by A. J. Wynter
I was, however, having doubts about keeping him on. Things had been flirty between us, and it was just getting worse. Sometimes I wondered if one of these days I would crack and do something unprofessional. I had skirted this line before when I had dated Nate in college—he had been the TA for my Modernist Lit class—and now I understood the kind of moral anguish he must have been under when we started dating. It was a tricky line to walk.
The thing was, Logan was now indispensable to me as an assistant, and I was never going to find someone this good again, at least not easily—we worked well together and he had the experience to get the assignments done perfectly nearly every time. I couldn’t fire him. And especially not for such a silly and unjustified reason...I’d never find an excuse, anyhow. I would just have to resist my attraction to him and remain professional. There was really no other option.
Ten minutes later, as I was sweeping up what remained of the old coffeemaker into a garbage bag, people began to filter into the office. They had started smelling the smoke, and began to arrive, bored and curious, at the scene of the crime.
“Good God, Sabryna,” Johnathan said, slightly amused in a way that only an exorbitantly rich man could be at a completely ruined set of expensive office furniture. “What kind of wild party did you throw in here at seven in the morning?”
“I’m sorry Johnathan,” I said, resting my head in my hands. “I tried to use one of those old coffeemakers we still keep around and it may have caught fire and the sprinklers went off and—”
Johnathan only laughed. “Hey, hey, it’s fine. I’ll send building services to help you clean it up.”
“I can pay for anything that’s damaged,” I said.
“Not to worry,” Johnathan reassured me. “Just order anything that needs replacing and I’ll pick up the tab.”
I sighed in relief. “Thanks.”
Johnathan just laughed again.
“What?”
“Sabryna, I think this is the only time I can remember that you ever screwed something up. It’s kind of funny that when you finally do, it’s well...” he gestured at the soaked office. “...this.”
“If only that were true,” I said, rolling my eyes.
THE NEXT MONDAY MY office was mostly back to normal. My beautiful widescreen monitor was beyond repair, but almost everything else was salvageable. I had brought my laptop from home to use instead until a new monitor arrived. When I showed up at work, I had found my Seattle Seahawks sweatshirt freshly laundered and folded on top of my desk, with a tiny yellow post-it note reading ‘thanks!’ with a smiley face.
This made me giddier than it should have.
It was a slow, cold, and rainy work morning that mostly involved writing business memos and making a few calls to some Torver investors. I was having some trouble focusing, not really because of Logan this time, but more out of just a general sense of malaise and boredom. I was happy when noon rolled around and I was able to sneak out for my lunch break, neon purple umbrella in hand.
I chose to eat at the deli two doors down from the Torver building, which was a favorite of my coworkers and I. Their French onion soup was to die for, and it was just what I needed to warm me up on a gloomy day like today.
I grimaced a bit as I walked into the building, noticing it was already packed. There would probably be a long line for my soup today.
“Is this the deli Marissa is always going on about?” came a voice from behind me, and I smiled in surprise to see Logan next to me in line.
“You bet it is,” I said. “Did you file those papers, by the way?”
“Yep,” Logan said. “All finished.”
We did a fist bump, and even I had to admit, it was a little bit adorable.
“If you’re looking for recommendations,” I started, staring up at the menu, “I would go for the French onion or chicken noodle if you want soup, and for sandwiches, you can’t go wrong with—”
“Um,” Logan suddenly whispered. “Sabryna?” He tilted his head towards the corner of the restaurant. It was Adam. He had just walked in. Why on earth was he at the deli by my office on a rainy Monday?
I groaned. I had a few guesses.
“Sabryna,” Adam said in a business-like manner, suddenly coming up behind Logan and me in line. “Fancy meeting you here.”
I raised my eyebrows at him as he pretended to study the menu. “Yeah. It’s quite the coincidence,” I said, a hint of annoyance in my voice.
I realized Logan was standing awkwardly to the side and decided to introduce him—he was giving me sympathetic looks. “This is Logan Ainsley, my assistant,” I said, as Adam grabbed his hand a bit too aggressively. “Logan, this is my old friend Adam.”
He seemed more than a little bit bothered at being referred to as an “old friend”, but that certainly wasn’t my problem.
“Pleasure,” Adam said, but quickly turned his eyes away from Logan, ignoring him in a way that made it seem like he was trying to wish him out of the deli and out of existence. “Anyway, Sabryna, since I’m here, I thought I’d run an idea by you.”
Just great. “Yes?”
“Well,” Adam started, “It is December, and even people at my office won’t shut up about the upcoming Torver Christmas party. Why don’t we go together?”
I nearly dropped my leather clutch out of my hands. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “It would be a fun chance for us to get to know each other again. And, let’s be real, I’ve heard the food is legendary. What do you say?”
I froze on the spot. This was definitely beyond Adam getting me to come work at his company...
...he wanted me back.
“Um, Adam, I...“
“I’m her date, actually,” came Logan’s voice suddenly from next to us, and Adam and I both froze in place, staring at him in shock.
“What?” Adam said. “Really?”
I had to think fast and make a decision. “Yes, really,” I said. “Logan asked me, and we’re going to go together. I’m sorry, Adam.”
“Really, Sabryna?” Adam asked, lowering his voice. “Your assistant?”
“Yes, her assistant,” Logan said, straightening his posture. He was a few inches taller than Adam, and he was taking full advantage of it. “Is that a problem?”
“No, I just,” Adam stuttered, looking like he was about to pick a fight, but stopped himself. “Never mind.”
Logan stared Adam down. He had stepped slightly in front of me, as if to protect me from him, and his confidence was incredibly attractive.
“Keep thinking about coming to Galaxy Goddess,” Adam said, looking at me seriously. He had no regard in terms of mentioning our very confidential conversation in front of one of my coworkers. “We’d really like to have you there.”
“It’s nice of you Adam, but you know how I feel about that already.”
He just sighed and picked up his briefcase to leave—he wasn’t even getting any food from the deli, the lying bastard. Coincidence my ass. “I’ll be at the Christmas party next week, with a few of my coworkers who have Torver connections. I guess I’ll see you two there.”
Adam gave me a quick wave, making a point to ignore Logan, and walked out the door. The line was still endless, leaving plenty of time for Logan and I to stand around and deal with the aftermath of the conversation.
“Thanks for covering for me,” I said, smiling up at him. “Adam still doesn’t really know when to stop trying.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Logan said. “Although you are quite the girl worth fighting for.”
I tried my best to restrain a giggle and looked down at my feet. “God,” I said. “I just don’t even know how I’m going to deal with him. Just thinking about it is giving me a headache.”
Logan was looking at me with half a smirk on his face that made me suspicious.
“What?” I said.
“We told Adam that we were going to the party together,” Logan said.
“Yeah?”
“Adam is going to this party, Sabryna.”
I froze. Oh, fuck. I had been so distracted by the Logan-Adam confrontation that I hadn’t really thought through the logistics of Logan’s lie. Well, it’s not like he could’ve known Adam was going to show up to the party.
“So, what are we going to do?” Logan said. “It’s up to you.”
I stood there in the deli, watching the rain fall on the pavement outside the window. This was tricky, and one false move could send both my personal and professional existences tumbling down.
“Let’s do it,” I said. “We’ll make a quick appearance at the party, and go home. I can even stuff some of the good appetizers in my purse. Easy.”
Logan bit his lip and ran his fingers loosely through his dark brown curls. “You realize this means we’re going to have to pretend to be dating in front of Adam, while maintaining our status of not dating in front of everyone else at work, right? This sounds like a pretty high stakes operation.”
“Shit,” I said. “You’re right. I didn’t even think of that.”
We both stood in line in silence, pondering over what exactly this would mean for us.
“You know,” Logan said. “This might be kind of fun. I always thought I missed my calling as an actor, you know.” He winked at me, and I had to stop myself from swooning a little. He certainly wouldn’t look out of place in Hollywood, that’s for sure.
“Okay, fine,” I said, trying to act as serious as possible about this...and not at all excited. “But don’t oversell it.”
“Okay, babe. Sweetheart. Honey-bunch.”
I held my finger in his face. “I’m damn serious Ainsley.”
Logan just laughed, and I turned away, trying not to let his smile get to me again.
Oh God. What had I gotten myself into?
Chapter Six
Saturday had finally come around, and faster than I had expected it to.
Logan had spent the whole week at work cracking jokes about our plan. He flirted with me and called me pet names, blew me kisses as we left the office, and winked at me every chance he got. But how can you tell real flirting from fake? It was as if he had been given a license to act like we were dating (only in the privacy of one of our offices, of course) and it had completely gotten to his head.
But God, had I enjoyed it.
It was five o’clock, an hour before the party kicked off, and Eliza and I were getting ready in our apartment. Her boyfriend, Cassidy, a super-rich British guy who also worked at Torver, had hired two limos to bring us to the event—one for him and Eliza, and one for me and Logan. Eliza was excited out of her mind. She always went all-out for parties of any kind, and for her, the getting ready was half of the fun.
“It’s Cassidy and I’s first real Torver Christmas party together,” she said, putting on a pair of diamond-studded hoop earrings. “So, he’s going all-out, I guess.”
“It’s easy to be excited when you have a drama-free party ahead of you,” I said, sighing. “I wish I could just chill with my hot boyfriend and eat mushroom tarts all evening. I mean, what a life.”
“Oh please,” Eliza said. “I’d be living for this drama if I were you right now.” Eliza was wearing a fitted blue tulle dress that had a black brocade design on the bottom of the skirt, with black designer stilettos to match. She had pinned up her dark hair with an elaborate up-do, and had accessorized with a selection of some of the expensive gold jewelry Cassidy had bought her over the past year. She looked like a true Torver princess.
“Help me with the eyeshadow!” Eliza pleaded, as I came over with a palette filled with sultry browns and golds. “I can never quite get the crease right, you know?” I picked up the brushes and got to work.
“So, you really think Adam is going to buy that you and Logan are dating, while the rest of us are not going to buy it?” Eliza asked dubiously.
“That’s the plan,” I said, swiping a light gold over her closed eyelid.
“Of course,” Eliza said with a mischievous gleam in her one open eye. “This whole thing would probably be a whole lot easier if you weren’t so obviously smitten with Logan.”
“Excuse me?” I said, putting the make-up brush down. “I am not ‘smitten’ with Logan. I’m his boss, remember?”
Eliza smiled. “Honey, I know you better than anyone. All these cute outfits you’ve been wearing the past few weeks, your giddy little secret smiles you think we don’t see. I haven’t seen you like this since...well, since Nate, to be honest.”
I sighed and sat down. There wasn’t any use lying to my best friend. “Okay. Maybe I do like him a little more than is professionally appropriate.”
Eliza made a tiny overjoyed squeaking sound that I didn’t even know could come out of a human.
“Hey,” I scolded. “Don’t go getting excited. I’m his boss, remember.”
Eliza laughed. “Girl, I don’t know what office you’re working at, but we work at the Torver Corporation. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention the past couple of years, but people in this office tend to hook up without giving a damn about the rules. You really think Johnathan is going to stop you guys after what happened between him and Samantha? Or Kirk and Marissa? Or me and Cassidy, for that matter?”
I sighed. “I’m not like you guys. I’m a stickler for the rules, I always have been. You know that. I wouldn’t risk my job at Torver for anything.”
“Yeah,” Eliza said, “I do. But I also know that you deserve to be happy more than anyone I’ve ever known. And I don’t want to see you throw away what could be a really amazing thing for you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Fine.”
I wasn’t totally convinced yet.
“And besides,” Eliza said. “You look super crazy hot tonight.”
Okay, maybe I was convinced on that front. I had gone with a flashy silver dress that sparkled when I moved, one that had an embroidered 1920’s-inspired neckline that I couldn’t resist when I had seen it in the store last month—I bought it especially for the Christmas party. I had paired it with matching silver heels and chandelier earrings, plus a crimson silk wrap I wore draped over my shoulders.
To put it simply, I sparkled.
“There’s no way Logan won’t want to be your real boyfriend too once he sees you in that,” Eliza said. “Trust me.”
I twirled around in the mirror. Maybe she was right. But either way, tonight was going to be a challenge.
Eliza’s phone buzzed on the table next to her. “That’s your limo. They’ve already picked up Logan. Are you ready?”
I smiled at myself in the mirror. “Let’s do this.”
I PULLED MY WRAP TIGHT around me when I walked outside of my apartment—it was absolutely freezing, and it already smelled like it was going to snow. A gleaming black limo waited on the side of the road, and I took a deep breath and went up to the door. Time to kick this evening’s ass.
The driver got out of the limo and walked around to open the door for me. I slipped in quickly to avoid the cold, and found Logan lounging almost seductively across one of the leather seats, a glass of whiskey in his hand.
“Hi,” I said, smiling over at him. He was decked out in a gorgeously fitted black suit with tiny emerald cufflinks, and looked absolutely breathtaking. He looked like something out of GQ.
“Hi yourself,” Logan said, as his eyes raked over my body. “You look beyond stunning in that dress Sabryna,” he said. “You’re gonna make me look bad. They’re all going to think you’re way out of my league. There goes all my credibility.”
“Stop,” I giggled, but I was flattered by his teasing. Logan opened the mini fridge in the back of the limo and pulled out a tiny bottle of champagne. “A drink for the lady?” he asked in a mock posh accent, grabbing a flute from the adjacent cabinet.
“Why thank you,” I said, taking the drink from him. The partition was up, and I could feel the limo slowly winding down the road as we relaxed. It was moments like these where I was really damn glad I
had gotten a job at the Torver Corporation. What other assistant got to ride around in a limo surrounded by free booze and accompanied by a gorgeous man?
“To our elaborate ruse,” Logan said, holding up his whiskey for a toast. “And to my beautiful partner in crime.”
“To us,” I said, and we clinked our glasses together with perfect, harmonious timing.
Logan had moved so that he was perhaps a foot away from me, even though the back of the limo was far more spacious than any other car I had ever been in. The heat radiating between us already felt—
Suddenly the limo hit something, hard, and Logan and I were thrown up and then backwards in the seating area of the limo, our drinks flying out of their glasses. The overhead lights fizzed out suddenly, and I looked around in a panic.
We then heard the sound of our driver manually rolling the partition down. “You guys alright back there?” he asked.
“Yeah!” I yelled back. “We just spilled our drinks and maybe got a few bruises, but we’re good.”
“Alright, good,” he said. “We hit a pretty nasty pothole back there that seems to have really screwed something up. We’ve got the company coming to fix the car, but you might have to wait a while back there.”
“It’s fine,” Logan said. “Don’t worry about it. You’re okay too?”
“Yup,” the driver said. He threw some blankets towards us. “Heat might be out, so take these. I’ll let you know when we’ll have things moving again.”
“Thanks,” I said, covering myself up with the blanket. The driver waved to us as he rolled the partition back up. Logan took his own blanket and drew it up around his shoulders.
I had been too distracted by the chaos to initially notice, but I was practically in Logan’s lap—I must have landed there when the impact with the pothole threw us to the back of the limo. I hadn’t moved, and neither had he—we were keeping each other warm, after all.