Logan Armstrong was hunched over his laptop, reading an email from the head of his app development team that was not good news. He should’ve known that scrimping on the launch of this new group in his family’s company wasn’t a good idea. His assistant, Stella—who sat through countless budget and development meetings—had warned him. He’d just thought that being careful with the startup costs would mitigate the losses if the whole enterprise ended up a failure.

So, he figured they could be conservative with their outlay of cash in the beginning, and strengthen their development team once they’d found some success, with little hit to the bottom line.

He’d taken over for his father nearly a year ago now, and was desperate to be enterprising and innovative, to show him that handing over the reins was a good, sound business idea, that he could lead the company into the future.

That wasn’t really working out like he’d hoped it would so far.

A loud, repetitive knock pulled him out of his work.

“Hey,” his brother Drake said. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d learned how to sleep with your eyes open. I’ve been knocking for at least thirty seconds.”

Logan took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I’m…preoccupied.” He looked out the door, surprised to see that Stella still wasn’t in. “It’s not like you to come by unannounced,” he teased.

Drake hitched his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Stella’s desk. “Your assistant isn’t here. Do you have her running around New York looking for a rare silk scarf with just the right pattern to give to Mom for Christmas? Or is she off to find the most exotic kind of peppermint the city has to offer?”

Logan grinned. “She’s out getting me coffee.”

Drake stepped in and took a seat on the opposite side of his brother’s desk. “An order a mile long, no doubt. I don’t know how she stands you.”

Logan laughed, the lightness that he felt whenever he talked or thought about Stella rooting itself in his chest. “It’s a game we play,” Logan said with a wide smile. “I occasionally give her ridiculous errands to run, she gives me shit about it. It’s one of the things that makes us work.”

Drake grinned and shook his head. “Mother would die if she knew that you had a thing for your assistant when she’s been working so hard to get you and Astrid married off.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “I’m not the slightest bit interested in Astrid Allen.”

“The tabloids say otherwise.”

Drake’s wife Christa was an insatiable gossip hound, one of her few flaws.

“The CFO of a Fortune 500 company shouldn’t be paying attention to the tabloids,” Logan reminded him.

“I needed something to distract me from the fact that we’re behind schedule on the app development if we’re going to release on time, like we promised our investors we would.”

There was an annoying older brother I-told-you-so in the undercurrent of his words that set Logan on edge. “The guys on the team are having some issues with the code. I was thinking about having Stella take a look at it. She’s like the software whisperer.”

“If your assistant can do better work at the coding than the people you hired to do the job, that doesn’t say a lot about them,” Drake replied dryly.

“Or it says a lot about Stella. She’s brilliant,” Logan said, fully aware that his luck was running out where she was concerned. She was smart, gorgeous, and talented…and incredibly overqualified to be his assistant. He wanted to move her up, to give her a promotion more on par with her abilities. But, he knew there were rumors circulating about the two of them, and he hadn’t quite figured out how to put her in a better position in the company without people thinking she slept her way there.

That couldn’t be further than the truth, although Logan would like it to be closer.

Somewhere over the course of their time working together, Logan had crossed the line and fallen in love with her.

It was dangerous, it was unprofessional, and…Logan didn’t care. He couldn’t let her go. So, he gave her ridiculous errands to tease her, hoping it would annoy her enough that she wouldn’t consider him an option, that she wouldn’t be as crazy attracted to him as he was to her. It was a defense mechanism when it came to Stella, to keep that distance between them so that he didn’t act on his feelings.

He was pretty sure it was working. Most of the time.

“You know we need it done by Tuesday or the whole project goes to shit. It needs to be done before people start leaving for the holidays.”

“She’s quick. I’ll get her started on it tonight.”

Drake raised his brow, skeptical. “That’s at least a week’s worth of work, and it’s nearly the weekend. And you’re supposed to go upstate to that party to work on investors for the Lennox deal.”

Upstate to that party he was definitely bringing Stella to because he couldn’t see two feet in front of his face without her, and couldn’t even remember some of the attendees’ names. The Armstrong Company’s presence was a fixture at that party, and Logan needed to keep some of these business connections. He couldn’t have a disastrous showing.

He also really wanted to see her in a gown, but he wasn’t about to tell his brother that.

“She can bring her laptop with her and, I’ll stay out of her hair while we’re up there, give her time to work.”

Drake shook his head. “I think you’re physically incapable of staying out of her hair. You’re walking a dangerous line, Logan.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I have amazing balance.”

With a frustrated sigh, Drake stood.

“Put her on it and see what she can do. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will.”

Drake walked out just as Stella walked in, and Logan pointedly ignored his brother turning back and giving him a look. Her long brown curls were tossed over her shoulder, her eyes bright and her cheeks rosy from the chilly weather outside.

She was gorgeous.

“Good morning,” she said, her words clipped. “I got your ridiculous, over-complicated coffee.” She handed the cup to him, then slipped off her gloves. “The line went out the door, so it took a little longer than usual and I will not be making that time up later.”

He shrugged. “Fair enough. It must be really cold outside; this is barely warm.”

Stella narrowed her eyes. “It’s hot, and if you’d like we can test out the temperature when I dump it on your lap.”

Logan couldn’t help himself, he threw his head back and laughed. “I’ll deal with it.”

He noticed the slightest smile curve the edge of her lips, even though she was fighting it.

“Why don’t you have a seat?”

She slipped off her coat and hung it on the coatrack by Logan’s door, then slipped a notepad and pen out of the pocket and did as he asked.

She was always prepared for anything, and Logan liked her sass. Women never gave him attitude, they never teased, never told him exactly like it was. So many of them fell at his feet because of his name or his face, but Stella would just as soon step on those feet if she pissed him off.

He really liked that about her.

Loved that about her.

“First, did the toys we donated get delivered?”

Stella flipped back a few pages in her notebook. “Yes. All five hundred of them—anonymously, just like you asked—yesterday at…eleven thirty-eight AM.”

He sighed. “Good.”

“Thanks again for letting me pick them out. It’s one of very rare fun parts of my job,” she said, biting her lip to keep from smiling.

“Hopefully you’ll think the next thing I’m going to ask you to do is fun.”

She narrowed her eyes, immediately suspicious. “What is it?”

“There’s something I’d like you to work on for the app development.”

Stella’s whole face lit up, and she shifted forward in her seat, suddenly more interested in what Logan was about to say. “Okay.”

He explained to her what he needed, and the time crunch they were in as she quickly scribbled away on her notepad, thankfully not giving him any I told you so’s. He would’ve deserved them, because she had told him not to cut any corners with the app development team. Many times over.

“But I still need you at the Abernathy party,” he tagged on to the end of his explanation. “I know it’s a lot, but—”

“I can do it.”

Logan saw the spark in her eyes, the way her spine straightened with determination.

“If you can’t, it’s—”

“I can. I just need…” she paused for a moment as she closed her eyes, calculating. “I need a day and a half uninterrupted. Can you give me that?”

“Absolutely,” he agreed.

Stella narrowed her eyes. “That means no asking me to go out and buy your dad a silk tie, no sending me off to find a special painting that I’ll have to hop on ten flights to pick up.”

Logan rolled his eyes. Even at his worst, he’d never been that bad.

“I’m serious. No being your usual pain-in-the-ass self while I go along with it and we play our little games. A day and a half.”

He eagerly jumped on the offer. He trusted Stella with his business. He trusted her with his life. “A day and a half,” he agreed.

She immediately relaxed, and offered him a happy smile. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”