I watched as Tiffany slept in her seat. Anything at four in the morning was early, but I’d gotten used to running this type of schedule. Business slept for no man, and if I wasn’t willing to do important shit before the sun rose, then there was always another man willing to do it. I typed away at my laptop and held some papers in my hand, trying to get myself set up for the week-long stint of meetings and re-negotiating contracts.

But it was hard keeping my eyes off my new secretary.

Her long, curvy legs were crossed at the knee as her head rested against the window. Tiffany’s flowing black hair poured around her shoulders and fell into her face. Her little button nose twitched whenever a stray piece of it would flutter around in her face, courtesy of the cabin’s air conditioning system above her head. She’d shake her head and that thick mane of hair would flutter, and the light coat she had on would shift. It fell over her shoulders, giving me the perfect glance at how her tight ass tops curved around her luscious breasts.

I ripped my gaze from her and looked down at the bag sitting at her feet. Besides that, she had her purse. An odd thing for a woman going away for a week. She packed light. Meaning she wasn’t high maintenance. Not like most of the women I knew, who had a suitcase for just the shoes they wanted to bring on trips like this.

I liked that. Her not needing so much shit.

I sipped on a mug of coffee and listened as she stirred. Her yawn was large and her sighs were soft. It made it harder to concentrate on the work in front of me. I peeked over at her and watched her stretch. Watched her back bow and her chest jut out and her arms reach up to the sky.

Her shirt came untucked from her jeans and I got the slightest peek of her soft skin.

“What time is it?” Tiffany asked.

“Nine in the morning our time,” I said.

“And here I was hoping I’d slept the flight away.”

“We’ll fly the day away because of all the time zone hops. We’ll land at one in the afternoon our time, but it’ll be seven in the evening in Zurich.”

“Sounds interesting. Does that mean we try to sleep again or stay up all night to try and acclimate to the time change?” she asked.

“I personally stay up. Whatever works for you is fine so long as you’re ready by ten the next morning for our first meeting.”

“Then it sounds like another cat nap will eventually happen for me.”

“A business.”

“Hmm?” she asked.

“In your interview, you mentioned wanting to start your own business.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kenneth.”

“Sorry. But yes, I do eventually want to open my own business.”

“Do you have a business plan?” I asked.

“Are you going to want to look at it if I say ‘yes’?” she asked.

I grinned as I shut my laptop, stowing away the papers between the folds of the screen and the keyboard.

“What draws you to the health and wellness world, Miss Graves?”

“Tiffany,” she said. “And I guess I’ve always enjoyed the world, as you put it. I’ve always been conscious about what goes into my body and what happens to it. I believe in pushing the body hard, but I also believe in treating it right. The issue I find is that treating the body right gets expensive, and I don’t think it has to be that way.”

“That’s a noble issue, Tiffany.”

I enjoyed the way her name slipped off my tongue.

“I want to build a safe haven in Miami,” she said.

“A safe haven.”

“Yes. For those struggling. There’s this misconception in the health and wellness world that treating the body only comes after the hard work. But sometimes, treating the body right is all someone needs to motivate them to be better.”

“Millennials call it ‘self-care’,” I said.

“I call it ‘a personal right’.”

She spat the phrase. Like it disgusted her. I knew there was a backstory there, but I didn’t want to press it. I didn’t feel like it was my place, though I was curious. Tiffany’s eyes were gazing out the window and her stare looked far-off. Like her memories had ripped her back to a place she didn’t want to be.

“I think what you want to do is noble,” I said.

“Which is a fancy world for ‘impossible’.”

I narrowed my eyes at her and she sighed.

“Sorry, Mr. Web-”

“Kenneth,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Kenneth. It’s just… it’s a personal subject for me.”

“Most people who begin their own business endeavors do it from a personal place.”

“I know what happens when someone doesn’t want to treat themselves right,” she said. “I know the toll it takes on someone when they continuously batter their body with things that aren’t good for them.”

I leaned back into my chair and crossed my leg over my knee.

“My father, he-”

She swallowed thickly and I braced myself for whatever she wanted to share. It looked like she needed to talk, and anything would distract me from the smooth skin still peeking out at me from beyond her untucked shirt.

“He drank a lot,” she said.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It was the only release he could afford. I tried convincing him to seek out other ways to cope with things. Talking to someone. Massages. Getting a weekly facial. Even treating himself to a simple smoothie to get him out of the house. But he didn’t want me touching him and every other avenue was so expensive he couldn’t afford it. Beer was cheap, worked quickly, and helped him get to sleep at night. People call things like massages and facials luxuries, but they’re not. They’re ways for people to take care of themselves. And people never reach out for them until they’re in a bad place. Like church.”

“Church,” I said.

“Yeah. The world turns upside down and people flock to churches for something more. Something greater. They find peace there. Solace. That’s why they stay. Because being in a common group environment gives them an outlet that drinking alone or doing drugs can’t. I want to fuse those two principals. Affordable ‘luxuries’ with that common sense of finding a group of people someone can be comfortable with.”

“Like a bathhouse,” I said.

“A what?”

“You’re in the health and wellness industry and you don’t know what a bathhouse is?” I asked. “They were popular in Europe with royalty.”

“You mean the places with massive hot tubs and group saunas and things like that?”

“Those are the places, yes. I don’t necessarily want to create a place like that, but I want to harness that sense of community. And I want to do it in areas that thrive off that community. But most of those kinds of areas are poorer. Places in Miami that live off less than fifty thousand a year.”

“I admire your want to mix business and outreach,” I said. “That’s the new wave of how people do business.”

“You can blame the millennials for that too,” she said with a grin.

“I never said it was a bad thing. That’s simply how it is. That’s how the business world is pivoting. And if people can’t keep up, they’ll go out of business.”

“Is that what you’re wanting to do in Switzerland? Mix business and outreach somehow?”

“I’m still in the beginning stages of what I’m wanting to do with Casual Recreations. Eventually, yes. I want to tackle that world. But right now I have to get us out of some terrible contracts that have hurt us financially over the past decade and renegotiate them under new terms with updated supplies. This type of industry changes on a dime with fads and influences. I’ve handpicked some of the fads that have stuck around for the past two years and I want to jump on the bandwagon of a few that have emerged in the past couple of months.”

“Sounds like a lot to tackle in one week.”

“It is,” I said. “But we can do it.”

“Yes, Kenneth. We can.”

I bit back a groan at the sound of my name falling from her lips. Fuck. It was a gorgeous sound. I looked over at her and found her smiling at me. The smallest grin that tugged at her pillowy lips. She had a good heart. A strong mind. Personal ties to her beliefs and why she wanted to do what she wanted to do with her business. I admired that. She was strong-willed.

“If you don’t mind a few suggestions, there are things already coming to mind,” I said.

“Shoot,” she said.

“One thing spas of any sort don’t have is a community day. A day where they open and offer services that bring people together. You could do a Friday or Saturday night event where services are half-priced and there’s drinks for people to enjoy. They can come and get pampered with their girlfriends, have a good time. It would help you establish a customer base in the beginning. But what will really set you apart is having a place for the guys as well. Spas are very female-centric. Which is fine, because the market is dominated by female customers. But men are emerging and taking care of themselves, but don’t have a place to go. Having a place for men to go and get pampered as well will really set you apart.”

Tiffany was the type of business person I wanted to help. Someone with a deep sense of ethical and moral duty to their community. That was why I’d gotten into the company-flipping industry in the first place. I went into towns and areas that were failing and helped revive their greatest assets. It put cities back on the map, paved the way for more jobs, and people flourished. Families flourished. Which breathed new life back into towns across the country. I’d take a measly ten or twelve percent of all their future profits to fund my efforts, and I got to single-handedly piece cities back together and give them hope.

But Tiffany didn’t respond to any of my suggestions. Instead, all she did was nod.

I could see a sort of worry in her eyes, and I figured it was about the business trip. She’d never been out of the country and now she was flying halfway across the world on a private jet. I reached for my laptop and opened it, then grabbed the papers I’d stowed away before they fluttered to the floor.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “The trip won’t be as hefty as you think. You being new to the job won’t hinder you during something like this.”

“I know,” Tiffany said, “And I’m not.”

Then her stare grew far-off again.

I admired her resolve and her want to put up a strong facade, but I knew something was bothering her. Did she not like my suggestions? She could've told me to stop. It wouldn't have been an issue. I figured we were having a friendly discussion, but maybe she still saw me as simply her boss.

Or, maybe she was distracted by something.

That I couldn't afford. This was a big week and I needed her attention where it counted, taking notes and at my side. The week was going to pass by quickly and there were eleven meetings in the six-day period we were slated for in Zurich. This type of workload required a great deal of attention and energy, and I couldn't have her gazing out a window while all of us talked around her. It would look bad on me and it would cause her to lose pieces of information I needed her recording in the minutes for each meeting.

Maybe I needed to get her a recording device in case she did zone out.

I watched her for a few seconds as she gazed out the window, her body growing slack against the chair. If she was aware of me staring at her, she made no show of it. Tiffany was in her own little world. Lost in her thoughts. Unfocused in her actions.

She was distracted.

And I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake in hiring someone that was easily distracted.