His Temporary Assistant

This would happen.

It was happening, and I couldn’t make myself stop it. Not anymore. Not that I’d put up much of a fight since the first obnoxious email she’d sent my way.

“We can FaceTime.” She was utterly serious, her big beautiful eyes trained on me as I poked at my hash browns.

“You and the cat?” My lips curved. “Are you sure he knows technology?”

“He can learn. Anyone can, if they want to bad enough. You have to want it, Preston.”

I glanced up, my throat going surprisingly tight. Her expression was so earnest that I knew she wasn’t talking in the abstract or making jokes.

Somehow she meant me. She got something about my situation I’d only begun to articulate and was opening a door.

I’d never even tried to look for a window. I’d just settled for the closed-in dark.

“I do want it.” My jaw locked. “But I don’t let myself just do—”

“Anything. Even getting a cat was a big decision for you.”

“Shouldn’t it be?”

“Sure, if you’re not in the place for one. But you are. You have a stable life. Too stable.”

“How can you be too stable?”

“When all the joy is gone.”

I poked at my potatoes. I didn’t want them. They had no flavor.

“You can’t live like that forever.” Her hand slid over mine around my fork and the warmth of her skin made me grip the cool metal that much tighter. “You keep pushing everything that makes you happy down, soon enough nothing will.”

“Dinner and therapy?” I asked lightly, but it took everything in me not to toss aside our plates and drag her up on the table.

That would spark some damn joy, in me if not in the other patrons.

“Dinner and friendship. Contrary to popular belief, being attracted to someone doesn’t mean you can’t be friends too.” She scraped her nail lightly over the back of my hand, tumbling me right back to our heated moments in the front seat of my car.

“Are we friends?” I frowned. “Do you actually like me?”

“No. I hate you. Why I climbed in your lap in the first place.” She rolled her eyes and would’ve pulled back if I hadn’t seized hold of her wrist.

“There’s never been anyone else like you for me.” Her lips trembled as our gazes connected. “You’ll never believe me but—”

“I believe you.”

“I’m not my father.” I let her go although I wanted to do anything but.

She rubbed her wrist and I regretted possibly hurting her—I didn’t want that either—but she lowered her arm into her lap before I could ask. “Do you think I’d be here if I thought you were?”

Silence fell over the table, the only sound the chirping meows of the cat who’d just realized our conversation was keeping him from getting more cheese.

“Do you have siblings?”

She blinked, her heavy fringe of dark lashes hiding her expression for an instant. “No. You just have the one?”

“One is plenty.” I tried the potatoes again before setting down my fork.

“You’re not eating them right. Watch and learn.” She grabbed the bottle of ketchup and saturated her potatoes. I could barely tell there were any under the puddle of red. Then she leaned over to do the same to mine.