1

EMMA

“Do I have your full attention, Ms. Carson?”

I gulp and refocus on my boss. Ruslan Oryolov is glowering—not because I’ve done anything wrong, but just because that’s how he always looks at me.

Actually, that’s how he always looks at everyone. I’m pretty sure he’s that unfortunate case you always hear moms telling their kids about: he made a sour face once upon a time and it just got stuck like that.

To be fair, this time, he has good reason. He’s actually caught me in the middle of a somewhat shockingly violent fantasy about stapling his beautiful lips together with the stapler on his desk and then yeeting him out of his gorgeous thirtieth-story office window.

He’d deserve it. And he only has himself to blame.

Because I am all-caps EXHAUSTED from tending to his every whim today.

I arrived at the office at the buttcrack of dawn this morning. I haven’t had more than ten consecutive seconds to myself all day long. And only now, with the clock nearing 9:00 P.M., am I getting anywhere close to the end of this workday from hell.

Without an IV drip of quad espressos, I would be dust in the wind.

But even with my caffeine addiction, I feel frazzled inside and out. In my head, I’m cursing my past self for being dumb enough to buy these heels half a size too small just because they were on sale. The arches of my feet are ready to commit war crimes in order to be freed.

Ruslan, on the other hand, looks as polished as ever. It’s actually offensive how good he looks, despite working like a machine for every bit as long as I have today. His suit is impeccable, as is his dark five o’clock shadow, and the intensity in his scorching amber eyes hasn’t dimmed one solitary notch.

“Ms. Carson. I asked you a question.”

“Uh, yes,” I stammer. “Yes, you have my attention.” I glance down at my notepad. “Litigation release needs to go to Mark Vanderberg in Legal first thing in the morning. New chairs have been requested for the boardroom on Floor Seventeen and I will check on delivery dates. I’m moving your 2:00 P.M. to your 11:30, moving your 11:30 to your 7:15, moving your 7:15 to next Thursday, and I’m telling next Thursday’s meeting to—and I quote—‘eat shit and die.’ Did I miss anything?”

Ruslan arches one unfairly gorgeous brow. Seriously—if I could transplant those bad boys onto my own face, I really might. They’re dark and expressive and communicate half of his threats without a single word. “I detect a tone.”

I keep my own face perfectly neutral. “No, sir. No tone. You specifically requested ‘no snark’ after the lunch salad debacle last month. I wouldn’t forget.”

“Hm.”

Like his eyebrow, one solitary, not-even-a-word syllable from the infamous Mr. Oryolov, CEO of Bane Corporation, is enough to make grown men dissolve into tears.

I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. Literally. When I first started here, one of the microchip suppliers that Bane uses for our flagship home security product came in for a meeting and tried to negotiate higher prices. At the end of the idiot’s hardball pitch, Ruslan simply lofted an eyebrow and said, “Hm.” The man started shaking so badly they had to take him out of the conference room in a wheely chair like it was an ambulance gurney.

He’s not the only one. Lord knows Ruslan has brought me to the verge of tears and beyond plenty of times in the eighteen months I’ve been working for him.

Everyone warned me before I took the job that it wouldn’t be easy. His last three personal assistants lasted six, four, and zero-point-five months, respectively, before running screaming for the hills. There’s a rumor that one of them is still checked into in-patient therapy somewhere up in Vermont.

Suffice it to say, everyone was right. Life under Ruslan Oryolov’s scrutiny is not easy. It starts early and ends late. It’s harsh. Fast-paced. He doesn’t say “please” and he doesn’t know the meaning of “thank you.”

But I’ve stuck around for one reason and one reason only: I have to.

That’s not quite the whole truth, actually. I stuck around for three reasons. And their names are Josh, Caroline, and Reagan.

I glance down and look at the lock screen of my phone where it rests in my lap. Three smiling faces stare back at me. Five-year-old Reagan just lost her front tooth and the little goober has her tongue sticking out through the gap. Caroline is only six, but she’s already practicing her “smizing” and chintucked selfie poses. She’s going to break so many boys’ hearts as soon as I let her get an I*******m account. Josh, at eight, is the oldest—but you’d think by looking at him that he’s a decade older than that, even. It’s something in his eyes. A hauntedness. A chill. A stony sense of responsibility that doesn’t belong on a boy who’s too young to grow armpit hair.

Losing your mom will do that to you.

I would know—sort of—because losing my sister has certainly done it to me.

I do the math in my head quickly. It’s March 9th right now and Sienna died in September three years ago. So that’s three years, six months, and four days since I last hugged her or heard her laugh.

Three years, six months, and four days since I went from Auntie to Momma in the blink of an eye.

Three years, six months, and four days since my life changed forever.

Ruslan stands and shoots his cuffs. It’s effortless, just like everything else he does. You’d be forgiven for thinking he’s a model for GQ. He cracks his knuckles, then his neck, watching me the whole time.

I sit in my chair and focus on my breathing.

Eighteen months is long enough that I thought my infatuation would have worn off by now. I’d have thought wrong, though. If anything, he’s even more beautiful than he was the day I first walked in.

I still remember how that went. I rounded the corner and stopped, dumbstruck and drooling like a lunatic. This man ran the biggest home security enterprise in the world? Were we sure he wasn’t a Hollywood body double?

For his part, Ruslan took one look in my direction before asking, “Are you going to make my life easier or harder, Ms. Carson? If it’s the latter, don’t even bother setting your stuff down; just turn back while you still can.”