Chapter Five
Aiven
Visiting a fired employee’s house close to midnight on the winter solstice wasn’t my idea of fun. Unfortunately, Ms. Nayak had turned her company-issued cell phone off and wasn’t responding to any of my e-mails while still in possession of restricted company documents.
This was quickly turning into a security issue.
Her little pink car was parked on the curb in front of a cottage that looked like something out of a fairytale. It was a small house painted a pale lilac with iron-framed windows. The low, sagging roof was an indication of its age, but it also added a little charm.
The garden was a tangle of overgrown wildflowers. It suited her.
I refused to think about how strange the rest of the evening had been. Each time I looked past the glass panels, expecting Ms. Nayak to be at her desk, tapping notes into her holo link, something twitched in my chest. The chair still sat askew after her hurried departure.
At the time, I’d wished to remind her about her obligatory two-week notice, but I had a feeling she would have disregarded it anyway.
Perhaps I had become over-reliant on her.
She had stuck with me for three years, after all.
Whenever I had a question about a client or a contractor, she was always there, quick with an answer and sometimes even quicker with a solution.
It seemed incongruous to think that this woman had made my life seamless, but after trying to look for information myself and dealing with administrative mail in her inbox, I realized just how much she did for me without being asked.
I sighed, rubbing my temples as I sat in my car. The taste of a power bar was stale on my tongue.
Curse it all, I had made the choice to fire her. She had violated my three-strike rule. I thought I was being decisive; I’d done what was necessary. But sitting here just a few feet from her house and watching the lights dim in her living room, I wondered if I’d been too hasty.
Had I made an assistant I liked—the only one I’d truly liked—quit her job?
As another light went out in her house, I found myself abandoning the safety of my car and standing in front of a lone porch light that was far too dim.
The chime of her front door bell was surprisingly pleasant.
“What?”
She answered the door with a scowl, her lips pressed into a thin line.
The door swung wide and a burst of her scent drifted into the night air. Silky and sweet, the scent of peaches settled in my chest. There was something undeniably primal about it—a kind of magnetic pull that spoke directly to my Alpha.
“You took some—”
I paused, my gaze dipping unprofessionally to her state of undress.
Well, not really undress, more… Underdressed?
The pink fluffy robe matched the slippers on her feet. Little red-painted toes peeked out. The robe itself stopped mid-way up her thighs, revealing more of Ms. Nayak than I’d ever glimpsed.
She cleared her throat pointedly and my gaze snapped back up to hers.
“You took some documents with you,” I finished. “Client reports.”
“Right.” She pulled at the edges of her robe. “Of course you’re here for that.”
She left the door wide open and retreated into the cottage.
I stepped inside, regretting the decision almost immediately. Everything smelled like her.
“What else would I be here for?” I asked, watching as she entered what I assumed was her bedroom. All I could glimpse from the entryway was a full-length mirror, but it was enough.
Dear god, was it enough.
She bent over to look for her work bag and her robe pulled upward, mirroring a glimpse of polka-dotted panties. Bright pink polka-dotted panties.
“I don’t know,” she said, sarcasm dripping from each word. “Maybe to apologize?”
“There isn’t a need for an apology.”
She scoffed, the sound traveling crisply through the small cottage.
“That’s where you and I differ,” she said. “When you dismiss an employee who’s worked for you tirelessly for three years without so much as a thank you for your service, I think an apology is in order.”
“Need I remind you that you resigned?”
I wondered if it would be prudent to say nothing rather than enrage her, but I had never been one to keep my thoughts to myself.
“I am respecting your wishes, Ms. Nayak.”
She appeared in the doorway to her room with curls in a voluminous halo around her head. The little flyaways around her temple were slightly damp.
“I wouldn’t have had to resign if my boss wasn’t a cold, unfeeling asshole.”
“Mind your manners.”
“That was me being mindful, Ms. Burns.” She tugged at the belt to her robe, knotting it even tighter.
“I am not unfeeling,” I found myself saying.
“Oh, really?” Her voice turned snarky. “You are such a liar. If you aren’t the unfeeling asshole you are, you’d be spending your solstice with family and friends. Or a mate. Instead, you choose to keep everyone in your employ trapped in the factory because you don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Each word turned my shoulders a little more rigid.
“The documents, Ms. Nayak,” I reminded her.
“I’m looking for them, aren’t I?” she snapped.
“How could you possibly lose something as important as client files?”
“I didn’t lose them,” she retorted, disappearing into another room. “I simply don’t remember the last place I put them.”
It was a challenge not to roll my eyes, but I decided to shut the front door behind me to keep the heat from leeching out. Or, perhaps, I had another reason in mind. One that was difficult to admit even to myself.
I wanted to be trapped in here with her scent.
I would go no closer. I would stand here in her entryway and enjoy the lovely notes of her skin and sweet peaches, trailing her with nothing more than my eyes.
Even though she had quit, I was still her boss. I was still in charge. I would take those documents and leave her here in this cocoon of sweetness that made everything inside me feel so tight…
She emerged from what I assumed was her study, her lips pursed in frustration.
“Look,” she said, blowing a damp curl out of her eyes. “What if I drop the files at the office? I need some time to find them.”
“Unacceptable, Ms. Nayak.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “They are confidential files that shouldn’t have left with you in the first place.”
Her hands turned into little fists.
“Fine,” she huffed. “But you’re making me nervous standing there like the freaking grim reaper. Sit down or something.”
I eyed her overstuffed pink couch. “I don’t see any room from my scythe.”
She stared at me like a third eye had leapt out of my forehead. “Did you just… make a joke?”
I shrugged, stepping forward into her space. The ceiling was low, and I knew if I walked towards the hanging light in the center of the room, it would tousle my hair.
Her sofa was just as comfortable as it looked. I crossed my legs and ran my fingers over the velveteen fabric, knowing she watched my every move.
“This feels like a crossover episode of a shitty TV show,” she said.
“Explain.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Please,” she emphasized. “Explain, please.”
“Fine.” I rested my palms on my thighs. “Explain, please.”
She regarded me for a moment before she spoke. “I doubt you ever watch trashy TV, but—”
“On the contrary, I’ve been known to watch the news now and again.”
She blinked. “Was that another joke? Two jokes in under a minute?”
I shrugged. “Continue, please.”
She shook her head, bemusement rife in her tone. “Having you in my home feels like an out-of-body experience. Kind of like seeing characters you know from one specific TV show appearing in a different world.”
“This feels strange to me, too.”
Strange was not the word I would use. It was much more… intimate than that. There was something deeply jarring about seeing an employee in a bathrobe with her hair loose and her face devoid of make-up. It felt like the layers between us had been shaved away.
The person who stood in front of me wasn’t Ms. Nayak anymore, but Dessi, an omega whose scent was obscenely addictive.
That was my problem, not hers. How she smelled to me was a reflection of my Alpha’s weakness. I could tell myself in a thousand different ways that scenting my employee was forbidden, but my spirit animal would not give a flying fuck.
Instead, I cleared my throat and glanced away from her.
“The files, please,” I said.
With a frustrated sigh, she retreated to the room to rummage through it. For long minutes, all I heard was the sharp clatter of drawers slamming shut a little bit too hard. Papers rustled as though they were being shoved aside without much thought.
Moments later, she emerged from the room, falling onto the sofa with a huff, her curls flying around her cheeks. The documents were nowhere to be seen.
“I’m not going to steal your clients, you know,” she said, holding the edges of her robe together. “And even if I was going to, it would be easy. I already have a better relationship with them than you do.”
I angled my chin toward her. “Do you?”
She made a little humming noise. “I guarantee you that your clients like me more than they like you.”
“I’m not pandering to be liked, Ms. Nayak. I’d rather be respected.”
“Maybe that’s your problem.”
“I don’t see it as a problem.”
“Then that’s a problem, too,” she reiterated. “You can’t see your own mistakes. There’s a brick wall between you and self-awareness.”
“And you?” I returned. “I assume you’re entirely aware of the motivations behind your actions?”
“Of course.”
“Then riddle me this,” I said, unwittingly turning toward her and balancing my elbow on the back of the couch. “Why is it that you need to be liked by everyone?”
Her eyes widened, but I continued.
“Why do you need to play the peacemaker? Why must you always find an amicable solution to everything?”
“Because that’s what people do,” she said, tilting her head forward as though implying ‘duh!’.
“Most people wouldn’t involve themselves in everyone’s business.”
Her lips parted in a gasp. “Are you calling me a busybody again?”
“Aren’t you?”
She sputtered. “No! I’m just not cold and unfeeling like you are. The fact that you can berate the employees who work so damn hard for you is beyond me. So what if I like to make sure they’re okay after you tear them to shreds?”
“Like I said this morning, that is not your job.”
“And like I said, being human should come naturally to everyone. Evidently not to you.”
Her words were meant to bruise, but unfortunately for her, I had heard far worse.
She had almost closed the distance between us. I chose to think it was anger that tugged her forward, but at the back of my mind, I had a niggling feeling it was something else. Something I should nip in the bud. Now.
The scent paradox was in play—a phenomenon I had experienced a handful of times before. My Alpha was very much attracted to the sweetness of the omega in front of me. In return, my pheromones were tugging at hers, willing her to come closer, breathe deeper.
It was the nature of attraction among our kind, but so dangerous when the omega in question was my employee. My assistant. An omega who was almost fifteen years younger than me.
Not your employee any more, a sinister little voice hissed in my mind. I shut it down with a press of my lips.
She inched closer, her brow raised in question.
“Ms. Nayak.” I forced myself to stop breathing. “Move. Away.”
“Why?” The challenge in her tone brushed across my skin like silk. “My informality seems to be bothering you.”
“It’s not your informality,” I bit out.
A crease formed between her brows. “Then what is it?”
My nostrils flared. Her scent, so close to her mating gland, hit me like a punch to the gut.
When I neglected to say anything further, she spoke again.
“Could it be, Ms. Burns, that you’re trying to find a way to get me to come back?”
A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. That damn cupid’s bow, bare of any gloss or liner, curved like an invitation.
“Why would I?”
“Because you miss me.”
My scoff was a little puff of air between us.
“Unlikely.”
“Your scent says otherwise.”
“Oh really?”
“Mm-hmm.” She nodded, her curls bobbing along with her. “Your scent says you miss me so damn much and you can’t imagine your life without me.”
“And you say I have a big ego?”
“It’s not about ego, Ms. Burns.” Her nose was barely an inch from mine. “It’s a fact. You would be lost without me and you know it.”
I should move away—put some distance between us.
But I wasn’t backing down from the challenge in her gaze.
“You want to come back to work for me—is that it? You’re too proud to ask?”
A smirk crept across the beautiful arch of her lips.
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
“Then—”
“Not unless you beg me.”
I attempted a scoff, but no sound emerged. Instead, her gaze met mine, determined and dark, their brown pools a swirling well of challenge.
Was I actually here to beg? To grovel? To plead with her to come back to work?
“Ms. Nayak.”
I uttered her name with nothing more. The words lingered between us like an unspoken invitation.
“Beg me to come back, Ms. Burns,” she said, a smile playing along the corners of her mouth. “I want to hear you say the words.”
I felt her breath on my cheeks as she waited.
One beat, two. It stretched into something heavy, thrumming impatiently between us.
“Say it—”
I kissed her. Only to shut her up. Because with each word, she was trying to wiggle her way under my skin and into my blood… It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already manipulated my brain into thinking impossible things.
Her gasp of surprise was sweet against my tongue, but she didn’t give up.
“Beg me,” she whispered raggedly, her lips wet with my kisses. “Beg me and I just might suck your cock.”
Heat flared in my chest, searing across my skin.
Filthy.
I cupped her cheek in my hand, pulling her closer until I was lost in her scent, her warmth, her touch.
“Be my assistant again,” I whispered against the sweetness of her lips.
Her laugh was triumphant; it set my skin on fire. Curse it all, she looked magnificent like this, her hair wild and lips rosy with my kisses.
“No, thank you,” she whispered cruelly as she dropped to her knees. “I decline.”