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1
SAMMIE
Asher Layne might be an asshole, but he was the hunkiest asshole I’d ever seen.
He blew in three days before Christmas, acting as though everyone in our tiny office should be working our asses off. Instead, I wore a reindeer antler headband and a sweater with Christmas lights that blinked.
The only other person in the office that day was Janelle, and she looked goofier than I did. She wore a pink sequined Santa hat and a super tight T-shirt with the wordsI’m on the naughty liststretched over her eye-popping chest.
“Miss Spencer, you’re holding down the fort here,” Asher said. “Miss Benson, you’re coming with me.”
I’d already swept my feet off the desk where they’d been propped and sat upright. But his words froze me in that position.
“I—I’m coming with you?” I asked.
Great. I suddenly had picked up a stutter. I always tried to impress this man and made a mess of everything in the process.
“I need your sales skills,” Asher said.
He turned and shoved open the glass door. On the other side of it was the elevator that would take us six stories down to the ground floor. Lord knows where we’d go once we got there.
“How fast can you pack a bag?” Asher asked.
He punched the button and stepped back to look at me. Had he ever really looked at me? I was pretty sure this was the first time. Normally, he seemed to be interested in whatever lay slightly beyond my shoulder when he talked to me. But he needed me. He needed my sales skills, specifically.
As we stepped into the tiny elevator alone together, I found my thoughts going to a not-so-professional place. What if he grabbed me and kissed me right now? Would I give in or fight it?
I’d definitely give in. There was something intense about this man. Something slightly dangerous. The guy jumped out of airplanes and hiked dangerous trails for fun. Nothing scared him—nothing except maybe the thought of risking his career to fuck his much younger sales rep in an elevator.
“We’re going to Eugene,” he said.
Those words jerked me right out of my fantasy of him pinning me up against the wall. Had he said Eugene?
“Oregon?” I asked.
Of course, he was talking about Oregon. No doubt this guy thought I was the biggest ditz walking, despite the fact that I’d closed two six-figure deals for him in the first two weeks of this month. That was a big accomplishment, considering December was the slowest month of the year for us. There weren’t too many businesses looking for cloud-based human resources software in the final weeks of the year.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
He was shooting questions at me like bullets, and each one had me more stumped. I could talk to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, but this guy had me all tongue-tied. It was thoseeyes, those lips, that body… Everything about him sent my mind places it had never been before.
“I live in Tucker Tower,” I said.
The whole thing was mortifying. He lived in a fancy condo in Reboot, the priciest building in Pleasure Valley. I lived in a studio apartment in one of the most affordable buildings in Pleasure Valley.
“Perfect.” He nodded. “It’s on the way out of town. I’ll drop you off and you can pack a bag.”
Wait. This was just weird.
“You’re telling me I’m going out of town with you?” I asked. “How long are we staying? Is this an overnight trip?”
Of course it was. He was taking me to my building to pack a bag.
“Hopefully just one night,” he said.
The doors slid open, and he gestured for me to exit. I stared at him for a second, then forced myself out of the elevator. The doors would close if I didn’t go ahead. But as I exited, my mind was reeling.
Two nights? Would we stay in a hotel? No doubt, he’d get me a separate room. But still, spending the night with a boss I’d lusted over for months seemed awkward, especially since I knew he’d never have an interest in someone like me. Someone who lived in Tucker Tower.
