Chapter 5
FIVE
April had invited the devil into my serene workplace.
To be fair, I had no knowledge of any supernatural evil at Miss Moon’s command. Other than the fact that her so not business-appropriate dress had a slit up her leg to approximately just south of her panties, assuming she was wearing any.
It sure didn’t look like she was wearing a bra, considering her nearly indecent top. If she was wearing one, I couldn’t imagine what the contraption looked like.
Not that I was considering my assistant’s underwear choices. I was not that sort of boss. I was merely making note of several irrefutable facts.
One, Ryan G. Moon was inexcusably late, even if she had given me a bakery bag of goods. But that gesture lost points because the bag looked as if it had been doused with grease.
Two, Ryan G. Moon was not dressed in business wear. I couldn’t call her outfit casual either, since I doubted anyone wore a dress slit to there just to sit around the house.
Perhaps this was part of her calling it a “gig” last week. She’d forgotten what one actually did in an office, so of course she couldn’t dress properly for it.
Three, Ryan G. Moon’s hair was sheer black. Not dark brown. Pure, unadulterated black and escaping in endless rivulets down her nearly bare back from its messy twist.
Her back wasn’t actually bare. As far as material covering it, indeed. But she also wore crisscrossing chains bisected with miniature colored rocks. Before she’d turned to face me, I’d been momentarily blinded when a chunk of rock caught the sun and refracted a rainbow of light.
Perhaps that was her plan. Render me visionless, force sweets upon me, and then I would be at her mercy. Helpless to chide her about being late or being dressed like…that. Incapable of even questioning her ability with a spreadsheet or if she knew how to take dictation.
Instead, I stood rooted to the spot, caught in her intoxicating floral scent, reminiscent of a garden after midnight. Surrounded by forbidden flowers I didn’t dare pluck.
I really wanted to pluck.
I finally snapped out of her spell and strode into the security of my glass-walled office. And slammed the door.
The bright sunny day beckoned from beyond the wall of windows just behind my desk. Though I rarely ventured outside during the workday, I wanted to get the hell out of there before I did something…rash.
Now what?
She was still out there, waiting for instruction. That was likely a ruse too. She would wait for me to tell her to do something then she would grab one of her chains and render me mute with some witchy stone.
I dropped the bakery bag on my desk and pressed a hand to my temple.
I hadn’t had anything to drink today. This was likely dehydration.
Not coffee—the delivery had not yet arrived, naturally—and not even water.
Then again, I had a decanter of bourbon on the wet bar for clients that I’d never once touched myself.
Desperate times.
I splashed a healthy amount into a short glass. Then I tossed it back in one gulp.
It didn’t make me feel better but some of the cobwebs cleared away. Just in time for my desk phone to ring, the light for April’s dedicated line flashing.
I reached up to loosen my tie. Just a little. Not a full-on destruction of my perfectly composed knot, just enough to allow increased airflow.
So I didn’t have to sit down and put my head between my knees.
Calmly, professionally, I took my seat and pressed the button beside the flashing light on the phone. Was it my imagination or had the light become intense since Friday?
“Yes.” My tone held no inflection.
“Yes? Hello, I’m new here, remember? You gave me nothing to do.”
Even her voice sounded like sorcery. Not that I’d forgotten it after listening to her podcast—three episodes in total, but I wasn’t counting—but it seemed even worse on the other end of the line.
I’d have to end this call swiftly.
“There is a list.”
I heard the obvious sounds of her making a mess on April’s desk. “Where? I don’t see any—” She huffed out a breath. “Unless you mean this bill from Coffee Emporium with big block letters that says ‘call them.’”
“Yes. My delivery is late.” And I needed it. Desperately.
“Um, not sure if you’re aware, but I’m a legal assistant, not a nursemaid.”
“Nursemaids do not check on delayed coffee deliveries. They provide milk.”
Right. Because that was just the image I needed in my head only moments after I’d debated whether or not she was wearing a bra.
I didn’t do these things. To the point that I was almost smug when it came to other men who seemed less in control of their baser instincts than I was. I liked sex, but it didn’t rule me. Women and their wily charms definitely did not.
I couldn’t say I’d never been led around by my dick—I was human, after all, much to my dismay—but it had been a damn long time and not since college when Lissa Luwellan had convinced me we should have sex in the fountain in the town square in the middle of the night.
Then the cops had shown up.
I’d ridden in the back of the police car, soaked wet and frustrated. Lissa had broken up with me the next day, and my father had lectured me on upholding the law, not flagrantly breaking it.
Since then, I’d put sex in the box it belonged in. Often, I handled things myself. Such as Friday night when Ryan G. Moon’s auditory porn podcast had turned out to be merely a preview of upcoming attractions.
Ryan’s heavy sigh brought me back to my current predicament. “I took this position to do actual work tasks. Besides, calling a coffee place will take me, what, three minutes?”
“So you’ll do it?” I couldn’t disguise the hope in my question.
Mondays always went better with coffee. This Monday definitely required it.
“Since I was so egregiously late, I suppose I can help you out this once, because whoa, grumpy pants without your java, huh?”
I didn’t appreciate her emphasis on my words. Nor did I like her calling me grumpy pants. But I did enjoy getting my way through whatever means possible.
“Excellent.” I clicked off.
I had barely replaced the receiver when the line rang again. How was a person supposed to get any work done around here?
“Yes?”
“Do you say goodbye? Hello?”
“You don’t need to say hello, I heard you just fine.”
“I was asking if you say goodbye, hello, or any common pleasantries really. I mean, do you know me yet? No. You just expect me to sit down and be a faux April.”
I couldn’t stop my quick laughter. “Hardly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t think I can be as good as April?”
I blamed my lack of coffee, extremely long sexual drought, and general discombobulation for the picture that formed in my mind of Miss Moon on her knees beneath my desk.
I shifted in my chair. “I don’t make such value judgments, and it doesn’t matter in any case, as your employment here will end in,” I consulted the gold clock on my desk, “four days, seven hours, and seven minutes.”
“Wrong. It’s nine minutes.”
“Are you saying my clock is wrong?”
“I was late, but don’t make it worse than it was. I risked my life to get your stupid donuts. Do you care? Doesn’t seem like it. Do you have any heart at all?”
Interest piqued, I took another look at my gifted greasy bag. “You brought the donuts?”
“No. They’re fritters.”
I hung up on her. Rather gleefully, in fact.
She didn’t call back. I wasn’t disappointed.
Much.
I focused on expanding my quick hit notes from a client meeting I’d had on Friday afternoon. My tendency was to jot down first impressions then fill in the details later. I’d barely made it halfway down the page when my email dinged.
“Why are you fucking dinging,” I muttered, slamming the mouse against the desk as I ignored the email in my box from Miss Moon.
Someone had altered the settings on my email—probably April, for her own amusement—and I was going to rectify it this instant. If I could figure out just how Ryan was bypassing the very clear “no notifications” toggle switch in my mail program.
Another ding sounded. And another. Then it was like a freaking ding fest, my computer nearly shaking from the endless barrage of them.
I picked up the phone and pushed the button for April’s direct line.
“Good morning, thank you for calling Shaw, Shaw, and Shaw, Attorneys at Law. Rather pretentious, don’t you think? You’re all Shaws here, so why name each of you separately? Were all of you unloved as children?”
“Can I help you?” I asked between gritted teeth.
“Uh, you called me?”
“I called you to avoid reading your eighteen emails.” Another one came in as I was speaking. “Do you have them on automatic send or something? One word per missive?”
She ignored my questions. “I’ve spoken to Coffee Emporium. They regret that your coffee order is unavoidably delayed.”
I growled. I simply could not help it. “Until when?”
“Tomorrow morning. However, as a gesture of good faith, they’re including more of the little honey stir sticks you enjoyed so much last time. They really appreciated that review you left them.”
I harrumphed.
“Hmm, I’ve never heard of putting honey in coffee. Is that really a thing?”
“No, I lapped it off the thighs of a woman in tech support last month.”
She barely paused. “Your law firm has tech support? Why? You only have several lawyers and a few assistants, although I’ve yet to see anyone but me out here. Did they all quit? Can’t say I blame them. The conditions here are deplorable. Have you been reported to the labor board?”
“Thank you and good day. And stop emailing me.” I clicked off before she could reply.
The only salient point of her word salad was that I would have to wait until tomorrow for my coffee order. What was this world coming to?