AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I cleared my throat. “Well, I’m glad Xavier is happy. But you don’t seem happy, Sadie. Can I do anything?”
“How do you figure that?”
“How can I not? Your heart is racing, your pupils are blown, and you’re frigid as ice.”
Her fingers froze on the keyboard. At once, the room felt as quiet as it had been upstairs before she’d gotten into it with her mother on the phone. She didn’t quite look at me, but I knew she was paying attention.
She cocked her head to the left. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”
“If you keep it to yourself, it will show up in your work.”
She glowered at me. “I highly doubt that.”
“You’re already doing it, sweet Sadie. You’ve barely acknowledged me since you came in. You’re slamming the keys. You’re tense.”
“I’m not tense. I’m just—”
I closed the space between us and rubbed her shoulders. Just a few minutes of vigorous massage forced the knot in between her shoulder blades to yield. She hunched toward the laptop and whimpered, so clearly upset that it actually hurt me for a second to see her like this.
“In your time,” I assured her, “but tell me what’s happened. Tell me how I can help.”
“I don’t see how you can help at all.” She huffed and then sighed. “Sorry, that was rude. You’re already helping, Andres. You’ve been helping me without knowing it.”
I hummed thoughtfully. “Context?”
“My mother is…” She trailed off with a groan. “She’s insufferable. I’ve always been in charge of the family luncheon with her, and she’s relying on me to make sure things look perfect.”
She ran her fingers through her hair. The tips of her fingers brushed my knuckles, sending an ecstatic zap to my cock.
“Go on,” I urged as I brushed her hair aside to access her neck. “Does she want you to reduce your hours here?”
“No, she wants me to look…” She laughed bitterly. “She wants me to look happy with a man or something.”
I barely missed a beat with my impromptu massage. “Ah, she’s worried about what your family might think.”
“Which is stupid, right?” She turned slightly to peer at me. “Don’t you think appearances aren’t everything?”
Despite our close encounters, it felt like that question was the most intimate thing we had shared. Appearances meant plenty to me in this business, though I had to side with Sadie on this one. To families, a performance was useless. The truth came out no matter what happened. I saw it happen with Xavier, and surely the same would happen with Sadie’s family.
My fingers paused on her neck. “Well, it doesn’t have to be all appearances.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your mother just wants you to bring a date, right?”
She nodded solemnly. “I don’t even have any ex-boyfriends around here.”
Good. A sly grin was hard to hide, but it helped my cause a bit further. “I have a proposition, Sadie. It’s a hell of an offer, but I think it would work in our favor.”
“I’m listening.”
Good thing she was because I didn’t want her to miss a word.
Chapter 6 - Sadie
Alright, even I had to admit that this wasn’t a typical boss-assistant relationship.
Most of my jobs in the past had been largely independent like the aerobics class I ran with the gym once upon a time. Even when I had gone into town for work, I’d worked by myself without much guidance. Having Andres over me at every turn was new and exciting—and somehow alarmingly a huge turn-on.
