The next few days brought much of the same trauma. Audrey found herself waking at dawn—far earlier than she did as a PR rep—and scrambling up to walk the dog the Sheikh had adopted with a previous girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend, a model from South America this time, didn’t have a single kind word to say about the Sheikh, and the animal was a huffing bulldog who seemed moments from either biting Audrey or passing out on the sidewalk.

Immediately after walking the dog, Audrey headed to the Sheikh’s penthouse apartment to make the Sheikh’s coffee just the way he liked it, with steamed milk and a drop of honey, and then prepare all his presentation slides for his meetings throughout the day.

By the time eight-thirty rolled around, she was ironing his clothes in the large, walk-in closet, listening to the Sheikh as he prepared for the morning in the next room: showering, shaving, humming to himself with the happiness of a man who’d clearly gotten more sleep than her.

But Audrey couldn’t escape his charm.

Midway through the week, she finished ironing his button-down shirts and hung them delicately across several hangers in the back closet. Bursting from the walk-in closet, she bumped into the Sheikh, who was standing in just a pair of pants, his shirt not yet retrieved from the closet. His muscles gleamed in the soft light of the morning, showing his perfect chest, his dark nipples, and his high, rounded shoulders.

His eyes danced.

“Good morning, Audrey,” he said, his voice booming.

Audrey felt a quiver of pleasure run down her spine. “Morning,” she whispered, speaking for the first time in the hours since she’d woken. “How are you doing, sir?”

“Just fine, Audrey. Got a big meeting with a client from New York this afternoon. I assume you’ve ironed my white shirts—”

“Just finished,” Audrey said, oddly proud that she’d completed such a menial task. In previous years, she’d had meetings with celebrities and not felt half as content afterward. “They’re ready for you. And if you need any help going over your notes for the New York client—”

“Ah,” Jibril said. “I don’t think that’s necessarily the duty of a personal assistant. Perhaps a PR rep—something you might be again in a few days.” He grinned, teasing her. “Just about three quarters left to go. Not too bad, right?”

Audrey felt herself almost snort. Wanting to keep her emotions to herself, she shuffled away from the closet and toward the pantry, where she began to reorganize his snacks for the coming day—something she’d learned his ex-personal assistant had made a system for. Apparently, the Sheikh took his nutrition incredibly seriously, and his personal assistant was in charge of tracking his carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

Audrey didn’t even do that for herself.

That afternoon, Audrey delivered Jibril a large mug of his honeyed coffee moments after the New York client left post-presentation. Jibril was seated with his feet up on the desk, his head leaned back slightly and his eyes facing the window, gazing out over the water. He was a perfect, stoic portrait, with thoughts like waves gravitating and emanating all around. Audrey could feel his focus.

Setting his coffee mug on the desk before him, she placed her hands on her waist, wanting to ask him what was wrong. In the main office, people were packing up for the day, clearing out, making time and space for their friends and family. But the Sheikh, who’d obviously dumped more women in the area than she could keep track of, would return to his home alone.

Feeling tension form between them in the silence, Audrey stumbled through some words, trying to build a conversation. “How was the meeting?” she asked him, her voice quiet.

Jibril didn’t move his body’s relaxed form. His eyes flickered toward her, taking a sudden interest, or perhaps only just noticing she was there. “Oh, not so great,” he said.

“What happened?” Audrey asked, feeling a pit form in her stomach. Why was she so invested in this man? Why did she care that he seemed upset?

“Just another billionaire asshole so certain I should give him a good deal,” Jibril said, his eyebrows high. “Arguing with him about the state of the housing market in San Francisco did nothing since he’s a New Yorker, and you can never convince anyone from New York that their life could be better or harder anywhere else. They love the struggle. They love to complain.”

Audrey grinned, knowing this was true based on her few friends from the East Coast. “They’ll never learn,” she said, her shoulders loosening. She felt oddly giddy to be speaking with him so intimately. This was what she’d secretly hoped for.

“But anyway, that’s an entire afternoon wasted—and I hate wasting time,” Jibril said.

After a pause, he turned his head around toward her, almost like an owl. “Did you happen to finish printing those documents, by the way? I have about a million things to go over before my drink with the housing developer from Seattle this evening, after which I’ll be coming back here to go through the paperwork. Do you think you can stick around here till ten or so? Shouldn’t be longer than that…”

Audrey’s smile faltered. With a five-thirty wake-up time, she’d hardly slept that week and had been looking forward to a long, uninterrupted nap that evening. But now she’d be trapped at the office, shackled to the Sheikh’s schedule.

Frazzled, she heard herself blurt out, “Sure. Of course. Anything for you.” She couldn’t sense if she sounded sarcastic or not.

Regardless, the Sheikh took her words at face value. Rising from his chair, he slipped his business jacket over his firm shoulders and then shoved a large stack of papers across the desk, toward Audrey’s open hands. “And if you could just forge my signature on all of these, that would be wonderful. Can’t find the time.”

Jibril left Audrey in a sea of emotion and regret as he went to meet the Seattle developer. Gazing longingly at the ocean, Audrey remembered her past life, when she’d been allowed out of the office whenever she’d pleased due to the conditions of her PR contract. Now she was essentially a kind of slave.

The only sunshine in her life was her few interactions with Jibril—her captor.

The days continued in much the same way, with Audrey feeling increasingly anxious and exhausted from the continuous errands and maid-like tasks. After just seven days of personal assistant work, Audrey collapsed on the steps of the office, falling in a sea of white button-up shirts and sparkling-clean black shoes, which she was bringing to the Sheikh for him to choose which he liked best for a weekend fundraiser. Immediately, she realized she’d dirtied the shirts and scuffed the shoes, making them completely inappropriate to present to the Sheikh.

Bursting into tears, her spine bending into a C-shape, she recognized she was in over her head, that it was best she start over someplace else. Pushing through an additional week of this seemed outside the realm of possibility for her.

Besides, perhaps the full effect of her PR screwup was now forgotten in the public eye, making it possible for her to find a new position. She wouldn’t get to work with the Sheikh anymore, but she also wouldn’t run the risk of going insane or becoming increasingly exhausted.

Yanking the clothes and shoes the rest of the way into the office, she stuffed them beneath her desk, opened her laptop, and prepared to write a resignation letter, although she felt largely unqualified to be doing so, having not typed anything in the days since she’d been demoted.

“Jibril,” she began to type, her brain humming. She had to do this; it was necessary. “It has been marvelous working for you the past three months, but given the conditions of our new arrangement, along with my major mistake, I’d like to take this opportunity to resign. Thank you for the opportunity, and my sincerest apologies again for failing you.”

As her mouse hovered over the “Send” button, she waited, her eyes skimming the document over and over again. After a last-second panic, she reached for her phone, wanting to speak with her parents just to get their feel for the situation. It had been a long time since she’d wanted their advice, but in this case she felt child-like, nervous and unsure.

Before she could dial her father, however, she received a text message from the Sheikh. Sensing it would be more of the same—“Please, go back and feed my dog again” or “There’s a huge mistake in the granola bar stock in the pantry. Far too many carbohydrates for the afternoon. Please fix”—she opened it, sighing evenly, to find a surprise.

“Happy one-week anniversary of your personal assistant position. You’re halfway through! To thank you for your troubles, I’d like to take you to dinner tonight. I hope you’ll consider it.”

Audrey shivered. Mere moments before she’d sliced the connection between herself and the Sheikh, he’d asked for more personal time with her. Was this a sign? Hurriedly, she typed a text message back, agreeing to dinner. She was excited to get to spend some downtime with the attractive Sheikh.

Of course, she couldn’t immediately forget all the horrendous things he’d forced her to do in the previous week. The trash she’d had to clean up. The ex-girlfriends she’d had to corral. The dog. The shirts—the endless, endless button-downs, each of which, she’d learned, cost about five hundred dollars.

But she raced home, centered on finding an appropriate dress for the occasion, knowing that wherever the Sheikh chose to dine would be spectacular, exclusive, and better than anything Audrey would be able to afford for years—especially if she ended up putting in her notice.