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I'm dressed in a tailored single-breasted two-button jacket from Sartoria Dei Duchi that fits me as well as any suit can. Prussian blue, with a Prada Baltic Blue tie and a pair of my favorite black Berluti Infini leather dress shoes.
“Fuck, you’re hot,” she says, in a way that no one has said straight to my face before.
“Wow. Thank you, angel.” I give her a big smile as I pinch my shirt cuffs together with the handmade cufflinks that were made for my great-great-grandfather, the original Baxter who started it all. He had almost fifty different sets, enough for all of us to get some passed down to us.
I tug on the shirt cuff and Kiara pretends to slide off her stool and faint to the ground before she sits back up again, looking up at me. "Your eyes look like they're going to jump right out of your head."
That comment makes me laugh as I tuck my phone and wallet into my pants pocket. "That is the strangest but absolutely the best compliment I have ever received, Kiki."
"I didn't say it was a compliment," she says as she jumps to her feet and comes over, straightening my tie that doesn’t need straightening. I stand completely still to let her because I don't want to make a single movement or sound that will make her stop and move away from me.
“All good?” I ask after she finishes adjusting my tie and runs her hands down the front of my jacket.
"Perfect."
"I thought so, too, when I looked in the mirror."
She snorts and starts to move so I grab her wrists and pull her in to me, kissing her long and slowly.
"I have to go to work. I'm sorry, Kiara, I have two meetings this morning and I can't miss them. But I can come home right after, if you don't want to be alone." I hate the thought of leaving her here alone after what happened with her apartment. For her, and for me, nothing beats me being able to keep an eye on her.
"Actually,”— she shrugs— “alone sounds pretty good."
I pretend to be offended, but I understand. For all the extroversion pumping through my body, I have the occasional need to be totally alone.
She kisses me gently on the cheek. "Thank you for looking out for me. I'm just going to try to sleep and if the last day has been anything to go by, sleep and Kylian Baxter do not meld well."
I pout. "I'm a great snuggle buddy."
"Go to work, then come home and snuggle with me. I'll be okay. I’ll call you if I need you." She rises up on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to my lips. "Have a good day, baby."
Butterflies swarm in my ribcage at how she calls me “baby” and my face breaks out into a grin before I can stop it. I just look like a complete idiot. "There's some congee warming up on the stove. Eat a little before getting some sleep, okay? And if you want to go anywhere, the Jag is still here. Just call down and they’ll bring it around for you."
She nods and I grant myself one last look before I blow her a kiss and leave wanting nothing more than to join her in bed for some sleep, with her body warm against me,
"Hey. Wicked Witch of the East,” I say, poking my head into Odette’s office the moment I arrive at Baxter’s Hong Kong headquarters. “My office. Now.”
As my executive assistant, Odette has an office right next to mine. She handles just as many confidential calls and documents as I do, and I was not kidding when I said that she is definitely the highest paid executive assistant in the world. That's because she could go on to do anything else she wanted. But most days I’m sure she's the secret to my success, and therefore worth every dime, s well as every second of my time that she needs.
"Can't we just meet in here?" she whines, not even bothering to look up from the files on her desk.
"No! This is a boss-employee talk. I, the boss, need to sit in my boss chair and lecture you, the employee. Hurry up and take off those bunny slippers you have on under the desk and be in my office in thirty seconds.”
While she does indeed arrive within thirty seconds, she has made no effort to change out of those ridiculous slippers. I sink into my chair, more tired than I realize. That's what happens when my nighttime routine gets messed around. In this instance, though, considering what happened last night and this morning, I’m more than happy to deal with a little fatigue.
"I told you to take off those fucking bunny slippers."
Odette stays standing in the middle of the room, lifting one of her feet to show off her fluffy footwear. "Firstly, they are not bunnies. They are koalas. And secondly, who died and made you boss."
"My grandfather."
She makes a face. "Oh, yeah. Well, that's just because he didn't know how good I was yet. One more year of knowing The Odette and you'd be my executive assistant. Except that you'd be utterly shit at it, and I'd have to fire you and make you my pool boy or something so you could have a job and didn't starve to death."
"Hush! Do you ever stop talking?" The irony of me saying this to someone else isn't lost on me.
"Fine, I'm hushing. Geez, no need to yell. I'm like standing right here, like if someone measured how far that yell would go it would probably be way—”
I cut her off. I have to if I ever want to get a word in edgewise. "Oh. My. God. Is this what it's like when other people are trying to talk to me?"
