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My erection is pressing into her hip bone, and I’m about to add a third condition of my own. But Paige ignores my desire and carries on.
“Condition one: get rid of Althea and let me choose your next secretary.”
She lets that sit for a moment, waiting for me to protest. I don’t. “You said there were two conditions.”
“Condition two: I want a promotion for Rowan De Silva, too. She’s been a P.A. for far too long. She would have been promoted two years ago if that pig, Samson Montgomery, didn’t want her all to himself.”
I absorb that for a moment. “Very well.”
She looks momentarily stunned, like a dog who finally caught the car she was chasing and doesn’t know what to do with it now. I really need to teach her how to put on a proper poker face. “You’re agreeing to my conditions? Both of them?”
“Both of them. That’s how far I’m going to make you happy,” I tell her. “I’m agreeing to even your most irrational requests.”
“It’s not irrational to want to pick your husband’s secretary.”
“The fact that you know that’s the condition I was talking about tells me you know exactly how irrational it is.”
She rolls her eyes and tries to push away from me, but I grip her hips a little tighter. I curl a finger under her chin. “Jealousy looks good on you, Mrs. Orlov.”
“Let me go.”
I hold her for a moment longer, just because I can. Or, more accurately, just because I can barely bear to let go.
Then, finally, reluctantly, I do.
She barely meets my gaze as she rounds the table and heads for the door. But no amount of coldness can hide the truth.
No woman looks like that at a man she doesn’t care about. That realization probably scares her as much as it’s scaring me.
I want to stop her. I want to tell her to wait.
But for what? I’m not sure.
So I let her go.
For both our sakes.
45
MISHA
“Mr. Orlov.” Nikolai pokes his head around my office door. “Do you have a moment?”
“You keep my schedule. You tell me.”
He laughs nervously and shuffles into my office, a stack of papers in his hands. “I have a few things that need your approval, and Legal sent up a contract. Your personal lawyer looked it over and left a few notes. I highlighted those with yellow tabs. The red tabs are where you need to sign.”
It’s been a week since Nikolai took over as my administrative assistant. Loathe as I am to admit it, I’m not sure how this office ever survived without him.
Paige is mostly thrilled he doesn’t wear low cut blouses and tight pencil skirts.
“Leave them on the desk.”
Ian places the files there and then remains in front of me, hands folded behind his back.
I arch a brow. “Is there something else?”
“Um, yes. Ms. Paige wanted me to pass along a message.”
