Chapter 1: Becca
Rolling out of bed, I squint against the bright sunlight as I sit on the edge of my mattress and groan into my hands. I should never have stayed up until 5 A.M. knitting a sweater when my normal bedtime is 9 P.M. Nothing is pretty in the morning after a binge, and since I’m skating on thin ice with my supervisor already, I imagine today could be the day it’s all over for me. If only admin work didn’t bore me stupid.
Dragging my feet across the cool floor, I trudge my way into the kitchen and drop a pod inside my Keurig, shoving my favorite mug—handmade with ‘knit happens’ painted on it—underneath the spout in preparation for the flow of wake-me-up juice that’s about to pour into it.
“Dad had better love this,” I say to myself as I pick up the finished sweater from my kitchen table and hold it aloft for inspection. The cable design he chose is probably the most difficult pattern I’ve tackled yet, and the cashmere yarn cost me a bomb to boot. But since it’s a sixtieth birthday present for the best man I know, I can’t really gripe about it too much. And what’s even better is that I got it finished in time to give it to him at dinner tonight. The all-nighter I pulled will have been worth it when I see the joy on his face once I hand it over. He’s going to love it.
My father has a great love of handmade gifts—the mug was a result of his latest pottery class—because he considers the time and effort put into creating more valuable than any gift you can buy at the store. To him, throwing money at something is easy. He likes that the things you make are a one-of-a-kind labor of love. And as I set the sweater into the tissue-lined gift bag, I’m inclined to agree. The mug he made for me is my favorite, not because of the funny knitting pun, but because my dad made it specifically for me with his own two hands. Sure, it’s slightly wobbly, and if I fill it too high it rocks and splashes coffee out the side of it. But there’s just something really special about it. It was thoughtful.
Setting the gift to the side, I turn back to my coffee just as it finishes brewing, a buzzing spurt and a warm scent filling the air telling me that clear-headed reality is about to be mine.
Splashing just the right amount of milk on top so as not to cause a spill, I take my first warming sip just as my phone buzzes against the counter, a text from my work bestie, Nina, lighting up the screen.
Continuing my leisurely caffeine imbibition, I disconnect the charging cord one-handed then swipe my thumb across the screen, the words, where the hell are you? popping up and prompting me to frown because as far as I’m aware I don’t have to be anywhere besides drinking coffee in my kitchen right now.
Scrolling back a little, I find a series of text messages inquiring as to my whereabouts before telling me the meeting is about to start. What meeting? It’s 7:00 o’clock in the bloody—oh shit. The moment my eyes land on the time I realize I have severely fucked up.
It’s not seven. It’s eleven.
Which means I somehow slept through my alarm—again—probably due to the fritzy electric in this crappy apartment building. Which means I am now so incredibly late that I missed the monthly team meeting. Which means my absence will have been more than noted. And with performance reviews coming up, this couldn’t have come at a worse time. Shit, shit, fuckity, shit! I was really counting on getting a raise this year. I wanted to use it to finance a move into a better apartment with amenities that actually work and a super who doesn’t look at me like he’s just waiting for me to need his ‘help’. Just the idea of that sweaty, gold-toothed smile sends a shiver up and down my spine.
Fuck my life. I’m going to be stuck in the dungeon/admin pool earning a pittance forever.
Groaning, I down my coffee and type back, asking her to cover for me because I’m stuck on the subway. A tiny white lie that will have to suffice because telling them that my body clock is out of whack because I was knitting all night isn’t really going to cover my ass. Neither is the fact that my electric went out. Most people set alarms on their cell phones these days and my stubborn refusal to do so means I rely on a very old analog clock because it’s the only thing that’s loud and obnoxious enough to get me out of bed each morning. I sleep right through my gentle, musical cell alarm, but my trusty eighties clock’s bleating gets the job done ninety-nine percent of the time. The other one percent is slowly becoming the reason my boss is likely to fire me. I really can’t win.
When I get a hurry! texted back, I dump my phone in my bag and set about throwing on the first work-appropriate outfit I can find—a knee-length plaid skirt, a white blouse, a fawn sweater vest I knitted in the fall, and a pair of black loafers—then race out the door while still brushing my hair. My makeup of basic mascara and lip gloss gets done in the subway car, and I pull my unruly dark curls into a tight bun just as I walk into the building that houses Pierce Goodman, the wealth-building company I work for. With barely a breath of air in my lungs, I burst into the meeting room with excuses at the ready, only to find it empty save for the last person I wanted to run into—my boss.
Matilde Moonen is a stern Dutch woman who’s heavily accented, so whenever she’s unhappy with me, I feel like a little kid in the headmaster’s office, close to tears.
“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Rebecca,” she says, closing her laptop and lifting cool blue eyes my way.
“I’m so sorry. I was stuck on the—”
“Subway. I know. Unfortunately for you, you’ll need to make up the missed hours since you don’t have any more Paid Time Off.”
“That’s fine. I’ll work through lunch and stay back half an hour each day for the rest of the week.”
“No need to tell me. You can discuss making up your hours with Ronan.” Wait. What?
My hand flies to the base of my throat. Oh no. “R-Ronan?” I gulp. “As in . . . Ronan Kennedy?”
“The very one.” I really don’t like where this is heading.
“The Ronan Kennedy?” AKA the devil on the top floor.
The instigator of mental breakdowns.
The career killer!
“Is there another?”
OK, OK, he isn’t the literal devil, and there’s no real killing involved. But by all reports, he’s a nightmare to work for. Since making partner, he’s gone through assistants as fast as a teenage boy goes through Kleenex. No one can adequately meet his demands and they either quit from the stress or he fires them for being incompetent. It’s gotten so bad that management has started pulling people out of the admin pool to keep up with demand, and it looks like I’m this month’s sacrifice—where’s Katniss to volunteer as tribute when you need her?
“And why do I need to discuss my hours with . . . ah . . . Mr. Kennedy?” I swallow hard.
“Because there was a vote, and you weren’t here to decline your nomination.”
“My n-nomination? Who nominated me?”
Matilde chuckles as she rises from her chair. I don’t think I’m getting that information. “You’ll need to report to him immediately, Rebecca. And be warned, he doesn’t react well to tardiness. But you’re a fast worker and a quick learner, so maybe that’ll make up for it.”
“One can only hope,” I wheeze, already sweating profusely as I turn away to go and face my doom.
OK. So, Ronan Kennedy is my new boss. I can handle that. I'm adaptable. And sure, I was barely getting by with my old boss, and now I have to face the man who's known to fire assistants on a whim, but I’ll be OK. Surely. Gulp.
Oh God. Who am I kidding? I’m fucked! Who cares if I’m a "fast worker" and a "quick learner?" Ronan isn’t going to give a shit about that if I'm always late. It’s time to take some drastic measures to ensure I never sleep through my alarm again. I know exactly what I have to do.
Chapter 2: Ronan
"Where the hell is my assistant?" I demand when I walk into my office and there's no one at the desk outside. It’s almost midday and the phone is ringing off the hook, the message light blinking like mad. There probably hasn’t been anyone manning the phone all morning. I pick the phone up and put it straight back down again. I’m so sick and tired of the incompetent staff in this place. I don't have time to deal with the ridiculous call volume myself, which is why I have an assistant in the first place. So, whatever-her-name-is had better have a damn good excuse or she won’t have a job anymore.
"Are you talking about Rosa?" one of my analysts, Scott, asks as he follows me in to discuss the critical issues facing the company we just took a pitch meeting with.
I shake my head and frown as the phone starts up again, the noise getting to me. "I don't know what her name is. The one with the . . . the braids," I grunt, gesturing to my own short, professionally styled blond hair as I pick the phone up and put it back down again. If it’s important they’ll call back later—hopefully when I don't have to answer it myself.
"That’s Rosa. And you fired her yesterday."
I stop moving and drop my weight into the high-back chair behind my desk, clasping my hands across my chest as I do. "I did?"
“Yep.”
“Huh.” I have zero recollection of doing this. But then, I’ve fired a lot of people over the last few months so it’s no surprise they’re all starting to blur into one.
I used to think I was a fairly patient man. After all, I worked my way from absolutely nothing to become one of the most renowned venture capitalists on Wall Street, advancing through the ranks to make partner before most of my peers made associate. I’m in an enviable position. But while more responsibility means more rewards, it also means more stress. And ever since making partner, I’ve realized that my patience is rather thin.
Back when I was just a budding analyst, the only thing I had to worry about was me and my targets. But now that I’m the one on top, there's a hell of a lot more at stake—my ass and my bottom line are dependent upon the quality of my team. So if my team fails, I fail. And one thing I can tell you for certain is that Ronan Kennedy is no failure. No way. No how. I’ve worked too hard to be brought down by a bunch of silver-spoon carrying trust-fund kids whose daddies paid for their college.
“You don’t remember firing her?”
“It might help for you to jog my memory.”
Scott frowns like he’s not sure if I’m serious. Then he jumps when the phone rings again. I’m quick to pick it up and leave it off the hook this time. My eyes remain on Scott expectantly. He clears his throat.
"She, uh, put the CEO from a company whose proposal you refused to fund through to you," he says, and I instantly remember. That was definitely a fireable offense. “Poor girl left in tears.”
“Poor girl?” I scoff, leaning forward to rest my elbows on the desk. “Do you have any idea how much time that mistake cost the company in wasted time? I was on the phone for over an hour listening to that guy lament the decision I made not to fund his business idea. That’s an hour I could have spent looking into proposals from entrepreneurs who actually have something worth investing in. I am not the complaints department. I am the man who decides who gets a chance and who doesn’t. And that mistake cost her hers. Time is money, Scott, and I don’t take kindly to having mine wasted.”
“Understood,” he says, moving to sit in the chair across from me. “Let’s hope the next girl they send up is better at screening those calls then.”
“Yes. Just like I hope you’ve gotten better at looking into the players behind this proposal," I say, gesturing to the tablet he holds in his hands.
Sweat beads on his upper lip as he clears his throat. It’s well known that I have high expectations when it comes to this game and those who work under me. I want my team to have their ear so close to the ground that they can look at a proposal and know on instinct whether it's a good investment or not. Then I want them researching the fuck out of it, finding all of the dirt on every single person with an iota of power involved. Then I want to know the technical details of the products, a breakdown of all competition, and an estimate of the market demand. All so that when they sit across from me and tell me why we should invest, they have one hundred percent confidence that backing this project will be a win for Pierce Goodman and for our team. I expect my team to be as hungry as I am, and if they don’t measure up, well, out the door they go. Assistants. Analysts. I don’t care what role you play, disappoint me—get in my way—and you’re gone.
"I have,” he says, swallowing hard as he swipes at his screen. “And I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with what I’ve found."
Chapter 3: Becca
“I am so totally jealous of you right now,” Nina says, a wistful expression on her face as she watches me pull my things from my desk drawer and drop them into a cardboard box. I don’t have a huge amount of personal stuff adorning my desk, but there are a handful of photos, a cute little cactus, a couple of pattern books I like to browse through, and of course I have my knitting bag. That’s something I don’t go anywhere without. I’d rather knit with just my fingers than sit around with nothing to do but make idle chit chat if I’m honest.
“Jealous of the fact that I’m going to have to start looking for a new job before long?” I ask, glancing up at her as I set my green and red cactus on top of my belongings so it doesn't get squashed or damaged. “In case you haven’t noticed, most of the girls who go up to the top floor only last a couple of months, and they don’t come back down here again. They’re out on their ass. And I for one, can’t afford to do that. I barely have any savings as it is.”
Twirling side to side in her desk chair, Nina flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder and lets out a longing sigh. “I think I’d happily look for another job if it meant I got to spend one on one time in the presence of Ronan Kennedy.”
“Nina, I don't think you're hearing me. I'm worried for my employment status here.”
“Oh, I hear you. But, have you seen that man up close?” She fans at herself dramatically. “I was in the elevator alone with him once, and I all about self-combusted from his gorgeousness alone. It should be a sin to be that good-looking and that wealthy.”
“Pity it doesn’t make him a nicer person,” I say, slinging my purse over my head so it sits across my chest. “Did you even see Rosa on her way out yesterday? She was a sniveling mess and couldn’t stop calling him El Diablo. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have sympathy for any devils—no matter howgood-looking or rich they are.”
Nina blows out a raspberry and waves her hand in the air dismissively. “I doubt he’s that bad. Besides, Rosa was always prone to dramatics. Remember that time she cried over the printer jamming?”
“Yeah. I do. And she was eight months pregnant at the time, and the entire toner cartridge exploded all over her white shirt. So, I think we can forgive her that one.”
“Sure,” she says, with the bounce of her shoulder. “I still don't think it could be that bad working for him, though. Especially for you, because you’re a gun.”
“A gun?”
“Yeah. Like, you blow through all of your work faster than a normal person. It’s why you’ve gotten more chances from Matilde than the rest of us combined.”
“I really don’t think that’s true,” I mutter, hefting the box into my arms. “I’ve been on thin ice around here for a while.”
“And yet you’re the one who got chosen by the powers that be for a promotion.”
“Promotion,” I scoff. “More like a banishment. I’ll be lucky if I last more than a month. And before you get all swoony over the man again, Rosa isn't the only ex-employee with a nightmare story to tell about Ronan Kennedy. He’s been on the top floor for less than a year and he’s already gone through sixassistants. And God knows how many analysts he's gotten rid of in his quest for the perfect team. By all accounts, the man is highly strung and has a temper to boot. So, I suggest you take a good look at this”—I use my index finger to circle around my face—“because it won’t be around much longer.”
“You know what? I don’t believe that. I think this is the role that’s going to turn everything around for you. Just think, if you can make it just six months as Ronan’s assistant, the extra money will not only build your savings, but it will also give you the chance to move out of that shitty apartment building that I swear should be condemned by now.” Nina found a dead rat in the stairwell once and has refused to visit me at my apartment ever since. I shudder at the memory because honestly, I don’t blame her. I’ve lost count of the dead rats I’ve found. Not to mention the roaches. I want out too.
“Six months?” With a raised-brow sigh, I slip my fingers through the handle of my knitting bag and balance it swinging beneath the box. “I think pulling that off would take some kind of Christmas miracle, and since it’s now January, it’s too late for that.”
“You’re going to do great, Becca. I have the utmost faith in you!”
“Faith. OK. Well, how about we catch up for lunch tomorrow and I’ll tell you how far that faith is getting me?” I suggest as I step away from my old desk, butterflies flitting around in my belly at the idea of heading toward my new one on the thirty-fifth floor.
Nina’s eyes light up. “Yes! And you can tell me all about your new boss in great detail.” She waggles her brows, and I can’t help but laugh as I take one last look around then head for the elevators.
“Knock ‘em dead, babe!” she calls after me when the doors open and I step inside. I throw a half-hearted smile over my shoulder then swallow down my nerves as I hit the button for the top floor and ready myself for what’s to come. I’m glad Nina has faith in me because all I have is a great sense of dread. While I was hoping to get a raise this month, becoming the executive assistant to Wall Street’s biggest jerk wasn’t the kind of leg up I had in mind.
Just as the elevator doors close, my cell buzzes in my purse to tell me I have a message. I do a slight balancing act to get to it, and when I hold it up, a text from Nina fills the screen: Take pictures! Lots and lots of his forearms and his ass :drooling emoji:
Rolling my eyes, I drop my cell back into my bag, the dread feeling a little less poignant as I laugh at my friend’s antics while the elevator makes its climb. Unfortunately, the trip from admin to the top floor is shorter than expected. And when I step out, it’s to the sound of none other than Ronan Kennedy, doing what Ronan Kennedy does best—yelling.
“Research? This is nothing more than a pathetic lack of effort. Do it again. And if it’s not done to my satisfaction by the time I leave this office tonight, I don’t want you to bother coming back tomorrow.”
Gritting my teeth, I take a deep breath and force my feet to move, one in front of the other. It feels a lot like one of those scenes in a gangster movie where the bad guy gives someone a shovel and tells them to start digging. In this instance, I’m the one with the shovel and with every step that takes me closer to Ronan Kennedy’s office, I’m digging my grave a little deeper.
Chapter 4: Ronan
“Don’t just look at me, Scott. Get the fuck out and get to work,” I snap, causing my analyst to turn and scurry out of my office with his head down, tablet tucked under his arm.
With a discontented sigh, I turn away to look out the window, trying to talk myself down so I don’t go out there and fire every single person on my team for letting him walk in here underprepared. They should be looking out for each other. But instead, they’re all too focused on themselves to have any kind of idea what real teamwork is.
I know I have a reputation for being a hard ass, but I’d rather that than have a single member of my staff thinking they can walk all over the top of me or turn in half-assed work. And so what if I have a high staff turnover and send people cowering whenever I walk into a room? My methods get results. It’s because of my reputation that we’re the one team in the company with our projects all in the black.
That’s more than I can say for Pete Greer down the hall. He got made partner a year before I did, and last month one of the projects he invested in went bankrupt. The senior partners are livid, and I’m just over here with an ‘I told you so’ smirk because it was a deal I refused. After looking into the management team, I found someone with a sketchy financial past and put the deal in the discard pile immediately. They say everyone deserves a second chance, but people who don’t know how to manage their money tend to repeat the same mistakes time and time again. I need to see evidence of them righting their wrongs before I’ll allocate any of the funds to them that I have a say over. In this guy’s case, I was right to pull back. Pete, though, he has a thing about trying to prove he’s better than me, and sometimes that competitiveness causes him to make dumb calls.
Due diligence is everything in this game. If you don’t know what you’re investing in, you don’t know your risk. It’s why I’m so hard on my team, and it’s why management lets me get away with being heavy-handed with the pink slips. Still, there’s only so much leeway I can take advantage of. And firing my entire team in one go might be the thing that pushes me over the line and gets me fired. And since I really like earning the big bucks, I might hold off another day or two.
“My cactus!” My head snaps around when I hear a yelp, prefaced by a clattering of things scattering across the floor.
“Shit. I’m so sorry,” Scott bumbles, kneeling just outside my door in front of the dowdiest dressed woman I’ve ever seen. He scrambles to pick up the balls of yarn that are skittering and unraveling across the floor. Wait. Yarn? Who the fuck brings yarn to Wall St? Little grannies?
Lifting my foot, I bring the tip of my shoe down on top of a wayward ball then crouch to pick it up. My fingers sink into it. It’s a soft, dusty blue cashmere that is surprisingly pleasant to touch. In fact, as I wind it up and follow the yarn trail to its owner, I’m reminded of the one person in my past who gave a damn about me as a scrawny kid—my best friend’s grandmother.
Granny Dee was a stern woman and an avid knitter. The click-clack of her knitting needles while Banks and I did our homework at the kitchen table with his cousin, Darren, is a sound I’ll always remember with fondness. It was her relentless insistence that Banks and I better ourselves that turned me into the man I am today. The scratchy woolen sweaters she made us wear, however, are something I’d rather forget. I don't think I've owned anything knitted since I left college and got my first job.
“It’s fine. I wasn’t really watching where I was going either,” the brunette woman with the messy bun says as she tosses her things back into a box and shakes her head despondently, scooping the soil from her plant into a broken pot.
Seeing her like that, I make the snap assumption that one of my colleagues has taken a leaf from my book and fired a team member for not being hungry enough. But then, I could tell you this girl wasn’t built for Wall Street just by looking at her outfit. She’s wearing loafers, a knitted sweater vest and a pleated skirt in an office where everyone else sports a smart gray or charcoal suit over a sharp white or pale blue shirt—the outfit of the serious investor who has no time for flair—and to top that off, she’s sulking over a broken cactus pot and spilled knitting needles. Where this girl belongs is in a library or a farmhouse in the country somewhere. The mind boggles over who in their right mind hired her here in the first place.
“I’m assuming this belongs to you,” I say, holding out the now wound-up ball.
Her shoulders stiffen and she jerks her head up with a gasp, meeting my eyes with the most azure blue gaze I’ve ever seen.
“Please don’t fire me,” she whispers, slowly getting to her feet.
“Why on earth would I fire you?”
“Isn’t that what you do?” Something inside me shifts and I falter slightly as she takes the yarn from my hand, I almost release it too early.
“Not without cause.” I’m quick to clear my throat and regain my composure as I step back from her, unsure why her comment made me feel so off-balance. Shouldn’t I be glad that my reputation precedes me?
“I’m knitting a scarf,” she blurts suddenly, her eyes flicking down as she shoves the ball of yarn into a carpet bag.
“I don’t recall asking,” I state, annoyed at my reaction and annoyed at her for causing it. Maybe I shouldfire her? If she’s worried that I’m going to, then I obviously have the power to do so. That can only mean that she’s the new assistant HR had sent up. And so far, I’m not impressed. “But since you feel the need to tell me all about yourself, how about we start with a name?”
She scowls before she clears her throat and sets her spine straight, a sweet scent touching my nose as she steps closer, jutting her hand out in greeting. “Becca Maxwell. I work in admin. Well, I don’t anymore. I’m to be your new executive assistant.”
A slow grin curves my mouth as I look from her hand to her, my eyes taking in the mousey girl with the amazing eyes and more curves than a woman dressed so matronly has a right to.
“They sent you up here?” I question, my hands sliding into my pockets as my grin turns into a chuckle. “To be my assistant?” I take another step back and shake my head. “You know what, you were right in the beginning. This isn’t going to work. Go back down there and tell them to send someone else.” I spin on my heel and head back into my office, suddenly feeling lightheaded. Does she smell like . . . jellybeans?
“And what’s so wrong with me?” she demands, following me in with an adorably indignant jut of her chin. “I’m just as capable as anyone else down there, if not more so. I’m probably the fastest and most efficient admin assistant they have. I’m also great at communicating, and I’m excellent at leading and working as part of a team. So, you don’t get to take one look at me and make a judgment about what you think I can and can’t do because you’ll be wrong, and I’ll prove it. I don’t know if you have something against me being a woman or if you just have something against me being fat. But I’m pretty sure that no matter how you look at that, turning me away at this point counts as either wrongful termination or discrimination at best.”
“It has nothing to do with either of those things,” I growl, reeling because this confrontation has gone from a nuisance blip in my day to turning me the fuck on. “I simply don’t want an assistant who’s too clumsy to get out of the way when someone’s walking right at her. In this job, I expect every member of my team to have their wits about them at all times. You very obviously do not.”
“Then what about him out there?” she demands, holding her hand out and gesturing toward Scott who’s now holding her box and knitting bag and gaping at us. “Is he fired too?”
Scott’s eyes bulge, and he looks like he wants to dive behind something and hide.
“He’s on his final warning,” I say, noting the visible relief in the set of his shoulders as he puts the items on the nearest desk and scurries away, probably hoping that if he stays out of my way he’ll be safe. Good luck with that, buddy.
“Then I think the very least you can do is let me have a warning too. Not that having some guy slam into me when I was waiting outside your door is in any way my fault, mind you. But since I just got this job and I don’t feel like explaining to my slimy landlord why I can’t make rent this month, I’d appreciate it if I could be judged on my work and not my ability to dodge obstacles.”
My eyes narrow slightly as the words slimy and landlord burrow their way into my brain, causing long since buried memories to rise to the surface. As I push them away, a sense of protectiveness surges inside me—something I was too young to provide when it was my mother on the slimy receiving end. It causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. If he or any man ever dares to make her feel uncomfortable, I will rain hell upon them. I honestly have zero clue where all this is coming from. Normally, I can find a woman attractive and do nothing about it. But in Becca’s case, something about her looks combined with her fire, combined with her tapping into something from my past is making me feel all kinds of unwanted things. Many of them completely inappropriate for the workplace. This reaction to a woman—any woman—is new, and I’m not quite sure how to handle it besides get away from her as fast as I possibly can. But she’s right. I can’t fire her based on looks alone. I have to let her do the job first. Shit.
“Fine.” I have to swallow a massive lump in my throat before I can even talk. “Set yourself up at the desk outside my office. Gatekeep both the phone and my door. I don’t want to be interrupted for the rest of the day. Understood?”
Blinking rapidly, she sucks in a deep, lung filling breath that only accentuates the size of her chest as she nods. “I can do that. Anything else?”
“Don’t fuck up,” I say, standing there with my teeth clenched tight as she whispers an OK, then turns and saunters out of my office, her head held high and her ass swaying so hypnotically my balls ache. The moment she takes a seat at her desk, I stalk over to the door and slam it closed, taking in gulp after gulp of air as I try to figure out what the hell just went on.
