Faking It with the Frenemy

Damn. I wonder if he and I have any chemistry. That way, Wyatt won’t distract me with his next-door-neighbor sex appeal.

Maybe I can ask Hugo to kiss me. Fair compensation for reviewing his résumé. Then again, it’d probably be weird. And he is Jo’s cousin, so I might run into h

im again.

But it could be like a vaccine for the unwanted tingling I feel around Wyatt…

God. This situation is killing me!

“Come on in,” I say with my best friendly smile.

“Thanks.” As he walks in, Champ sniffs and then licks Hugo’s fingers. Hugo scratches the dog’s head.

“Don’t mind him. He likes to have a taste of everyone who comes by.” Maybe I should have a taste.

“No prob. Seems like a nice dog.”

I lead him over to the dining table. “So. You want a job, huh?”

“Yeah.” He gives me that flashing grin and takes a seat. “Jo said you’re the person to talk to.”

His smile is devastating, but for some reason, my body isn’t responding. Come on, hormones! “She isn’t exactly wrong, although it depends on what you’re looking for. Something to drink?”

“I’m good, thanks,” he says.

I take a chair opposite him. “So. What do you want to do?”

“I want to be an assistant. An executive assistant. Like you.”

A little unusual, but there are a lot of great male executive assistants.

He pulls a résumé from a leather folio and pushes it toward me. “Here.”

I skim it. He’s graduated from… Columbia Law? What…? My head snaps up. “Why do you want to be an assistant when you have a law degree?”

“Well, I haven’t passed the bar yet.”

It doesn’t seem like he failed, though. He seems a bit too uncaring and unashamed. “Did you take it?”

“No. Not sure if I want to bother, to be honest.”

“Why not?” If I had a law degree from an Ivy League school, I’d definitely want to be a lawyer. Not just any lawyer, but the kind people cower around.

“It’s my life.” His expression remains friendly, but his tone is firm.

“That’s…true,” I say slowly. I know when I’m being politely told to butt out.

I read the résumé and mark a couple of places that could use some tweaks, especially if he wants to be an assistant. He makes notes, his expression serious, like he was Moses taking stenography from God.

“So. Is there someone in particular whose assistant you want to be, or are you just casting around?” I ask, unable to suppress my curiosity. There has to be a story behind his decision.

“I want to be Samantha Jones’s assistant.” He says her name like I should know her, and his eyes go all gooey.

So he has a crush on this woman. Except the only Samantha Jones I know is a cynical attorney in her forties. She handled the divorce between Salazar and Ceinlys. “What does she do?” I ask, wondering if there are other Samanthas. It isn’t like Jones is a super unique name.

“She’s a lawyer. Fantastic. Practices family law.”

“Practices family law” is a nice way of saying she lives to make her clients’ enemies bleed. If Hugo hadn’t gone to Columbia Law, I might’ve thought he was confused about what “family law” entails.