To: Sabrina Bristol
From: Magnus Heron
Priority: HIGH
Subject: To Do
Ms. Bristol,
You’re incredibly eager to get started, and I’m happy to oblige. See the mess of a spreadsheet attached and the instructions below.
First, click on each project name and print any pages attached. Highlight the client’s name and file them. The last page for each project should be a checklist of anything needed to execute the contract. If an item isn’t checked, it’s missing. Compile a list of all missing items and create a new spreadsheet of just those projects with the items pending.
I expect this completed by midnight tonight.
Yes, it’s essential.
No, it’s not your only duty.
Before work tomorrow, you’ll need to pick up my dry cleaning and hang it in the closet in my office. There shouldn’t be a single wrinkle.
The invoice number will come from Miss Hunting.
You’ll also need to stop at The Bean Bar and pick up my coffee order, three large drinks as follows: a dark roast Kona bean with one tablespoon of heavy whipping cream, and two medium roast Kona beans. One with half a cup of heavy cream, four sugars, and cinnamon spice, and the other with three tablespoons of heavy cream. It’s imperative no sugar winds up in that last coffee.
Since you like cats so much, you can also pick up three cans of cat food. I need a Whisker-Delight, Empress Pearl, and a Meow Meow Feast in any flavors.
Do not mess this up.
Because you have to be back at the office at five a.m. and you’ll need to make a few stops before you get here, I’ll generously send a car to the address you gave Ruby at precisely 4 a.m. Be ready.
Ruby will show you to the file room, so you can get this project done, stat. She should also be able to give you the passcode to my office to hang my dry cleaning.
Yours,
Magnus Heron
CEO of HeronComm Inc.
“Hey, bossman, I can hear you hitting the screen up here. Having a rough day?” Armstrong asks, throwing back the same easy smile in the rearview mirror he always does.
“Not really. Just too much to do and not enough time in the world. I hired a new EA this morning and I have to get her broken in. I’m sending her the usual shitpile.” I pause. Technically, I’m sending her stuff to do right this second because I can’t get her out of my mind. “You’ll meet her tomorrow. You need to pick her up at four o’clock.”
“I need a raise to be up at that time,” Armstrong grumbles.
“Don’t we all.”
We share a chuckle.
Honestly, the problem isn’t that this girl has brunette hair like silk, mocha eyes designed to get lost in, and a body so tight she’d be like a cloud crashing against my mountain. I want to devour her, no question.
The real agony is the fact that I’ve worked at least seventy hours a week for so long I don’t recall the last time I had a good lay. I rack my brain, remembering the last time I bothered with a high-end lounge hookup well over a year ago.
I’ve been so busy it’s kept me living like a monk ever since. And that last conquest was mediocre at best.
Dammit, I need a good fuck. That’s all. A memorable sheet-ripping romp to reset my system.
It’s no wonder this pretty stranger makes me dwell on things I’d rather not.
Her stunt in the park made her the only woman I’ve noticed recently who doesn’t work for me—and no, the usual crop of seasonal interns who churn through HeronComm with a goal to seduce me don’t count. I’ve never let a single one of them get off the ground, no matter how short their skirts get or how many excuses they dredge up to barge into my office.
I’m not going anywhere near that ugly minefield with Miss Bristol, either. She works with me now—for me—and I won’t put her in that position.
Maybe Ruby was right, though. I should’ve let her pick another miserable, short-lived EA and found a way to bed Sabrina without bringing her into my company.
Bah.
Too late now.
I need a competent assistant more than I do a night of sweltering, bed-breaking passion.
Hopefully, my sacrifice pays dividends. Hell, if she’s good enough, I might be able to take a day off and remedy my hormones. It’s not like I have a hard time finding dates.
“So, what do you have this woman doing for you at four a.m.?” Armstrong asks.
“The usual. Picking up my coffee, my dry cleaning, and cat food.”
“Cat food? Aw, hell, something tells me I’m going to hear about this one, aren’t I?” Armstrong laughs.
“Call it Plan B. If all goes well with the Stedfaust account, we won’t have to resort to a demonstration,” I say.
“Man, are you trying to see how fast you can get rid of her with your antics?” Armstrong’s eyes flash up in the mirror.
I frown. Why would he assume that?
I’m not that much of a raging hard-ass purely for the sport of it.
Or maybe I am.
Sure, I told her to get her shit done before tomorrow knowing there’s virtually no way she can finish it. Then again, when you tell people they have four days, they take all four. You tell them two, they’ll take two. And if Sabrina Bristol has the backbone I think—I hope—she has, then she needs a real test of her mettle.
“Of course not, Armstrong,” I finally answer.
He laughs again. “You can’t pick up your own coffee for once?”
“Well. I could, but if I’m going to do that, what’s the point in having an assistant?” I ask. “Besides, Kona coffee makes the office run. I bought that farm and invested in the Bean Bar for a reason. How much further?”
“About forty minutes in this traffic.”
I hold in a groan. Somehow, a man never fully gets over the sluggish crawl of Chicagoland traffic.
With more time to pass, I scroll through my emails, flipping through performance reports for a dozen ad campaigns, and then look for anything else I can send my new EA to get it off my plate.
To: Sabrina Bristol
From: Magnus Heron
Priority: HIGH
Subject: ALSO IMPERATIVE
Ms. Bristol,
Please read all of my unopened email, delete spam and sales pitches, and mark everything else urgent or low priority at your first opportunity. You’ll get credentials for my account from Miss Hunting.
Yours,
Magnus Heron
CEO of HeronComm Inc.
Take that. I have three thousand unread emails.
When I look up again from hacking my way through my reports, Armstrong pulls up to a sprawling green field. There’s a one-story red brick building in the middle with soaring columns.
We’re right outside Winnetka at my old alma mater. He parks in the guest lot.
“Can I leave and come back?”
“Stay. This shit can’t take too long,” I say.
“The last time you said that we were here all day,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “When are you going to admit you’re a softie for these kids?”
“Never call me a softie again,” I grind out, shooting him a dagger look in the mirror.
“You’re the boss, Mr. Heron.”
Grumbling, I take my coffee and get out of the car. He’s lucky I tolerate his jabs, I think, taking a long slurp off my drink. I won’t get through this without fuel.