Authors: Cassandra Cole
“You have my associate in a tiff. She said you want me to be your personal assistant.”
Charles was sitting behind an expensive oak desk, sipping an even more expensive scotch. He looked Riley up and down and nodded.
“Riley Johnson…I’ve been watching you.” He hummed, that same predatory grin from before coming to his lips.
“Of course you have. Now, I need to know why you think I’m going to be your personal assistant. I’m a CPA and the best damn one in the office.”
“I am well aware of that, Riley. I don’t intend to pull you from my accounting team. I just want you to work in my office and be my assistant was well as do your other duties. I’m going to hire a small team of three or four other accountants to work under you. You’ll manage them and report directly to me. You have a very deep understanding of the financial systems in this company and I applaud that.” He said, tipping his glass towards her.
Riley’s heart fluttered at the praise he was offering her. Riley never got much praise as a child since her father spent her younger years in an alcohol induced coma and her teachers were too worried that she might snap to offer her anything but a referral to the guidance counselor. She was good at her job and received many awards for her efforts, but to be praised so personally by her boss made her heart flutter with pride. At least she was telling herself that her heart was fluttering because of the praise. She didn’t want to admit that his smile and golden eyes were also part of this inherent problem.
“Thank you, sir.”
Charles hummed as he approached her, drink still in hand. They were toe to toe now and he was looking down at her. He towered above her, swirling his scotch and radiating pure power. He leaned down and a blush fluttered across her cheeks. She didn’t want to seem so affected by him but she couldn’t stop the pink color that danced across her skin.
“Your knowledge isn’t the only reason I’m picking you.” He hummed, raising the edge of his glass to her lips, tilting it back until some of the amber liquid sloshed over her bottom lip.
Riley wanted to pull away from the offered drink but she couldn’t make herself do it. She stared up at him with wide eyes, waiting for him to finish his statement as the sweet liquid hit her tongue and made her head swim.
“What…Other reasons are there?”
He smirked and wrapped a strong arm around her waist, tugging her closer to him. She gasped and pressed her hands to his chest, eyes wide as she felt an inhuman warmth radiating from his barrel chest and into her own curvaceous body.
“Your legs have a lot to do with it.” He growled, smirking.
There was something animal-like in that growl and she was almost drawn into it but then her father’s words came rushing back to her with enough force to make her head spin. She pressed her palms to her chest and gave Charles a hard shove.
‘Weak women don’t survive in this world’
“You can’t talk to me like that!” She snapped, though her voice was much weaker than she would have liked.
Charles liked the fight in her. He smirked and released her, going back to his desk and settling in the chair behind it.
“I expect you in my office at seven tomorrow morning. I’ll have all of your stuff moved.”
*****
Things didn’t get any better for Riley. She reported to Charles’ office the very next morning in a fitted pants suit and he made her go home and change into her usual colorful pencil skirt. He was an unbearable misogynist who didn’t hide the fact that he all but gawked at her throughout the day. The worse part as that she found herself enjoying it.
Riley was never the type of woman to pay much attention to her own love life. She was too controlling to let someone come in and break up her routine. She didn’t want anyone to find out about her OCD and she didn’t want to have to open up to anyone. Her existence was lonely but she accepted that it was the way her life was meant to be. It was the safest way for her to get through life.
No man (or woman, for that matter) intrigued Riley the way that Charles did, though. The hungry look in his eyes made her shudder and she even found herself…. flirting with her boss. Flirting was not something that Riley ever imagined herself doing, but here she was, bending over in short skirts and offering him charming smiles over her shoulder.
There was a part of her that felt betrayed by these actions. She suddenly found herself at the mercy of her own desires and she had no idea how to reconcile that. Charles was a crude man who demanded his coffees be made by her and in a very specific way. He would pass off menial tasks to her and watch with a smirk when she glared at him and filed away his client forms. It made her so damn angry but piqued her interest at the same time.
Each day that passed brought a different wave of emotion and she flip flopped between hating him and wanting him. It was the most infuriating situation she could have found herself in. Riley thrived on order and control and this man dared to waltz in and take all of that away from her. She didn’t want to smile charmingly at him and she didn’t want to flirt with him, but she found herself doing it anyway.
Her hot and cold nature did not escape Charles. He could see her inner conflict and only managed to fuel it even more. He knew that they were kindred spirts. They were both lonely, lost and maybe a little afraid. She craved power the way that he did and he knew that they could build one hell of an empire.
The biggest obstacle standing in their way was his family secret. A part of Charles wanted desperately to tell her his secret so that she would understand why he acted the way he did. It was in his blood and there was no avoiding it. He wanted to tell her the truth but he knew it would only drive her away. He would have to wait for the perfect opportunity.
As the months passed they grew fonder of each other. She still rolled her eyes at him when she caught him staring at her backside but she also made his coffee with loving precision. It seemed her OCD was very useful in making the perfect cup of coffee. Three sugars and three creamers was her secret recipe. He always asked her how she made it but she refused to tell him. In her mind, it was a way to win at least a small amount of power back.
Riley was on her way back to her boss’ office with the cup of coffee in hand, her skirt riding up as she walked, though she didn’t seem to care. Just as she turned the corner she ran into Angela. She and her friend hadn’t spoken much since the day Angela stormed into her office and demanded that she take care of Charles. They nearly ran smack into each other but Riley managed to stop just short of a collision.
“Angela! Jesus. I almost dumped coffee all over you.” She said with a sigh.
Angela put her hands on her hips and stared at her friend, glaring at Riley.
“Would it matter? You clearly don’t care about me. So just dump the coffee on me! Go ahead!”
Riley took a step back, brows furrowed as a deep frown carved its way across her face. “What are you talking about, Angela?”
“You think I haven’t noticed? You think I don’t see what you’re up to?”
“I’m really confused. You need to slow down, Angela.”
“You want to fuck him!”
The accusation hit Riley like ice water and she nearly dropped the cup in her hand. She cleared her throat and shook her head, trying to bounce back from the sudden accusation.
“Angela, keep your voice down.” Riley hissed, “I’m not trying to fuck him. Do you want my job? It’s like dealing with an overgrown baby.” She snapped. “It’s not my fault he has it in his head that I’m the only one who can do this.”
“Oh, shut up! You’ve always swept in and taken what I deserved.”
Riley stood up straight and frowned. She knew that Angela was talking about her position as the CPA. Her friend applied for the same position and got turned down with fairly harsh critism and when Riley was offered the job she didn’t think twice about accepting. She wasn’t about to apologize for being better at her job than Angela. She loved Angela, but at the end of the day she just wasn’t cut out to do Riley’s job.
Riley didn’t apologize then and she wasn’t going to apologize now. She set her shoulders and glared at the woman in front of her.
“You need to stop passing your insecurities off on me, Angela. I’m not going to apologize for being good at my job.”
She pushed passed Angela and went to her boss’ office, setting his cup of coffee down with a thud and pushing it across the table. He considered asking her what was wrong but decided to let it go since she nearly dumped his coffee over in his lap. The last thing he wanted was to be on her bad side.
*****
Riley sat at her desk, starting at her computer screen with a blank expression. Her eyes focused on the screen but she couldn’t manage to read a single word of the article. The conversation between her and Angela was playing over and over again in her head. She was trying desperately to put the words out of her mind but they seemed to be stuck on an infinite loop.
‘
You want to fuck him.’
She tried to shake it off but she always came back to that same angry statement. Riley was tapping her pen on the table in a rhythm that spoke to her obsession. One, two three, pause, one, two, three, pause. Finally, she dropped the pen and took a breath, going back to work on her spreadsheet. It was late and she was hoping to be out early enough to catch the last train home. She hated trains but she hated taxis even more.
The monotonous sound of clicking keys lulled her into something like a trance and soon she found herself slipping into a daydream. Daydreaming wasn’t practical and it wasn’t something she’d ever experienced before. She wasn’t sure what other people daydreamed about but when she slipped off into her little fantasy world, she saw Charles.
He was standing beside the oak desk she’d come to know so well. She spent so much time staring at it that she memorized every curve and every detail, and the same went for Charles. He wore an expensive suit and she wore…Nothing. The usual noise of office work buzzed around them and she felt a thrill run through her when she realized that they might be caught at any moment.
Charles’ strong arms reached out and pulled her close to his solid, warm chest. His finger’s threaded through her curls and as he pulled her head back he leaned down to taste the soft curve of her neck. A moan escaped her and she gasped sharply, eyes fluttering closed as his lips explored the sensitive skin along her neck and chest.
Once he was satisfied he pulled her over to his desk and forced her to bed over it. His hand coming down on her ass in a sharp slap that echoed through the office. She yelped and spread her legs wide, shuddering underneath his skilled hands. She let out a soft sob and shuddered underneath him as two fingers pressed into her womanly mound. Riley was dripping with sweet nectar as he thrust his fingers in and out of her with enough force to rock her against the desk.
There was a sharp pain in her hips as they jutted against the desk with every movement he made. A strange tingling in her belly started to fill her entire body and just when she thought she might explode her eyes snapped open and she found herself back in her office, hands shaking and a strange ache between her thighs.
She took a breath and pushed away from her desk, deciding that she would finish the report in the morning. If she came in a few hours early she could finish it before Charles arrived. She paused when her thoughts wandered to her boss and she closed her eyes, regaining her composure. Her little daydream took a pretty heavy toll on her and she was finding it difficult to bring herself down from it.
After she gathered her stuff and shut down for the night, she walked out of the office, checking to door three times before she made her way to the train. The dark made her nervous but she held her head high, knowing that women who looked more vulnerable were far more likely to be attacked. Riley wasn’t interested in being a statistic.
She made her way to the train station, waiting patiently for her train to roll in. It was fairly late at night and the only people around were drunks trying to figure out how they were going to get home. She never liked dealing with drunks. It reminded her too much of her father.
As the train’s horn blared through the tunnel, Riley winced at the sound. The din of normal day-to-day activity usually dulled the sound of the train but this late at night the sound was almost abrasive. Riley jumped on the train, looking around and noticing that the car she’d gotten on was fairly quiet. There were a few people on board but not enough to take up all the seats. She was happy to sit and rest her weary legs.
The train jostled Riley around, though she’d started to doze off thanks to the rocking motion of the car. When the train finally came to her stop she stood and wavered on her feet a moment, unaware of just how tired she’d been. She was looking forward to crawling into her bed for the night.
The doors opened and she stepped out into the cold night air, wrapping her coat around her shoulders even tighter. She hardly even noticed the person who followed her off the train and out into the empty, dimly lit train station.