I’d already begun regretting my decision while I watched Addison walk away from my office.

It had been about nine years since I’d last seen her. There had always been something about her that made me sit up and take notice, and it wasn’t just her looks, though they did help. She was pretty, in a nontraditional way, with deep, expressive brown eyes, a bit of a prominent chin even without the bloody scratch drawing attention to it, and a simple haircut I suspected she gave herself. Paired with her cheap navy skirt, jacket, and a broken heel with glue seeping from it, she shouldn’t have affected me the way she always had.

Maybe it was because I knew so much about her past. And the fact that I blamed myself for some of it.

A runaway at seventeen, she’d put herself through college and had graduated near the top of her class. She was quoted her junior year in the college newspaper that her dream was to open her own psychology practice, but something must’ve changed to land her here at kink.club. All of this and more had been gleaned from a thorough background check that was required of all employees. I started that process as soon as I saw her resume. I’d already known I was going to hire her, not just because of my guilt, but because of her grade point average and educational background. Pair those things with her obvious desperation for a job, and I knew I’d made the right choice.

Except seeing her again had stirred those old feelings up. Working with her might turn into more of a punishment for me rather than a way to rid me of my guilt. It had been all I could do to keep my eyes level with hers instead of devouring every inch of her womanly curves. Those curves that were currently swaying into the elevator. Those curves that hadn’t been nearly as pronounced nine years ago as they were now.

Darla, the receptionist, sent me a withering look, then cut her gaze to the closing elevator. Point taken. If it were up to Darla, I would never look at any other female except her. I’d thought about doing more than looking with her, but she was just...Darla. Addison, or Addie as I used to call her, was so much more.

With a bored nod toward Darla, I retreated back inside my office and closed the door. The cityscape view spread out in front of me with a bright blue backdrop and sunlight winking off skyscraper windows. I loosened my tie and stepped toward the window, my windpipe narrowing despite my large office and never-ending view.

Darla buzzed the office, a sound I’d once found pleasant before she’d replaced Mrs. Hanover, the elderly receptionist, who claimed to be everyone’s grandmother.

“Tate’s here to see you,” Darla said.

I reluctantly straightened my tie again and then hit the answering buzzer on my desk. “Send him in.”

A moment later, Tate strolled in, his blond hair slicked back and his Hollywood smile on full display. “Your receptionist is hot, Cyrus. You think she enjoys a little knife play?”

“If the knives have been dipped in dry ice first, then sure.” I shrugged. “How the hell would I know?”

“So you’re not tapping it, I see,” he said, taking the seat where Addie had been just minutes ago.

“Are you here to talk about my sex life or your lack of one?” I couldn’t help my impatience around Tate. It must’ve had something to do with his face. He was regional manager of kink.club and enjoyed reminding everyone of that when he wasn’t breathing down everyone’s necks.

He chuckled as he sat back and crossed his ankle on his opposite knee. “It’s a good thing I like you, Cyrus. Otherwise, I might have to fire you.”

Empty threats and he knew it, the fucker.

“Kink.club’s investors, including Savannah, will be here Monday,” he said, watching me closely, because that was a threat I had to take seriously.

“You’re shitting me.” I knew this day was coming, when I’d have to pull out charts and graphs and tell all of them exactly what they wanted to hear, but we were so far behind. They’d find out whether I told them or not. They’d point fingers.

The truth was the whole company was in over its head. We didn’t have the staff, and even if we did, there weren’t enough hours in the day to match all the accepted applicants up with their perfect match. Because there was so much pressure from the investors and the owner of kink.club, I suspected some offices—including this one—weren’t being completely ethical in all the ways they tried to maintain the company’s overall 97 percent match success rate. When and if I saw any wrongdoing in action by my own employees, I would deal with it. Swiftly.

“I think you know what you have to do before then.” Tate plucked an imaginary piece of lint off the leg of his suit, only a couple pinstripes different than mine. “The KC office is two weeks behind the contract date, and the complaints are starting to pile up.”

It was actually closer to three weeks behind. Our office, like all of kink.club, had become flooded with people signing up. Of course, we couldn’t choose everyone, but those we did required a ton of time to determine who their match would be. We’d guaranteed an eight-week turnaround time between acceptance and a match, but we were rocketing toward eleven weeks, even though the whole company was working their asses off. I saw to that every day, at least in the Kansas City office.

“You said yourself once that you run a well-oiled machine here,” Tate continued. “Now it’s time to see how fast your machine can go without breaking down.”

I leveled him with a glare. “By Monday.”

“They also want to see our 97 percent success rate go up, not just in this office, but all across the world.” His smug smile made me want to karate chop his throat.

“Let me guess,” I said. “By Monday.”

“No.” He bounced his foot dangling over his knee, seeming to enjoy the impossible situation he was putting me in. “But soon.”

“My field psychologists are already overworked, so I’m to tell them to speed up the lag time while making fewer mistakes than they already do?” I sat back in my chair, shaking my head. “It’s Thursday, Tate. You’re asking the impossible if you want us to be all caught up by Monday.”

He shrugged. “Hire more people.”

“I just did.”

“See?” He stood and slapped me on the shoulder. “A well-oiled machine.”