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The woman smiled nervously at us before jumping out of her seat and practically running from the room. I let out a heavy sigh.
“It won’t work. She can’t be terrified of him. She wouldn’t last a week.”
“I agree,” Luka nodded solemnly.
I groaned, scrubbing my hands over my face. In the past few days, we’d gone through dozens of applicants for Grayson’s secretary. All of them fell short in one way or another. We were coming up on our deadline and if we didn’t find someone soon, HR was going to pick out of the stack we already went through and send someone we knew wouldn’t mesh well with Grayson.
“There has to be a better option,” Luka grouched. Both of us were losing our patience at this point.
“Not from this pile, there isn’t.”
He was quiet for a minute, and I heard the rustling of papers. “What if we cast our net out a little farther?” he queried.
Dropping my hands, I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
He glared at the piles of applicants. “Well, we obviously can’t choose from these. The applications were all supplied by HR. I bet we could walk down the street and find a better option than what they’d give to us, easy.”
I rubbed my jaw, thinking about it. He had a point. All these applicants were chosen by HR and they all were basically the same person with different clothes on. There was probably someone they passed on or even someone who hadn’t even applied who was better for the job.
“So, where do we start?”
He tipped his head, his lips pursed. “Well, I’m gonna start at the bar. Plenty of hot young things there to choose from.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re supposed to be taking this seriously.”
“I am! I’m not Grayson, though, and there’s nothing wrong with a night off. Let’s clear our heads and hit the streets. We’ve still got tomorrow.”
There was no arguing with Luka when he got burnt out like this. He would be less than useful until he got some time off. I waved him away and looked through the applicants we’d already been through, marking off the least objectionable ones just in case we weren’t successful tomorrow. Packing everything up, I put the file away in my office before waving at the night shift guys as they got settled in. No doubt Grayson was still upstairs, working his ass off. If we didn’t find someone to help him, he’d work himself to death. The thought stressed me out.
Heading home for the night, my mind was stuck on how to help my friend. Grayson had done a lot for me in the past. He let me stay with him after coming back from the military broken. He gave me a job at his new company, helped me get my new place, and made sure I had time set aside to get some help with the PTSD. Years later, he still checked in with me almost every night to make sure I was okay. He was a good man, and he deserved to have someone to help him. I just couldn’t figure out who.
I got back to my apartment mostly on autopilot. Pulling into my spot, I shut off the engine and leaned my head against the steering wheel. I felt like a failure of a friend to Grayson if I couldn’t help him after everything he’d done for me. It was just a secretary. It shouldn’t be this hard.
“No no no no no!”
Jerking my head up, I looked around for the voice. The complex itself was pretty decent, but the parking garage was open and it wasn’t what I’d consider safe this late at night. I pushed out of my SUV, scanning the parking lot until my eyes locked on a woman across the aisle and a few cars down. She was on her hands and knees, scooping up a bunch of papers off the ground and putting them into a pile. Locking my car, I jogged over to help her.
“You alright?”
She let out a yelp, whipping her head over her shoulder. “Holy crap!”
I grimaced. “Sorry. Can I help?”
She looked wary, which I didn’t take offense to. She was a woman seemingly alone in a parking garage and I was six foot four and two hundred fifty pounds of muscle. I think I’d be concerned if she wasn’t at least a little wary around me. I wasn’t going to hurt her, though. I kneeled down next to her, helping her gather the papers.
“Thanks. I had them all perfect, but I was trying to balance them, the balloons, and the cake, and I lost my balance. It was either the papers or the cake, so…” She frowned at the box sitting next to her.
I nodded. “Fair enough. Papers won’t splat into mush.” Handing her the papers, I helped her to her feet with my hand on her elbow before leaning to grab the cake. No wonder she nearly dropped it. It was heavy. When I lifted my eyebrows, she snickered.
“It's a pound cake. They’re heavy, but it's my boyfriend’s favorite.”
An inkling of disappointment drifted over me, but I ignored it. She was cute, but I was terrible at dating. Couldn’t even sleep next to a woman without scaring the shit out of her with the nightmares.
Handing it back to her, I took a few steps back to give her some space. “Well, I hope he likes it. You should head in. It isn’t safe for a woman alone out here.”
Spinning around, I tried to ignore my racing heart. My face burned, and I felt nervous for some reason, but I couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t want her to think I was following her around, though, so I figured I’d wait in my car for a minute. Maybe I could get ahold of myself in the process.
Chapter Three
