Still, dating men was a big challenge for her.
“Would you like a coffee?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Yes. Love one.”
****
Xavier watched his little PA leave the room. As always she closed the door, offering him privacy. Anya had always intrigued him, from the first moment he’d met her over four years ago, to this day. She wasn’t the kind of woman who tried to gain his attention. It was one of the reasons why he’d hired her.
For four years they had enjoyed a professional relationship. He was the one constantly crossing the boundaries in order to get to know her. Yes, he had a bad reputation. In the past year he’d not had many partners because these feelings he had for Anya were not going away.
The reputation he’d gained as a ladies’ man had been well earned. In the early years of his life he’d not cared about anything but making money and fucking. It was what he did, leaving a trail of women behind him in his wake. Business and sex for him came hand in hand.
Running a finger along his lip he stared down at the image of him opening this place. It was taken many years ago by a friend who had since passed. In a few weeks, Xavier would be turning forty years old. He had an empire that would be handed down to no one. Yeah, he was a guy who had everything, apart from the fact he didn’t.
He didn’t have anyone. No family, no more friends, not even a dog. He had no one. Business, making money, and that was all.
All of his life he’d fought for everything he ever wanted. Son to a crack whore, pulling himself out of tricky situations through foster homes, he’d done everything, hated it all, and fought every single second of every day. Right now, this very second he was earning money. Millions of dollars going from A to B then back again. Whatever he touched turned to gold.
What was once a challenge was now as simple as falling asleep.
Xavier wanted a family. He wanted a child; son or daughter, he didn’t care. There were no plans for gaining a family. In the past few months he’d been going to events wondering if a past flame would be the right one for his future, but none of them were a good fit for him. They had the same hunger for power, for their place in the world. None of them fit into the role of being a mother. They may make good mothers to someone else’s child, but not to his.
Anya knocked, gave him a second to decline, then walked in.
Again, it was something she always did even when he was alone. She was always considerate. When he first gave her the job, and her colleagues didn’t like it, Anya hadn’t done anything about it. She had taken whatever shit they wanted to dish out. He’d admired her for that. She never fought, never did anything that would be considered aggressive. Even when some of the women from his private life came into the office being all snotty, she dealt with them with kindness.
At times he found her too damn nice.
She placed a cup on his coaster.
“Is there anything else you’d like?” she asked.
To him it was a loaded question. She asked it of him every single day. Is there anything else you want? Anything I can get you? What else do you need? So many questions, and yet today, he wanted something more.
“That will be all.”
She nodded and left, her full hips swinging from side to side. With the height of the summer, the office had the AC on. Anya had removed her jacket, and he got to have a good look at her rounded curves.
The more he thought about Anya, the more he learned about her, he just knew deep down to his very soul that she was the woman he was looking for. Going to his desk, he typed into his computer, pulling up her employment file. Five years ago, standing in front of the camera she’d looked so scared, terrified even. She was twenty-eight years old, with red hair, green eyes, and in her photo he saw the freckles dotting across her nose. Her red hair had been pulled back into a ponytail. She never wore her hair down. It was either in a bun or a ponytail. When the company had parties, she didn’t drink either.
Thinking back over the past four years, Anya hadn’t relaxed. The watch she was wearing, he’d bought her last Christmas, and she hadn’t wanted to take it even though they had been buying little gifts for each other since she’d become his PA.