I was just a thing. A tool to use. Not a person to value.
But that was a fate I could keep to myself, a fact I could cry myself to sleep over every night without anyone the wiser. Especially Adrik. Because he’d never convince me that he cared.
9
ADRIK
One of the bookkeepers, Paul, nodded after I’d pulled him aside. They were freelancers more than anything, but they knew our system.
“I’m telling you, Boss. She’sgood.” He moved a toothpick to the other side of his mouth and grinned. “She knows the ins and outs of it all. Keeps me on my toes.” He chuckled. “You really did yourself a favor in hiring her.”
But I didn’t.I thanked him for his input. Because I had to do my due diligence to supervise and monitor the situation of Elena “joining” the team of accountants, I'd asked Paul and the others who worked with her so far what they thought.
I didn’t need to. I was often there, watching what she did.
All of them approved of her. They’d thanked me for having her here. They praised how well she got along with everyone.
“A real sweetheart.” That was what they’d all more or less admitted.
It was painfully clear how much of a people pleaser she was at heart. Her personality never fluctuated in that regard. She was steadfast in wanting to do what was expected. She never turned down a request on a task. She offered to assist whenever she could. And she never, ever asked for a single fucking thing. Even when a guard accidentally spilled something on her keyboard and it started glitching, she tried to work around it and “just make do”. If Paul hadn’t pointed it out and I’d ordered a replacement, I bet she still would’ve been using the defective one.
I watched her now as she continued cross-referencing spreadsheets. The files pertained to shipments of guns, but she didn’t know that. All she saw were the numbers. All she focused on were the formulas and timelines.
Impressed but wary of letting her con me into trusting her too much, I made sure guards were always there. A tracking program logged and monitored all that she did.
Not once since she’d been here did she make a call, email, or text to her father. No other friends or acquaintances, either. Besides being a people pleaser, she seemed content to be a homebody.
Or maybe she panicked at having to talk to anyone. The one day that she admitted she’d run out of contacts and had to use her backup glasses—which fuck me, they somehow made her look so scholarly and irresistible—I had to have one of the men order her more to be delivered here, a whole year’s supply.
I leaned against the wall, watching her as she kept working, oblivious to anything else in the room. Including me. She ran the tip of her tongue over the bottom left side of her plump lips, a tell that showed she was in deep concentration. She narrowed her eyes as her glasses slipped down her nose, but she was too in thezone to pause and push them back up. As if on cue, she let out a deep breath and arched her back, like she’d reminded herself to be aware of her posture and to straighten it from the hunch she utilized too much.
I dragged my gaze down her, wishing I could undress her with more than my eyes. In another simple white blouse that was damnably too thick for me to see much through it but also so plain and unadorned that she gave the impression of being pure and tempting, she heaved out another sigh from the long day. The extra push of an inhale hit me hard. Her breasts pushed up and made the fabric strain.
Going lower with my review after being out and about handling business all day, I slowed down to appreciate her short black skirt. Not too tight. Not too flowy. A casual matching piece for her boring top.
Boring?
I bit back a laugh.
Nothing was boring about this gorgeous woman.
I hurried here to catch however much time I could find just to watch her, to be in her presence, and to check on what she was finding. She submitted daily reports to me—factual, thorough, and professional. But I just couldn’t get her out of my mind.
Three weeks had come and gone now, and my father’s slow succumbing path to death was no longer the one and only thing I dwelled on.
Elena hogged my thoughts.
Every night when she’d leave at the end of her “workday” here at the main house, she’d go back to the guest lodging specificallyfor her. And no matter how much or little time I’d spent near her, she’d linger on my mind. Nothing I did could stop or diminish my curiosity about her.
Jacking off barely took the edge off this attraction.
Watching her in the surveillance feed like a stalker didn’t lessen the draw to her.
If anything, I was only deepening the connection she’d landed in here.
It wasn’t just my reaction to letting her into my life.
It was her affinity for working hard and being a solid asset in a business sense.
