XOXO (The Calvettis of New York 3)

My office door is still closed. On any other morning, Arietta would have unlocked the door and turned on the lights if she arrived before me.

A glance at the watch on my wrist tells me that I’m later than usual, and she’s absent when she’s contractually obligated to be at her desk.

Her workday begins at nine a.m. sharp, although she’s almost always early. The current time is nine-fifteen.

A blonde woman I’ve never seen before wearing three-inch heels and a red dress approaches me from the direction of the break room. In her hands are two mugs of coffee.

She stops to admire me from head-to-toe. “Are you him?”

I glance to my left and then my right, but unfortunately, I’m the only person standing within her sightline.

“Who are you?” I bark the question out.

“Your new assistant,” she chirps.

“Who are you?” I repeat the question because her first answer was wrong.

“I’m the temp,” she clarifies. “Your regular girl, Arianna, is out sick, so I was called in.”

“Arietta,” I correct her. “And who the hell called you in?”

“Jughead.”

Since I’ve called Judd that on occasion, I don’t correct that mistake. “What’s wrong with Arietta?”

That’s rhetorical since I believe I know what ails her.

She didn’t finish the assigned task in time and is bowing out under the pretense of an illness to gain my sympathy.

This may very well be the first time that I’ve proven that Miss Voss is not perfect.

“I heard she has a cold.” She shrugs. “I’m Lindsay, by the way.”

“You’re not needed here, by the way.”

The mugs in her hands shake. “I got up early for this gig. I’m supposed to make a cool two hundred for the day, so I’m staying if it’s all the same to you.”

“It’s not the same to me,” I say, not knowing for sure if Lindsay and I are still discussing the same thing.

This woman is not Arietta, and if I can’t have her, I don’t want anyone else.

I hang my head as I contemplate that thought.

I don’t want another assistant to fill in for her.

This has nothing to do with anything but work.

“I’m going to sit down behind that.” She gestures toward Arietta’s pristine desk. “One of these coffees is for you. I added cream and sugar since that’s how I take mine. If you need anything else, holler at me, Dom.”

Since no one but Judd calls me that, I point in the direction of the elevators. “Leave. You’ll be paid for your time.”

She places both mugs on Arietta’s desk sending coffee splashing over the rim of one.

“Dammit,” I bite out. “Just go.”

Lindsay has no problem with that. She scoops up a bedazzled red handbag slung over the back of Arietta’s chair and storms down the corridor in the direction I just came from.

I fumble in the front pocket of my pants for my keys. When I finally unlock the door to my office, I let out a heavy exhale.

“Why are you hiding from me, Arietta?” I ask under my breath.

“Because you’re an asshole?” Judd’s voice behind me startles me.

I spin to face him. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“Initially, Philly, but my mom had a dream of headlining on Broadway, so we packed up our meager belongings when I was four-years-old and made our way toward the bright lights of this city.”

I fight back a smile. “Don’t creep up on me.”

He gestures for me to enter my own office. “Let’s take this inside.”

I gladly do, dropping my keys on my desk. “You called in a temp for me?”

“Yes, and you’re welcome, but I passed her in the corridor, and she told me you fired her.” He waves a finger at me. “That’s not how we make friends, Dominick.”

“Arietta is sick?” I ask because I should have been the person she called to report that to.

Judd taps a finger against the side of his nose. “She’s fighting a pretty bad cold.”

“You spoke to her?”

He nods. “I called her early this morning to thank her for reorganizing our digital filing system.”

Scrubbing the back of my neck with my hand, I stare at him. “Our filing system? I asked her to input all my client’s files into digital format.”

“She did that and more.” He breezes past me to approach the window. “It’s raining again.”

I don’t want a weather forecast. I want answers to my questions about my assistant. “What do you mean she did that and more?”

“We’re a team effort here, Dom.” He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his black pants. “We share clients, although you rarely acknowledge that.”

I huff out a laugh. “I know how the business works.”

“Arietta updated everything, so it’s all cross-referenced.” He takes a step toward me. “She brought you into this century. We can both access all client files digitally now.”

I’ve relied heavily on handwritten notes in my client’s files to keep myself abreast of what’s happening with them. It’s an old habit that I’ve hung onto for far too long.