Page 2 of Written By a Woman

“This is Brandon Moore, the CEO,” Jacqueline introduced me to a tall stocky guy with short, perfectly groomed blonde hair. He was taking a sip from his mug. Upon hearing his name, he lowered his mug and smiled politely at me, diverting his steps away from the office he was heading towards. He held his hand out to me with a strained smile on his face, clearly wanting to get this social interaction over with.

“This is our new office manager,” Jacqueline explained as we shook hands.

“I’m Signe,” I noted how Jacqueline didn’t attempt to say my name again as I cataloged the CEO. Plain t-shirt, slacks, and sneakers that reminded me of a brand that only tech-bros would wear.

Jacqueline said something to him, something I missed entirely but Brandon nodded politely at, before he lifted his hand in farewell and made his way back to his office.

The head of HR smiled at me before glancing at something over my shoulder and nodding, a gesture to tell me that I should turn around and meet whoever was approaching us. So I did.

And there he was.

The man romance writers dreamed of.

He wore a black polo shirt, with the top two buttons undone to show off a white undershirt and some defined clavicle. The sleeves of the polo shirt were snug around his biceps. His chest was wide, and I justbarelyhad to look up at him to meet his dark eyes. I was a taller woman, around five foot eleven. A few inches taller than Jacqueline, and just a couple of inches shorter than this man.

As he shoved both of his hands into the pockets of his light grey slacks, I noticed how snug his pants were around his thighs as well.

Clearly, he wasn’t a man who skipped leg day at the gym.

Right when I started to wonder how snug those pants fit around what I assumed was a tight ass, I caught myself, remembering that I was, in fact, in the workplace. I returned my attention to his handsome face.

Even with those thick-framed glasses he wore, it did nothing to take away from the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the thick black eyelashes, and the perfectly shaped eyebrows that made me suspect that a woman had shown him the importance of eyebrow grooming.

His jaw was framed by a closely cropped beard, thick enough to not have any patches, but short enough to still show off an unfairly defined jaw underneath. His beard was almost black, like the thick hair on his head that was styled perfectly out of his face.

I wanted to run my hands through it and mess it up.

“This is Zaid Ansara,” Jacqueline explained while Zaid held his hand out for me to shake. I admit that I hesitated for a moment before clasping his hand with my own, because,damn, “The CTO of Sun Steer.”

“Welcome aboard,” Oh dear god, hisvoice. Zaid’s voice was low. He had a voice that I knew would sell millions of audiobooks if he ever dabbled in narration. I could picture it now, hearing him attempt to growl or grumble like the manuscript would instruct him to do. And he’d be fantastic at it.

How did a guy that looked likethiswork at a tech company?

I wondered if he was some type of model or social media influencer on the side. I made a mental note to look him up online.

“Thank you,” I smiled, barely remembering in time that he spoke to me and that it was now expected of me to reply, “I’m Signe.”

Zaid nodded his head at me once before repeating my name perfectly, “Signe.”

Say it again, the most desperate, unhinged part of my brain begged.

“Signe is going to be…” I didn’t even acknowledge that Jacqueline had finally managed to say my name right. I was in shock. I was dumbfounded. Since when did tech companies allow actual models to work with us, normies? With us peons? Did no one else notice how attractive the CTO of this company was? Was I the only one who knew that he belonged on the cover of romance novels?

In the span of a few seconds, while Jacqueline spoke to Zaid filling him in on my job description (or whatever she deemed more important right now), I pictured Zaid on a white horse with a billowing shirt open and fluttering in the wind, exposing what I assumed was a sculpted and tanned, olive-toned chest. I pictured him doing the boyfriend doorframe lean. I pictured him caging in a woman against a wall with those tree trunks he called arms.

I pictured him shirtless, with his pants indecently low.

I blushed. I actuallyblushedin his presence because of how dirty my thoughts became, and how insanely attractive I found him.

He’s literally just a guy. More importantly, your coworker and superior, I scolded myself.

He said only three words to me, mostly paying attention to Jacqueline at this point now. He would nod occasionally at whatever she said to him, with his hands still stuffed in the pockets of his slacks in a clear posture of someone anxious but trying hard to act casual.

Zaid was perfect.

The story just came to me in those moments, I couldn’t help it.

“I hate to interrupt,” Zaid lifted a hand to halt Jacqueline’s sentence as he pulled his phone out of his pocket to frown at it, “But I have a lot on my plate. If Signe could get trained to help you and Brandon first, so that I can be left undisturbed for the next few days, that would be ideal.”

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