Chapter 9
Maddy
“Good Morning,” I clear my throat, his coffee in my hand. My heels clack against the concrete floors as I cross to Adrian’s desk and hand him his coffee.
“Nice to see you here early.” He somehow grabs the coffee without ever looking away from his screen, which takes a skill I’ll never have. “Thank you, Madison.” He sets it down on his desk and then makes a shooing gesture with his hand.
I frown at it and roll my eyes when my back is to him.
That, I have learned, is the easiest way to deal with his frustratingly sexy but angry and egotistical nature. Ugh.
“Madison.” His sharp tone stops me before I make it out the door.
I spin around, plastering the smile back on my face. “Yes, Mr. Frank?”
His dark eyes flick up from the screen, studying my face. “Today is payday. It should’ve already hit your account. Please check, so we can work out any issues.”
“I’ll check as soon as I get back to my desk,” I assure him, a burst of relief hitting my chest. It’s not a full week’s worth of pay, but it’s something.
And this evening, Riley and I have an apartment to look at.
“Also, I sent you a file on Slack. Please organize, clean up the layout, and have it ready for the morning meeting. We’re moving it to nine, and there will be clients present. I have a memo with instructions. You will not be attending.”
“Okay,” I say, my thighs clenching as his eyes drop to the dip in my white V-neck blouse. I hate the way my heart skips a beat every time he flirts with the line of what may or may not be appropriate.
Adrian promptly drops his gaze right back to his computer, and I shake off the uneasy feeling and make my way back to my desk, sitting down and opening up the message from him.
I open the file. It’s a clusterfuck of slides that I’m somehow supposed to know the order of, apparently. I click through them, and then open the memo, which is nothing but cryptic information with vocabulary I’m going to have to Google.
Great.
But by some miracle—and the motivation for a new apartment—I focus and redo the layout and order, making sense of it. I cross-check it twice.
And then I re-read Adrian’s memo and see that I’m also supposed to attach a second file, some revised expense reconciliation.
Always read the fine print. I purse my lips, attaching the correct version. I send both, with a brief message.
Please see the attached.
Three seconds later, Adrian replies. “I prefer the information in two separate emails. Please resend.”
I stare at the words. I could scream at the pettiness, or I could smash my head into the monitor, but instead, I just chew on the inside of my mouth until the frustration recedes.
I will not let a nitpicky (albeit incredibly hot) asshole ruin my day. Nor drive me out of this job that I need so badly.
I pull out my phone and open the bank app.
“Madison?” Adrian’s deep voice causes me to nearly fall out of my chair. I whip my head upward and catch my breath at the towering figure. “I need you to send me those two files separately, not be on your phone.”
I grit my teeth. “I was checking my bank app.”
“Or texting your boyfriend.”
I raise my brows, tempted to cite something about that being about as appropriate as him eyeing my cleavage, but I swallow it. “Banking app.” I spin the screen around to face him. “See?”
“Glad the deposit went through.” His voice takes on a tone that I can’t read but leaves my face feeling hot.
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Send the files. ASAP.”
“Will do.” I swallow hard, then immediately turn back to the screen and quickly send the files in separate messages to all three men, with no explanation.
Caleb sends me a private message back.
Caleb: He’s being a dick. He’ll get over it. Don’t let it get to you.
It makes me feel slightly better, but I’m still nervous. All eyes are on me, and I don’t exactly love the way that feels. In fact, it’s a huge relief when all three of the men make their way to the first morning meeting I don’t have to attend.
I spend the next hour able to breathe, but the moment the conference room door swings open, there’s Adrian. And before I can look away, his lips part.
“My office, Madison. Now.”
Fuck. What did I do?
I rise from my chair as if everything is totally fine, and then head toward Adrian’s office, not missing the look that Caleb and Beck exchange before they head to their own offices.
Please don’t fire me.
The thought reverberates in my head as I step into the office, my legs shaking now and my heart pounding.
“Shut the door.” Adrian’s voice sends a shiver down my spine.
I do as he says, and as I turn back around, see that Adrian has pulled up a second chair beside him. He uses his eyes to make it clear I’m supposed to come and take a seat, and I instantly comply.
“I want to walk through what you provided us with this morning,” Adrian’s voice is clipped, and I brace for a thorough verbal lashing as I take a seat beside him.
He clicks through two slides. “These are clean enough.” The praise is so faint I almost miss it.
“Thank you.” I brace for the negative, knowing it’s coming. And it arrives, exactly on schedule.
“Slide fifteen. The margins are off.”
I lean over to get a closer look, inhaling something masculine and slightly intoxicating. But once I focus, I realize the margins are off, but like… by about a millimeter.
Still, I reach out and correct it in front of him.
His eyes follow me in a way that leaves me blushing, and while he doesn’t smile, there’s a flicker of something in his expression. He shifts forward, close enough that I can see the outline of his day-old shave, the shadow of it along his jawline.
“People assume precision doesn’t matter,” Adrian begins to explain. “But the thing is that good enough, is not always enough when we have a client with an eye for detail.”
I nod, heart pounding. “I get it. I will make sure I watch the margins going forward.”
He looks at me, eyes narrowed, like he’s recalibrating his assessment. For a minute, the world goes pin-drop silent, except for the hum of the building and the almost imperceptible sound of him breathing.
He gestures to the screen again. “You missed something else.”
I look closer, panic spiking. There it is. A freaking footer on slide 22, still in the old font. I fix it and hit save.
He watches the whole time, like a predator with infinite patience.
“Better,” he says. “You caught that before I pointed it out. Nice work.” The words are so alien coming from his mouth that I almost think I hallucinated them.
Before I can say anything else to him, he stands abruptly. The move brings him even closer, and suddenly I’m hyperaware of everything—the warmth of his body, the way his shirt pulls against his broad shoulders, and the scent of his soap.
He peers down at me, as if he’s waiting for something. Maybe for me to run, or faint, or just fail to hold his gaze.
So, I hold it, meeting his dark eyes with every ounce of fake courage I have.
And as I do, the tension rises to a near-suffocating level. But he doesn’t break it, and neither do I. The sunlight is harsh through the glass, but it makes the whole office fade until it’s just us, stuck in some kind of unspoken challenge.
He leans in just the smallest amount. But it’s enough to make me feel like a line has been crossed.
His hand lands on the back of my chair, and my lips part. My brain is short-circuiting and I have a strong urge to do something that would be really bad for my chances of staying long-term with this company.
I do not need to sleep with two-thirds of my bosses.
“Madison,” Adrian murmurs, his breathing suddenly heavier.
My jaw slacks for a second, and then Adrian suddenly shakes his head, as if he’s snapped himself right out of whatever this is.
“Please keep the presentations tidier. I have work to do,” he states, voice flat. He turns and sits back down behind his desk, exiting out of the slides and shifting to something else.
I blink a couple of times, feeling painfully aware of my heart rate.
I swear, it takes a full thirty seconds before my legs agree to hold my body upright.
I gather what’s left of my dignity and exit the room, careful not to look at my own reflection in the glass because I’m sure I look completely deranged.
Back at my desk, I drop into the chair and try to make sense of what just happened. My head is spinning, and my body feels all tingly. I can still smell his cologne.
I want to text Riley and tell her everything, but I’m afraid he’ll walk out and see me on my phone.
The rest of the day, Adrian doesn’t so much as glance in my direction. He acts as if it never happened. If anything, he’s even more distant and more demanding, if that’s even possible.
I, on the other hand, can barely function. I make ten typos in a single email to Beck, and when I pass the break room, I actually bump into the wall with my shoulder. I spend the afternoon second-guessing everything—my work, my boundaries, my ability to operate as a functional adult.
But under it all, there’s some sick part of me that enjoyed his praise. I liked having his full attention and the way he actually made me feel like I had done something right.
“Ready to see our new home?” Riley says, nudging me as we step into the elevator.
“Absolutely.” I still haven’t told her about the tense moment I had with Adrian in the office. But now that I’m hours removed from it, I’m not sure I want to re-live it.
I’m not totally convinced I’m not making something out of nothing.
“Here!” Riley beams, as the elevator door glides open on the fifteenth floor. “The property manager left it unlocked for us.”
My brows skyrocket as I take it all in. The hallway is all white and silver, the floors shimmery and buffed. And as soon as we step inside, I see the endless wall of windows, the sparkly kitchen, and a bathroom with a shower big enough to throw a party in.
And to top it all off, it has that new construction smell I’ve never had the pleasure to live in.
Riley runs from room to room, flinging open every door. “I call this bedroom!” she shouts, then pokes her head out. “Yours has the better closet, though.” She heads for the kitchen, opens a cabinet, and gasps. “Soft-close hinges! I will never again lose a finger while drunk.”
“It’s totally gorgeous,” I chew my lip, unable to swallow the worry filling my chest. “Once the lease is up, doesn’t the price go up?”
“Nope! Not as long as it’s the same tenant renewing!” Riley shouts from somewhere.
I walk through the space in a daze, touching everything from the marble counters to the stainless sink and the balcony railing. I imagine myself here—making dinner, doing laundry, reading on the couch with sunlight streaming in.
“It’s so nice it feels fake,” I say.
Riley grins, planting her hands on my shoulders. “Embrace it. We’re moving up in the world.”
As soon as the words leave her lips, the agent from the leasing office drops by with the final forms. He splays it all out nicely on the island, and as I hover over the line I’m supposed to sign, I hesitate.
I don’t want to wrap Riley up into something she can’t afford without me if I lose my job.
Riley notices my panic moment, arches an eyebrow, and says nothing. But after we finish the official walkthrough, she steers me to the nearest wine bar a block away, plants me in a booth, and orders two glasses of Chardonnay.
Before I’m even one sip in, she cracks.
“What’s up, babe?” she says, swirling her wine. “You look like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Spill it.”
I debate for a minute. The temptation to keep it bottled is strong, but I know it’ll just come out later. May as well tell her now.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you about work,” I start, then launch into the Adrian Frank Experience.
I describe the glass office, the way he tore apart my report and then stood so close I could count every eyelash.
I get to the part about the weird, maybe almost-kiss and the way he said my name, and then stopped, and acted like none of it happened.
Riley listens with her head cocked. “Whoa,” she says when I finish. “That’s… holy crap.”
“I’m probably imagining it,” I say quickly, digging my fingers into my palm under the table. “I mean, who almost kisses their assistant in the middle of a Tuesday morning? It’s not a thing, right? And I don’t even know if that’s what he was doing.”
Riley’s mouth twists. “Oh, well, it is a thing.”
I blink. “What are you talking about?”
She shrugs. “A lot of CEOs bang their secretaries.”
My stomach clenches. “Okay, but we didn’t— It wasn’t—”
She raises a hand. “You already slept with one of them. And so, I’m just saying, be careful. Getting involved with your boss is complicated enough, but two of them? That just sounds like a terrible idea.”
I try to laugh it off, but the sound comes out weird. “I can handle it. It’s not like I’m actually going to do anything. With either of them.”
Riley gives me a look. “Famous last words.”
I drain my glass, set it down, and say, “Let’s talk about the apartment instead. Anything but this.”
She smiles. “Deal. But seriously. Don’t fuck the bosses while they’re your bosses. Past encounters don’t count.”
I nod but don’t promise, because if any of them offered it, I’m not sure I could physically restrain myself.
However, I think I’ll keep that one to myself.