I'm in the meeting room with Leon again, and he's not happy. I've lost count of how many times I'm holed up with the guy, but I'm CEO, and it's my job to meet with my senior managers from time to time.

I meet with Leon more than anyone else. He’s always complaining about something.

There's nothing pleasant about Leon. He's closer to fifty than sixty, but since he found out about his wife Martha having cancer, he's become an old man overnight. His blond hair has grayed at the temples, and every day new wrinkles seem to appear between his brows and around his mouth. They’re not from smiling.

It shouldn't happen to a person – you would think that thirty years of marriage would give a man some protection against bad luck, a reward for sticking it out so long. Even one who’s a dick like Leon. The universe is not known for its kindness.

"What the fuck were you thinking?” Leon asks. His voice is louder than I like it to be. Again.

“Language, please, Leon. We’re in the office.”

“I don’t care where the hell I am,” he says. At least he avoided fuck. “If you’re going to bump up a little ditz from the front desk I’m going to say something about it.”

And he has. Leon has been “saying something about it” for the last half hour.

“Jordan deserves the position, Leon. You’ve seen her résumé. You know how impressive it is.”

“Her attitude stinks. She walks around like she’s God’s gift to man and I’m not going to oversee her.”

Leon has been a senior manager in my tech department for a long time. He’s good at what he does, and most of the time I trust his judgment. Most of the time. Since Martha became ill, I don’t know if he’s as reliable as he used to be. You can separate your personal life from your business life all you want; if someone close to you is dying, it changes you.

“She has an MBA, Leon. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that.”

“Her attitude stinks.”

So does yours, I think, but I don’t say as much. It will only make him angrier, and he’s pissed already.

“You can’t shoot her down before we give her a chance. We wanted to hire internally. She’s the best we’ve got.”

“Find someone else,” Leon says.

I’m getting pissed off now, too. This guy thinks he’s going to tell me how to do my job?

“Leon, I appreciate that you’re open with me, but I’m still your superior. You don’t tell me what to do.”

Leon makes a face at me that tells me he’s not happy, but he bites his tongue. Smart man. At least this time. Instead, he paces the meeting room. I watch him from my chair at the six-seater table.

I can fire him on the spot if I want to. God knows he’s had enough warnings from me to be out of here already, but I don’t want to fire the guy. He’s got chemo to pay for, chemo that might not even work.

Losing your job when your life goes up in flames is a different kind of hell.

“I don’t like it, Wes,” Leon says.

I nod. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

Leon narrows his eyes at me. “Sorry for what?”

I sigh. “Everything you’re going through.”

His face softens and I glimpse the man that already worked here by the time I arrived. Leon used to be the star of RidgeCo, the kind of man that knew exactly what needed to be done to grow a modest San Francisco tech company into something spectacular.

He sits down in the chair he vacated when we started talking about Kylie Jordan. He’s calmer now. Sometimes, all it takes is sympathy.

“So, we’re looking for someone else, then?” he asks.

I shake my head, slowly. I know this is going to blow up in my face, but I’m pulling rank on this one.

“I want her as my project manager, Leon,” I say. “We need her knowledge.”

Leon blinks at me. It’s the silence before the storm.

“I knew it,” he says and jumps up again. There it is. “I knew you were going to fuck me like this.”

I close my eyes, biting back my temper. I can’t lose it and blame Leon for his outbursts.

“Language, Leon,” I say. “And this isn’t personal. It’s business. You of all people should know that.”

Leon’s temper turns into rage. He stomps his legs when he marches around the table toward me. I hold my ground and look up at him when he comes closer, my expression blank. He’s about to push me past my limit, especially when he points a finger in my face.

“You don’t know what’s good for this company,” he shouts.

“Leon,” I start, but his temper has taken over. His eyes go a little crazed, and I wonder if it’ss wise to keep him on when he’s acting like this. Leon grabs the closest chair and throws it. It bounces away awkwardly – it’s a standard office chair with a padded seat and metal frame – and hits the wall. Lucky for Leon, it doesn’t damage anything.

Leon storms past me and out of the meeting room. I’m left behind with the taste of anger still on my tongue.

I sigh and scrub my face with my hands. Insubordination like this is wrong. If he does it in front of any of my employees, I’ll have to let him go. So far, it’s only happened in front of me, and I feel sorry for the guy. I probably shouldn’t – we all have shit in our lives. But the man seems more and more unhinged by the day. And this irrational reaction to Kylie? It’s too much, even for Leon.

I push myself out of my seat, right the chair Leon threw, and leave the meeting room.

When I go down the third floor – one floor below mine, now – Kylie is at her new desk. The promotion is effective from today. She’s a vision. Long wavy her, the blond so dark some call it light brown, hangs over her shoulders. She hasn’t seen me yet, but I know without her looking at me that her eyes are the color of chocolate. Once you’ve seen them, you can’t forget. A splash of freckles on her nose makes her look younger than her twenty-eight years.

I walk to her desk, and she looks up at me. When she sees it’s me, she smiles. It spreads across her face like a sunrise, and I smile back at her. She’s beautiful, but it’s not just a perfectly sculpted face that gets me. She’s fucking hot. She has one of those classic hourglass figures with large breasts, an impossibly small waist and an ass that you can hold onto while you fuck.

And I’ve thought it about. God, help me, I’ve thought about fucking Kylie Jordan. There’s something about her that’s irresistible. When she’s not smiling her lips are in a permanent pout. I can imagine what it would be like having those lips close over my cock, those big brown doe eyes staring up at me.

It won’t be just a fantasy much longer. There are things I know about Kylie. Things she has no idea I’m aware of. Things that she’ll live to regret if I have anything to say about it. It’s almost a shame that someone as fucking gorgeous as she is will have to go down in flames in the end. But at least I’ll enjoy myself making it happen.

I shake off the dark thoughts and clear my throat, giving her a disarming smile that she has no reason to think is anything but sincere.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Wagner?” she asks.

She called me Mr. Wagner in the interview, too. I fucking love that. I want her calling me that while I’m hammering her from behind, but in an effort to keep up the friendly boss act, I shake my head.

“Call me Wes, please.”

She smiles again.

“And I want you to come to the meeting room with me. I’ve got some paperwork for you to fill out.”

She nods and gets up. I watch her move. When she walks around her table, she rolls her wide hips, and I turn away, so I don’t stare.

She follows me to the meeting room. I wait for her, let her walk in first, but I don’t close the door behind us. I know my limits. I don’t want to lock myself in a room with her, not today. She’s got a spell over me with her rolling hips and her fuckable mouth, and I don’t want to risk being alone with her. Not yet.

I’m a professional, but God, the way she moves has me hanging on by a thread right now.

“What did you need to talk about?” she asks when I tell her she can sit down. I sit down, too.

“We need to handle the paperwork,” I say. “And then you’re officially my new project manager.”

She smiles widely.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she says.

I smile, too. She looks so genuinely happy. It’s almost childlike. I have to hand it to her. She’s good. If I didn’t already know what I do, I’d never suspect she’s anything but authentic.

“Your talents were wasted down at reception,” I say. I don’t know why she was hired as a receptionist in the first place. She should be so much more with her MBA backing her. Now is the chance I know she’s waited for to prove herself.

“Thank you so much for the opportunity,” she says.

I shake my head. “You deserve it.”

She nods. I push the new contract toward her, and she starts reading it. It gives me time to stare at her without her knowing. It’s like poker. You have to know who you’re playing against, find their tells.

Her skin is like porcelain, smooth and blemish free. I want to reach out and touch her. I don’t.

Her blouse is a royal blue, and it makes her skin look paler. It’s perfectly modest, but it’s made of a thin, flowing material, and it traces her ample breasts. They rise and fall as she breathes.

She looks up at me, and I force my eyes to hers.

“I signed it,” she says.

I smile at her.

“Then that’s it,” I say. I hold my hand out to her and she shakes it. Her skin is soft when she touches me, warm, her fingers delicate.

When she stands, I can’t help but look at her body. She’s wearing slacks tight enough that they look painted on. I’m drawn to the apex of her thighs where the slacks are smooth over her pussy. My cock throbs hard and insistent in my pants. It hits me hard. I want to fuck her so badly. I don’t know where it came from – I’m not an animal for God’s sake. I pride myself on my control in every situation. But I want to take this woman.

I can’t stand up now without her seeing my erection. It strains against my pants, wild and trapped. It wants out. It wants to fuck.

When I look at her eyes again they’re large. Her lips are parted, and she swallows. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I swear she’s thinking dirty thoughts, too.

The atmosphere is electric around us. I look at Kylie’s lips, and we’re caught in a spell where time stands still. I can close the distance, now, and kiss her. I want to push my tongue into her mouth. I want to taste her. My cock throbs in my pants. Despite the lust the churns inside me, I manage a hard smile.

“I suggest you go settle into your new desk, Miss Jordan,” I say.

“Call me Kylie, please,” she says, mimicking what I said to her. Fuck, if her sassy attitude doesn’t make my cock even harder. I nod.

She smiles at me and leaves the meeting room. I slump in the chair. My cock is so hard it aches. I consider going to the men’s room and jacking off, relieving myself, but I don’t. I stroke myself with one finger and my cock twitches.

I wait until it’s gone down enough to be able to get up. When I walk to my office, I’m irritated. I want to fuck. I want to fuck Kylie. She’s so fucking hot it’s almost a sin. Hot and pure and so seemingly innocent.

Can I really ruin that?

Fuck, yes, I can. I didn’t expect my reaction to her to be so intense. I don’t need to let my lust cloud my judgment. I need to keep my head in the game and only think about her in that way in relation to my endgame. To winning. To coming out on top like I always do.

But I want to see her naked. I want to lick her and kiss her and suck her.

I want to fuck her.

Almost as much as I want to fuck her over.