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“Can I invite people over?” I asked, knowing I’d invite Kristie regardless of his answer.
He squinted. “Who?”
“I haven’t decided. My dad, my mom, my uncle, aunt, cousins, my cousins’ dogs.”
He faced me with a blank expression.
Why didn’t he have a sense of humor when at work? “Just Kristie.”
“Kristie is fine. She can come over.”
I ran to his side and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you!”
He returned my gesture with another light kiss on my lips. “Like I said, don’t go too crazy.”
***
“Helena,” I said, “can you send me the report on the finances of our HR division by today? The boss is asking for it.”
She shook her head. “But we’re not done with it yet.”
“And is that my problem? We have work piling up, and this document was requested last week.”
“We need an extra hour or two.”
“You have a lunch break, don’t you?”
“Yes…”
“Use it.”
Within a week, I’ve unofficially been given the honorable title of ‘Bitch’ in the company. In the beginning, I could feel their condescension as they spoke to me. They asked me to do the menial chores, like refilling the paper trays and making coffee.
And then I realized that those were their jobs, too. I had reports to finish, emails to answer, meetings to attend. Something was definitely wrong; I abruptly found myself piled with way too much work while my colleagues had enough time to lounge around and chitchat.
Sure, the twins employed me as their secretary, but that didn’t mean I was at the beck and call of everyone else. In fact, it was my job to tell the other staff what they had to do on the boss’s behalf.
Last Wednesday, some of my colleagues talked about having too much work to do. They thought I wasn’t listening.
“Give it to Scarlet. She’ll do everything you say,” Tracey said.
I had overheard their conversation. Believing I needed to be a little more reserved at first to start getting along with them, I tried to play it nice for the first few days. But I wasn’t going to let myself become everyone's servant. Tracey's comment had taken it too far.
So I walked up to the group and glared at them.
“What?” Tracey asked, putting on a front of innocence.
“As all of you know, I f**ked your boss.”
Her mouth hung wide open.
“But that doesn’t mean the rest of you can treat me like your little bitch,” I continued. “Let me make this clear: I’m f**king your boss. One word from me, and Riley will send you home packing.” The twins’ names really did come in handy.
Shocked into silence, they looked at me with widened eyes.
“So, no, Tracey. I’m not going to do everything you ask me to. Handle those documents yourselves. You lot should be the people doing everything I ask you to.”
I walked away feeling more pompous than ever, not forgetting to take the last packet of biscuits from the tin.
“We’re out of biscuits. Fill that up.” I turned around to smile at them, my head raised higher than usual.
The rest of the staff had left the office three hours ago.
I stared at the computer screen, the words of this afternoon’s transcript flying by my mind, none of them managing to stick. I glanced at the time on my screen’s sidebar. Nine thirty-six. The brothers had somewhat flexible schedules, since they didn’t have too many people to answer to, but their sheer amount of workload made sure they stayed up late for half the week.
A finger tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, what’s up?”
I swung my head around, my heart leaping in my chest. The office could be pretty scary at night, especially since most of the lights were off because of the building’s built-in automatic timer.
I sunk back down onto my seat, not wanting to show my fright. “Ryan, don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Nothing. Are you finished with your work?”
“Yeah. Riley still going at it?”
“He had meetings this whole afternoon. Riesling wants to cancel some contracts, so he’s trying to work something out.”
Ryan settled himself into one of my colleague’s chairs. “He told me about your ex-boyfriend.”
I thought we went past that conversation this afternoon. It wasn’t that big of a deal. “He’s a jerk. Your point?”
“We don’t want you to meet him.”
I laughed to myself. “You and me both.”
“But he ended up in your apartment anyway. For a week, I heard. Why is that?”
There it was again. That expression of his. The serious, alpha tone of his voice, coupled with a sadistic, playful glint at the corner of his eye.
