Chapter 4
DANE
I’d been staring at the back of Ina’s head for way too long. I was starting to think I might be losing my mind. In my life, I’d admired plenty of women’s backsides before, but never just the back of their head. This was a new one for me and I wasn’t sure how I should feel about it.
I considered closing my office door but it was supposed to be open these days.
Norma had insisted after attending some leadership conference last year, where apparently they’d proclaimed that “open-door CEOs” fostered better office camaraderie.
That supposedly meant increased profits.
And now I had no privacy and a perfect view of my assistants’s desk.
And by extension, her well-proportioned head.
Ina sat with perfect posture, her dark hair pulled back in some kind of complicated twist thing that made my fingers itch to touch it. She wore a cream-colored sweater that looked soft. I could imagine touching that too.
The sweater. Not the tempting woman underneath.
I forced my attention back to my laptop screen, where a spreadsheet of projections blurred into meaningless numbers. That lasted all of two seconds.
My eyes drifted back to her slender neck. She had to feel me staring at her. Didn’t women have a sixth sense? Maybe it was her upbringing. I knew she came from some small town out west. Did they not develop the ability to feel someone watching them?
If she felt me staring, she didn’t let on. She never turned around, flinched, or glanced back in my direction. She never touched the back of her neck like she could feel my gaze.
Ina’s desk phone rang. She answered it with that bright, professional cheerfulness that seemed to be her default setting. “Dane Kavanagh’s office, this is Ina. I’m sorry, Mr. Kavanagh isn’t available. Would you like to leave a message? Okay, I’ll jot that down.”
She hung up, made a note on her computer, and went back to whatever administrative task she’d been working on. I felt an entirely inappropriate surge of satisfaction.
She’d been my assistant for three weeks now, and in that time, she’d somehow transformed my entire professional existence.
My schedule, which had previously been a nightmare of double-bookings and missed meetings thanks to Elise’s increasingly scattered attention in her final months, now ran like a Swiss watch.
Ina had a sixth sense for knowing which calls I actually wanted to take and which ones needed to be diplomatically redirected.
She’d reorganized my filing system, updated the contact database, and had even started color-coding my calendar in a way that should have been overkill but was actually super helpful.
I was Type A, but she was like a Type a, lower-case A.
She was just as driven but without losing her joy and light.
The woman was perfect at her job. Which was exactly the problem.
Because every time I noticed how good she was at her job, I also noticed other things.
Like the way she hummed quietly to herself when she was in her groove.
Or how she kept a small succulent on her desk that she’d named Bernard, according to the little nameplate she’d made.
I had heard her talking to Bernard and legit thought she was talking to an imaginary friend. Then I saw the nameplate.
I noticed she wore different charm bracelets every day, each one making soft tinkling sounds when she moved her wrist.
And of course yesterday.
What the hell had that been?
Every person in that warehouse had felt the sexual tension in the air. We could have bottled it and sold it as an aphrodisiac. Then Cupid’s Arrow would have a perfect success rate, instead of an almost perfect one.
But there was no replicating the heat I’d felt. No bottling that lightning. I had never experienced anything like it before, and I had gotten around.
Keith’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. I looked up to find him leaning on Ina’s desk, saying something that made her laugh. He was flirting with her.
The asshole. Doesn’t he have any work to do? I can find him some.
Keith turned and caught my eye through the open door, gave me a casual nod, then said something else to Ina before sauntering into my office.
“Shut the door,” I said flatly.
He did, still grinning. “Morning to you too, sunshine.”
“If you want sunshine, you’re in the wrong office,” I said, not hiding my irritation.
Keith Billings had been my CFO since the beginning, one of my first investors when Cupid’s Arrow was just a concept and a pitch deck.
We’d gone to high school together. Keith had been born into money, summered in the Hamptons, and knew which fork to use at fancy dinners without having to watch what everyone else did first.
“So,” Keith said, dropping into the chair across from my desk and propping his feet up on the edge. “How’s it going with the hot new secretary?”
My jaw tightened. “Her name is Ina, and I’d remind you that comments like that violate company policy. Norma would have your head.”
“True, but that’s why I would never say that to Norma.” He waved dismissively. “But come on, Dane. All bets are off after what I heard about yesterday’s commercial shoot. That little vixen really committed to the role, didn’t she?”
Vixen. The word made my blood pressure spike.
“It’s not her fault she did a good job,” I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral. “She minored in theater in college, so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise. She was asked to stand in for a rehearsal, and she did what we asked of her.”
Keith raised an eyebrow. “Theater minor? From where, the University of Nowhere, Wyoming?”
“University of Wyoming,” I corrected, then immediately regretted it.
I hadn’t meant to reveal I knew where she went to school. No one needed to know I had read her resume at least three times before Norma had convinced me to approve the hire.
I’d been expecting some nerdy Midwestern transplant based on the application photo. She’d been wearing pink sparkly glasses and had a small nose ring, looking every bit the earnest small-town girl trying to make it in the big city.
Then she’d shown up to the Christmas party looking like someone had poured starlight into human form, and I had nearly pulled Norma aside to ask her to find me a different assistant.
I had zero problem hiring an attractive woman. I wasn’t an animal. I could control myself around a pretty girl. If anything, women had trouble controlling themselves around me. But Ina Lavin was different.
My self-control weakened around her. I had never felt anything like it and I had no idea what the hell to do with these unfamiliar feelings. The safest move was to keep my distance. I could look at the back of her head all I wanted, just as long as I stayed away from the front of her.
Keith tapped his fingers on my desk to get my attention, snapping me from my distracted thoughts. “Are you doing this Valentine’s gift exchange bull shit?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I groaned and let my head fall back against my chair. “Don’t remind me. Lucas wouldn’t stop pouting until I said yes.”
“Well, that’s who I got. Lucas.” He rolled his eyes. “Do you know how impossible it is to shop for that man? He has opinions about everything. Thread count. Coffee bean origins. The proper way to fold a pocket square. I’m going to fail spectacularly and he’s going to roast me in the group chat.”
An idea formed. A terrible, impulsive, absolutely necessary idea.
“I’ll trade with you,” I said.
Keith’s head snapped up. “Seriously?”
“I got someone who’s easier to shop for. You take them, I can handle Lucas.” That wasn’t even a lie. I had officiated Lucas’s wedding last year after he threatened to blackmail me. With what, I still wasn’t sure, but knowing Lucas, he probably had something.
I knew his coffee preferences, his favorite brands, his obsession with that ridiculous bulldog of his. Buying gifts for Lucas meant I wouldn’t have to spend the next month agonizing over what gifts to buy for the woman I was actively trying not to think about.
“Wait, who do you have?” Keith asked with suspicion.
“Ina.”
Keith looked like I just gave him a winning lottery ticket. “God, thank you. You have no idea how much anxiety this was causing me. You’ve got yourself a deal.”
We swapped the slips of paper with the names on them. I tried not to feel like I had just made a catastrophic mistake.
Keith left shortly after, and I was left alone with my laptop and my thoughts and the growing realization that I’d been putting off the one conversation I absolutely had to have today.
I looked through my open door at Ina’s back. She was typing something, her fingers flying across the keyboard with that 100wpm she boasted about on her resume.
I could just send her a Slack message. That would be easier. More professional. Less likely to result in me noticing things like the way her nose crinkled when she concentrated or how she bit her lower lip when she was thinking.
But this conversation needed to happen face to face. She deserved that much.
“Ina,” I called, keeping my voice stern. Professional. The voice of a boss addressing an employee.
She jumped slightly, then turned in her chair. She stood up quickly, smoothing down her sweater, and stared at me with those big, innocent eyes.
“Yes, Mr. Kavanagh?”
Mr. Kavanagh. Right. That’s who I was. Her boss. Not the man who spent half of last night remembering the exact shade of pink her cheeks had turned when she leaned in close and nearly put her lips on my face.
“My office, please. Close the door behind you.”
I watched her walk in, trying not to notice the nervous energy radiating off her. She closed the door with a soft click and stood there, hands clasped in front of her like a student called to the principal’s office.
“Have a seat,” I said, gesturing to the chair Keith had vacated.
She perched on the edge like she might need to make a quick escape.
I opened my mouth to launch into the speech I’d been mentally rehearsing all morning. And when I opened my mouth, the two words that fell out were nothing that I had practiced. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked. “Sorry for what?”
“For yesterday. The commercial shoot. You were put in an uncomfortable position because of circumstances beyond your control, and I should have shut it down immediately.”
“Oh.” She relaxed slightly. “It’s okay, really. I talked to Norma about it this morning, and she said if anyone gives us a hard time about it, they’ll be having a conversation with her. In her office. With the door open so everyone can hear.”
My lips twitched despite my best efforts. “That sounds exactly like Norma.”
Ina smiled. It lit up her entire face and sent spirals of heat swirling through my veins.
This was the most we’d spoken in three weeks. The longest conversation we had since she’d started working here. And I was suddenly, acutely aware of why I’d been avoiding exactly this scenario.
Because when Ina smiled at me like that, I forgot about company policy and professional boundaries and all the very good reasons I built walls around myself.
I cleared my throat, forcing myself back to safer ground. “The director and Heidi seem to think there was… chemistry. In the rehearsal.”
Her cheeks flushed. “They’re professionals. I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”
“And you’re comfortable with moving forward? With the actual commercial shoot on Friday?”
She hesitated, and I found myself leaning forward slightly, waiting for her answer with more intensity than the situation warranted.
“I am,” she said finally. “I mean, it’s just acting, right? Pretending for the camera. It’s not real.”
Right. Not real. “If at any point you’re uncomfortable, you tell me. Or Norma. Or Lucas. You won’t get in trouble for backing out. This isn’t in your job description.”
“I know.” Her smile softened into something gentler. “Thank you for checking. That’s really considerate.”
People didn’t usually call me considerate. Efficient, yes. Ruthless, certainly. Good at business, absolutely. But considerate? Only in bed.
I was suddenly desperate to end this conversation before I did something stupid like ask her what she thought about the commercial, or whether she’d felt that spark too.
“I have a personal appointment this afternoon,” I said instead. “Clear my schedule from two o’clock onward.”
She pulled out her phone and started typing. “Of course. Do you still want me to hold your reservation at Marea?”
I’d forgotten about that. Dinner with a potential investor who wanted to talk about expanding Cupid’s Arrow internationally. “Yes, keep that.”
“Done.” She stood up, smoothing her sweater again in a gesture I was beginning to recognize as a nervous habit. “Is there anything else you need?”
“No, that’s all.”
She headed for the door, and I turned back to my laptop, pretending to be focused on work.
The door closed with a soft click. I immediately rubbed both hands over my face and let out a long breath.
This was a problem. A significant, complicated, absolutely-cannot-happen problem.
Ina was my employee. My assistant. She was also young and beautiful and way too naive.
The smart thing would be to talk to Norma about moving her to a different department.
Norma had been asking for an assistant for months.
Ina would be perfect for the role. It would be a lateral move, no loss of pay or prestige.
And it would put a comfortable distance between us.
Problem solved.
Except the thought of not seeing her every day made me feel empty. I pulled up Norma’s calendar, stared at it for a solid minute, then closed the window without scheduling a meeting.
I couldn’t transfer her before the shoot on Friday. If we were going to sell a love story to the camera, I couldn’t have the woman looking at me like she wanted to murder me.
After the shoot, Ina would be moved far from my office and from me.