I can barely hear my footsteps on the thick plush carpet as I follow behind the austere tall man wearing a butler’s uniform.

A real freaking butler’s uniform, by the way. I’ve never actually seen someone wearing a butler’s uniform in my whole life, but there he is, walking along ahead of me like it’s totally normal.

He’s reed straight and willow thin, and when I approached him out in the lobby, his eyes were crystal blue and startling. He looked me up and down once, nodded to himself, and gestured for me to follow without a word.

I have no clue if he has a British accent or what, and I’m totally dying to find out.

I think about asking him a question, but there’s something about this hallway. Paintings hang on the walls, paintings that look vaguely familiar. It’s like they’re common prints you see online all the time, except these look real. I’m tempted to reach out and touch one.

Except I don’t want to get fired on my first day at my mysterious new job.

I answered a Craigslist ad. I don’t normally do that, but I got desperate and shot off an email. The position it was advertising for mentioned being a personal assistant with basic duties like fetching mail and coffee, that sort of thing, but it was the salary that caught my eye.

Eighty thousand a year. That’s, like, an unreal amount of money, especially for a girl that graduated with an art degree. I thought I’d be painting professionally by now, except that’s not super realistic.

Instead, I’m following some random butler into the heart of Ward Investing, some enormous investing firm that I know nothing about, to become the personal assistant to… somebody.

Nobody told me who I’ll actually be assisting, which is totally weird in retrospect.

This whole process was weird. I sent an email along with a headshot (the first indication that something was up—they asked for a freaking picture) and my resume. I heard back an hour later, and was invited for an interview. The woman that did the interview was polite but distant and I thought I bombed it until she offered me the job on the spot.

Show up here at six in the morning on Monday, she said, and the job is all yours.

Sweet, I thought at the time. Eighty thousand a year. I mean, it’s an early start, but I can handle it for that kind of money.

Little did I know at the time, but I’d never see that woman again. I don’t even remember her name.

I hurry to keep up with butler man. He’s practically jogging and I have to push myself to stay close. This hallway is lasting forever and I’m starting to think we passed through the wardrobe and are about to step out into a beautiful fantasy land full of talking trees and crap like that.

Instead, the hall ends in a pair of enormous double doors like out of a castle. The butler glances back at me and hesitates.

“Speak only if spoken to,” he warns, and I’m surprised to note that he’s not British at all.

In fact, I think he’s from Long Island, if I had to guess.

“You will be meeting Mason for the first time, but you will never address him as such. You will call him sir or Mr. Ward, do you understand?”

I blink and nod. “Yes,” I say.

“Good.” He purses his lips. “Try not to embarrass yourself.” He turns away and pushes on the door.

I only have a second to reflect on that. I mean, what an incredibly rude thing to say right before I’m supposed to meet my employer.

And to top it all off, I’m finding out that this guy shares the same name as the whole freaking company.

I did a little research, I won’t lie. I googled Ward Investing, looked at the website for two minutes, and ended up on Reddit for three hours looking at cat pictures. I meant to do a more thorough investigation, but hey, there’s a reason I have an art degree and not a business degree. Delving deep into a company’s history and financials doesn’t exactly hold my interest.

I take a deep breath and follow the rude American butler through the doors. We step into a wide, deep room with windows on either side. I glance to my left and the view startles me for a moment.

We’re at the very top of the tallest building in Philadelphia, and I can see everything all around us.

I nearly run right into the butler before coming to an abrupt halt. He’s standing there, head bowed slightly, and I tear my eyes from the windows to stare straight ahead at the most attractive man I’ve ever seen in my life.

He looks fake. At least for a second, I think he’s fake. He’s the sort of guy you see in movies, or in fashion ads or something like that. He should be shirtless and covered in water and giving a deep, dark, intense look that suggests he’s willing to dry off, but only if I’m willing to get wet instead.

This man isn’t shirtless, but he does have the brooding look down.

I’d guess he’s in his late thirties, maybe early forties. He has slight stubble on his cheeks, bright green eyes, stylish dark hair swept to the side and back almost casually. His chin is strong and his shoulders look broad. I’d study more of him, but he’s seated at a desk ten feet away.

Mason Ward. My boss.

His eyes sweep along my body. I feel naked, exposed, and excited all at once.

“Is this her?” he asks the butler.

“Yes, sir,” he says.

Mr. Ward sighs. “Not bad, I guess.”

I blink, surprised. Not bad?

“Thank you, sir.”

“Has she been briefed?”

“Somewhat.” He glances at me. “She seems adequate, however.”

“Yes, well. We haven’t had much success lately with assistants, have we? I thought the last girl would work out but she ended up being terrible, just like the others.”

I can’t pull my eyes off this man. They’re talking about me like I’m not in the room and like I’m some kind of prized cow or something, and yet I don’t mind. He’s an asshole, but for some reason that gorgeous mouth talking in my direction is enough to keep me happy and satisfied, at least for now.

There is a little voice in the back of my head that noticed something, however. How many girls before me?

“Her name is Hazel Cook,” the butler says. “Twenty-two, graduated with decent grades from Temple University.”

“Major?”

“Painting.”

Mr. Ward hesitates before sighing. “Really, Rogers? An art major?”

The butler, apparently named Rogers, just shrugs. “We thought we might try something new.”

“At least bring me something with substance. An English major, or art history, but painting?”

I can feel myself starting to turn red. For my whole life, everyone’s been telling me that pursuing art isn’t worthwhile, that I’m wasting my time. What kind of job can I get with a BFA in painting?

I’m sick of it. Even my own parents gave me shit up until graduation. They refused to pay for a cent of my education, forcing me to take out a ton of student loans, which is bad enough. They didn’t need to heap all that guilt and harassment on top of it.

Now this random, gorgeous guy is treating me like I’m a ghost.

I take a half step forward, but Rogers drops his right hand in my direction. It’s subtle, and I don’t think Mr. Ward notices. I stop in my tracks, realizing that he’s trying to restrain me.

Stay silent, he said. Speak when spoken to.

I take a breath and get myself under control.

For eighty thousand a year, I’ll let this guy tell me I’m a worthless piece f shit every day. At least that way I’ll be able to support myself while still painting on my own time.

Then, when I’ve saved up enough, I’ll quit and never look back.

It’s a good plan. I just have to survive this gorgeous bastard first.

Rogers clears his throat. “If she’s not pleasing, I can find another.”

Mr. Ward sighs. “No, no, it’s fine. She’ll do, I guess.” His eyes lock on mine and I feel a thrill run down my spine. He’s rude and brash but so gorgeous, it’s hard to stay angry. “Step forward,” he says.

Rogers glances at me and nods toward the desk. I take a few steps closer and stop.

Mr. Ward stares at me, his eyes moving up and down my body.

“Turn around,” he says.

I hesitate and glance at Rogers. He just nods at me.

I turn around.

I can feel the asshole’s eyes on my body. I know what he’s looking for.

He won’t find it here. I’m not interested in that kind of relationship with him, even if he’s handsome as hell. I only want money. He can leer all he wants, but at the end of the day, this is just a job.

“You may turn back around,” he says.

I face him again, face as impassive as I can possibly manage.

“You didn’t enjoy that, did you?” he asks me.

“No,” I say.

“But you did it anyway. Why?”

“It’s my job to do what you say.”

He smiles, face brightening. “That’s right. Good. Most of the time, I’ll ask you for perfectly normal things. But every once in a while, I may ask for something strange. I may ask you to turn around for me, or bake me a pie, or any number of seemingly strange and bizarre requests. If you can handle them, you’ll do fine here. If you can’t, I won’t hesitate to fire you.” He raises an eyebrow, the smile still lingering on his lips. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nods at Rogers. “Take her out. Pay her for today.” Mr. Ward looks away, back down at his desk.

Rogers gently takes my arm and leads me away from my new boss. I want to linger there, stare at him, ask him questions, try to understand why he’s such a fucking asshole, but I don’t. I just follow Rogers out of the room, tingling a little, floating on air.

That’s my new boss. That’s Mason Ward. I’ll be following his every command from now on.

That’s stupid. I mean, he can’t really command me to do something I’m not comfortable with, right? If he tells me to take off my shirt for him, I can tell him to go to hell… right?

Although I’m not so sure I would. Those eyes on my bare chest…

Rogers leads me back down the hall and into the small waiting room I first met him in about ten minutes ago now. He turns and faces me, frowning a bit.

“You did well. One girl was fired on the spot during that little interview.”

I shrug. “Just did what you told me to do.”

“The bit about following his commands…” He frowns a bit. “That is true, you know.”

I raise an eyebrow. “How strange can it get?”

“It depends on how long you’re around.” He glances around, like he’s nervous about something. “We’ve been through six girls in as many months, and they weren’t all fired. Two quit on their own, said Mr. Ward was too… demanding.”

“I can handle demanding.”

“We’ll see. Your job is going to be simple. Show up here every morning at six sharp. You cannot ever be late in the morning. I’ll give you further instructions tomorrow. But essentially, you will do whatever he asks you to do, and you’ll be spending a lot of time just sitting around in this room waiting for him to summon you. I suggest bringing something to read.”

I frown and nod. “Okay. I can do that.”

“Good. I’ll take you to HR so you can fill out the paperwork, but the real job starts tomorrow. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“I’m sure,” I say, not feeling it at all, but thinking about the money and my damn student loans.

“Very well. Right this way, Miss Cook.”

I follow Rogers to the elevator with one single glance back over my shoulder. I picture Mason Ward sitting at his desk, glowering out the window at the city below. I wonder how much of it he owns.

I wonder how much of me he’s going to own by the time this is through.