my office. If she was determined not to be fired, I was equally determined not to keep her for more than a week. I just didn’t know how. Yet.

Ten minutes into reading my emails, I got an email from our production head, John Keene. I was due to meet him at three p.m., and he wrote to thank me for having the meeting early so that he could get to his son’s baseball game at five p.m.

That gave me an idea. I walked up to the door and yanked it open, determined that I’d finally found a task that would make Chloe’s confidence wilt. She would definitely be ready to accept any other job I’d offer her.

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