The week started as badly as the previous one had ended well. Our supposedly cut and dried acquisition of a shipping company had gone tits up first thing Monday morning. The mess with the contract, Marisela, and Violet sure as hell hadn’t helped.

On top of that, Gage and I were barely speaking. We’d finally had it out this morning over breakfast.

Gage had started in on me as soon as I sat at the table. “You have to fire her. She’s a liability and keeping an eye on her is a waste of company resources.”

“Stay out of it,” I said, ignoring him to put hot sauce on my scrambled eggs.

“The hell I will,” he’d responded.

The frustration beneath his words told me Gage wasn’t prepared to let it go. Fine. We might as well settle this. “I’ll fire her soon. I promise. But you’re going to have to drop the attitude. I’ll get Violet out of the company, but I’m keeping her in my life. I don’t want to worry you’re going to be an asshole every time you see her.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Gage said. He was usually good at controlling his temper, but something about Violet got under his skin. I had a feeling I knew what it was.

“You’re wrong about her, you know,” I said, calmly, before taking a bite of eggs. The hot sauce seared through my sinuses and my eyes watered. Better than a hit of caffeine for waking my brain up in the morning.

“I’m wrong that she took a job with us under a false name and has spent her entire time with the company trying to dig up dirt on you?” Gage challenged.

“No, you’re right about that. I think I’ve figured out what she’s been up to. But that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what?” Gage stabbed at his eggs, sending them sliding across the plate. He was seriously pissed.

I took pity on him and said, “She’s nothing like Elizabeth.”

Gage rolled his eyes, abruptly reminding me of himself as a teenager. Some things didn’t change.

“She isn’t,” I insisted. “They look alike, I’ll give you that.”

“Violet has a better body,” Gage commented, “I never noticed until she wore that dress, but she’s got a nice—”

I stabbed my fork in the air in his direction. “Shut the fuck up. You keep your eyes off her. She’s mine.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Gage said, “Are you serious? First of all, I’m crazy about my wife, but I’m not blind. And Sophie is the one who pointed out Violet’s, uh, assets.”

I shook my head, trying to imagine my sweet, quiet cousin in law commenting on another woman’s rack. The picture wouldn’t gel. But Gage was right, he was crazy in love with Sophie. I still didn’t like hearing him talk that way about Violet.

“This isn’t about her body,” I said. “And she’s nothing like Elizabeth where it matters.”

“I doubt that,” Gage muttered.

“You’re being an asshole,” I said, and told him how Violet had chased Elizabeth off at the ball, putting her in her place with a few well-chosen words.

“She’s just scaring off the competition.”

“Violet isn’t a gold digger,” I said.

“You don’t know that,” Gage said, shaking his head at my obstinance.

“I do.”

I didn’t. Not conclusively. But my gut told me that whatever Violet wanted with me, it wasn’t access to my wallet. She was up to something, and it had to do with our acquisition of CD4 Analytics, but I was almost positive the personal side of our relationship had not been a part of her plans.

Too bad. I’d meant what I’d said.

I wasn’t letting her go until I was ready.

And I wasn’t ready yet.

“Look,” I said. “Just back the fuck off. I know what I’m doing. I’ll have her out of the company within a week or two. Until then, leave her alone.”

“Fine,” Gage said, setting his fork and knife neatly on his plate. “Just let me know when this blows up in your face so I can help you clean up the mess.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said to his retreating back. The only response was a raised middle finger as he disappeared through the doorway.

I hadn’t managed to have a real conversation with Violet all week. I was too busy, working too late to try to see her after hours. I was exhausted and frustrated. By mid-day, the shipping acquisition finally tied up, I decided the hell with it and sent Violet an email.

Not my smoothest move, but the last few days had been endless and I’d worked through my reserves. I needed to see Violet. Alone. I walked past her desk every day and the sight of her serene features, the sound of her cool, composed voice, soothed me.

If I loved the way she’d handled Elizabeth, that was nothing next to the way she’d dealt with Gage. If I hadn’t been so stressed I would have found it funny—all the things she was guilty of and he’d fired her over the one thing she didn’t do.

Fuck that. She was my assistant. If anyone fired her it would be me. That day was coming. I couldn’t justify keeping her in the company for much longer. She hadn’t done anything unforgivable. Yet.

I wasn’t worried about her reading my emails. I’d already taken steps to cloak anything confidential. The same for the files. She was far better than an amateur hacker, but she wasn’t a match for my security team.

We were stringing her along, keeping her contained, but with every day that passed, I could justify it less. Violet had to go. I only had to figure out how to do it without losing her completely.

It was nearing six when I looked up from my desk to see Violet hovering in the doorway, an uncharacteristically hesitant expression on her face.

A little more eager than I intended I said, “Dinner here?”

“Soon,” she said. “I ordered Italian.”

“Great,” I said, glancing down at the paperwork I was reviewing. I was tempted to shove it out of the way and replace it with Violet.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she said. “You never ask any of the others to work late.”

“I think we both know you’re not like the others,” I said. It was the second time I’d openly alluded to her deception. Her only acknowledgment was a brief nod.

“You should have let Gage fire me,” she said.

“Why? What are you planning to do to me?” I asked before I could think better of it.

Violet’s shoulders slumped forward barely an inch, but from her, it was an admission of defeat. Taking a deep breath, she straightened, her eyes softening as they took me in.

“You work too much,” she said. “You’re tired. You should go home and get some sleep. You’re the first person here and the last one to leave. This place won’t fall apart without you. You know that, right?”

“So Gage tells me,” I said, dryly. “I don’t want to talk about my work habits. I just want you to have dinner with me.”

“Why?” she asked, softly.

“I told you. You’re a puzzle and I’m not through figuring you out.”

“You know this is a terrible idea,” she said. “You should fire me. Or, I should quit.”

“Just have dinner with me,” I said, “and we’ll worry about the rest of it later.”

The gods of timing were on my side. I heard the elevator ding and the doors slide open. Violet looked over her shoulder and straightened. She stepped back out of my office doorway, turning to say, “Thank you, Chris. I would have come down to get it.”

“It’s no problem, Ms. Hartwell, I was coming this way anyway.”

I was smiling to myself when she walked back in my office carrying a brown paper sack that smelled enticingly of garlic and tomatoes. She started to set the bag on my desk and I stopped her.

“Not here. Let’s eat on the couch.”

Violet looked at me doubtfully but did as I asked, taking the paper bag to the coffee table in front of my black leather couch and unpacking it. I went to the wet bar across from the couch and pulled a bottle of red wine from the storage rack. The wet bar was a throwback to my father’s time. Gage and I weren’t big drinkers, and neither of us drank during the workday. I’d snuck this bottle in with Violet in mind.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked, sounding vaguely disgruntled. She should since she was the one amusing me.

“You.”

“What about me?” she demanded, flipping open a styrofoam container of garlic knots. The buttery, garlicky scent hit me, and my mouth watered. Lunch had been a quick sandwich hours before.

“Chris called you ‘Ms. Hartwell’ and brought dinner up to the office. Who else around here gets called by their last name?”

“Other than you and Gage?” Violet asked. “I don’t know, I haven’t been here that long. Everyone calls Gage’s head assistant Ms. Emerson.”

“She’s been here since my grandfather’s day,” I said. “You’re a new hire, on the young side, and you not only have them calling you Ms. Hartwell, you’ve got Chris so wrapped around your finger he brought you your dinner. You’re a very appealing combination of standoffish and charming.”

The pink in her cheeks only proved my point.

“I’m not charming,” she said, shaking her head. “Chris spent the afternoon here on Monday guarding all of us. He’s a nice guy.”

“No, he’s not,” I said, this time full out laughing. “Chris is a former Navy SEAL on loan to Winters, Inc. from Sinclair Security. I put him on all of you Monday afternoon because the guys he’s been working with were on another project, but he’s here training them. He’s a hard ass son of a bitch, and not easily taken in. But you, he likes.”

Violet shrugged one shoulder. “I think he just appreciated that I wasn’t a pain in the ass about the whole thing.”

“As opposed to Marisela?” I asked. Marisela’s treachery had been disappointing. She had potential, but if she was going to let a little thing like competition lead her into bad decision-making, we were better off without her.

Violet shook her head and didn’t comment. She eyed the deep leather couch and the low coffee table before taking a seat on the carpet and curling her legs beneath her. She pulled her container of linguine closer and picked up a plastic fork. Setting a glass of red wine in front of her, I sat on the couch, my own food in one hand and a fork in the other.

“You don’t have to sit on the floor,” I said, trying not to stare at the length of thigh exposed by her skirt.

“I’m fine,” she said. “If I sit up there, I’ll spill this all over myself.”

I wasn’t going to complain, considering the view. “That wasn’t the first time Marisela played a trick on you, was it?”

Violet kept her eyes on her pasta, slowly twirling her fork in the strands and lifting it to her mouth. She chewed slowly, thinking. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Maybe not, but I want to know.”

“They have a right not to like me,” Violet said, slowly. “What Marisela did with the contracts was way over the top. She shouldn’t have taken out her dislike of me on the company. But the rest of it—” She shook her head in dismissal. “You and I both know why you gave me this job. But they don’t. All they see is that I’m new and unqualified. They worked their asses off to get where they are. I’d be frustrated too.”

“Was it just Marisela, or is it all of them?” I asked, trying to keep my question casual.

I’d suspected my executive team would give her a hard time when I’d put her in the job. Back then, the idea hadn’t bothered me.

It did now.