A familiar form joined me on the elevator as I strode on Monday, yawning.

I’d come into the office this weekend to do Avery’s menial tasks. I’d had time to visit my grandmother, but looking for other jobs had taken a backseat.

Tough. If Avery thought I was going to back down this easily, he had another thing coming.

“You’re still here,” I said to Rose. “I’m impressed. How’re you getting on?”

Rose made a face. “Armand’s a little creepy. He checks me out. You don’t think he’d try something?”

“If he does, let me know. There are a lot of wandering eyes in this place. But wandering hands are strictly forbidden.”

Her expression shifted. “I like your boss’s hands. And he was really nice when we talked at Tilt Thursday night.”

My jaw dropped. “Nice? Are we talking about the same guy?”

Rose hit the button.

“And I know you said he wasn’t married, but I figured he’d be dating someone. He’s not,” she declared proudly.

I raised a brow. “And this is your golden opportunity?”

“No, I just prefer to ogle the single ones.”

“Wait a second. You asked him point blank if he had a girlfriend?”

She blushed. “Not exactly. I said Armand wanted to meet him for a drink after work. I asked if his girlfriend would be coming.”

“Sneaky bitch.” She blinked, startled. “It’s a nickname. I’m not calling you a… Never mind.”

We pulled up to find the cubicles pushed to the side wall. I read the piece of paper taped to one of the desks that’d been turned on its side.

“Unbelievable. It says that while they’re working, we’re in Reagan on seven unless otherwise assigned. We can grab our stuff…if we can find it.”

Boxes were piled on desks that’d been pushed to the edges of the common area. Some desks weren’t even accessible.

“I see mine!” Rose picked her way through the graveyard of office furniture to grab a box off a wooden table.

My gaze ran over the pile of desks. Mine was distinctive mainly for the burn mark on the corner from my portable hair straightener.

“Where else would it be?” I mumbled. Maybe someone’d moved it to Reagan already.

I turned, starting down the hallway with Rose in tow. I stopped. “No fucking way.”

Rose ran into me. “What?” Her gaze followed mine. “Whoa. You’re sharing with Avery?”

My heart sank. His office held two desks, not one. His faced the door, mine the closet. The L-shape put us a body length apart.

Normally I could barely keep it in when we were within shouting distance. This was slapping distance.

I took a deep breath. There was no way we’d both make it through the next week alive.

* * *

Avery’s office was one of the older ones, which meant no glass wall like the one Payton had. But it was bigger.

The King was out and, though I tried asking and begging and bribing maintenance, I couldn’t get anyone to move my computer to the Reagan room.

Because apparently my assignment was on the “master list.”

Fuck it. If we were stuck with this, I’d at least make myself at home.

My collection of brightly colored pens went on the desk. The stack of cardstock went in the first drawer. Nail polish topcoat, hair supplies, and tampons went in the second drawer. My spider plant Trevor, with his leaves that were crispy around the edges, got a corner.

I should water him sometime this week. But I liked the fact that he, like me, was a survivor. It was our bond.

I unbuttoned the top of my blouse because the air conditioning couldn’t keep up with the June heat, then set to work returning client calls.

“Hi, Mr. Siskinds. You wanted to reschedule your meeting with Avery later this week?”

“Yes, Charlie. I need to sort through the funding for this new location, but I’m not going to be available for a couple more days. Jinnifer has a cold.”

Jinnifer. Jinnifer. His wife? Or…

It clicked. “Sorry to hear that. I know someone with pugs, and they’re prone to respiratory issues. You taking her to the vet?”

“Amanda is.” That’s the wife. “You should see the poor thing. She sneezes and wheezes…it’s pretty damn cute, actually.”

His hearty laughter had me smiling and holding the phone away. The restaurateur’s chuckle would register on the Richter scale, but it was contagious.

“All right, well, I can get you in later this week. We’ll see you then.”

I made a note as I hit a button to switch lines.

“Avery Banks’ office.”

“Is my brother there?”

I blinked. “Excuse me, who is this?”

“Kenna. I need to talk to Avery.”

My mind struggled to make connections. Failed.

“Hello?”

I realized she was waiting for a response.

“He’s in a meeting but should be back soon, Kenna. Can I have him call you?”

“Just tell him it’s not cool that he went over my head and paid my tuition. We’ll talk this weekend.”

“I’ll pass along the message.”

She clicked off, and I slowly hung up the phone.

I knew he had a sister, but I’d always assumed she was older and that they weren’t close. He never talked about her.

I was still trying to figure this out when Avery strode into the office.

“What am I doing here?” I asked.

He didn’t spare me a glance as he dropped his black leather briefcase behind his desk. “You belong here. You work for me.”

“Everyone works for someone. It’s the well-tended hierarchy of corporate America. But the rest of the admin staff are in the conference room downstairs.”

Avery glanced over, irritated.

It was Jerry. In the Jefferson room. With the stapler…

I set the stapler—that’d somehow found its way from the drawer into my hand—back on the desk.

“I can’t find my office chair, so I stole this one from outside. The phone isn’t mine either, so I had to get my calls forwarded to this extension. But I also keep getting calls for someone named Ray.”

His gaze ran over my desktop. “Is that all?” Avery stripped off his suit jacket, hanging it on the coat rack by the door, and straightened his tie. I had a perverse urge to yank on it.

“One person did manage to make it to my line.” I played my trump card. “Your sister.”

Avery blanched. “Kenna called. Here.”

“She wants you to keep your tuition money. You know, I forgot you had a sister. You never talk about her. She’s in college?”

“Sophomore year,” he replied, distracted. He crossed to the window and paced its length.

“And you pay her tuition.”

“I don’t want your opinion on—”

“That’s decent of you.”

He turned to face me. Tried to hide his surprise, and failed. “I wish she agreed.”

I checked my impulse to retort something sassy.

It was clear from his expression how much he cared about her. How much this bothered him.

He dropped into his chair, rubbing a hand over his jaw as he stared unseeing into his computer monitor.

I lifted his messages, which he liked to get on Post-its, and carried them to his desk. I set them on the blotter, then on impulse I perched on the corner of his desk.

He rolled back an inch. Barely noticeable.

“This promotion. Is that why you want it? So you can pay for your sister’s school? Because you don’t have a girlfriend, or a drug habit that I’m aware of…what’re you going to spend it all on?”

“It’s none of your business.” He angled his face up toward mine, and my breath caught.

“Whoa.” I leaned in to get a closer look. “Either you got bit by a vampire or that’s the biggest hickey I’ve ever seen.” I eyed up the purple mark on his neck. He winced as I reached out a finger, brushing it over his skin.

“Dammit. It’s not a hickey.”

I couldn’t stop the smirk. “No? That wasn’t in your weekend list of activities?”

Avery shot me a withering look. “I was carrying the bottom end of a sideboard up stairs. The guy holding the top end stopped moving. Got a corner right in my jugular.”

“You moved this weekend?”

“I move most weekends.” He paused. “I think it’s self-explanatory.”

I shook my head, slow. “It really isn’t.”

“I used to do it in high school and college for money, but now I do it for the exercise. A former classmate provides free moving help for modest-income families.”

“So you move people. Is that like human trafficking?”

He let out an exasperated breath. “I move their things, Charlotte. Couches. Tables. Boxes. Why are you still looking at me like that?”

“It’s just not how I expected you to spend your weekends. I’d been leaning toward underground boxing ring. Cock fighting. Sex dungeons,” I added after a moment. “You know. Since the hickey.”

Avery raised a brow before he turned on his phone. He flicked the camera lens to face him, angling it to no avail. “How bad is it?”

“Everyone out there will think it’s a hickey too.”

He cursed.

I crossed to my desk and grabbed some concealer out of the drawer.

Avery pulled back when I approached him. “What are you doing.”

“Girly voodoo. It’ll take two seconds.” I bent over, bringing our faces close and angling my head so I could see beneath his chin.

He caught my hand in mid-air. “Don’t.”

“Why not.”

“Because I said so.”

“Not the most compelling argument.”

“It doesn’t have to be compelling. I’m your boss. I say things, you do them.”

“That’s not an office,” I commented as I handed him the tube. I winced as he squeezed ten bucks worth onto a finger. “That’s a dictatorship.”

He froze, goop-covered finger in the air.

I’d tried to keep my opinions to myself during most of our working relationship.

But hey.

It’s amazing the things you’ll say after you’ve been fired.

Once he recovered from the surprise, he began poking blindly at his throat. I bit my cheek.

“OK, just stop,” I said when I couldn’t take it. “Now it looks like you have paint on you. Come on.”

With a grunt, Avery lifted his chin. I inched closer.

I brushed his neck with my finger, feeling the heat under my touch. His throat bobbed as I blended the makeup into his skin.

“You have an issue with being touched?” I asked.

“Depends on who’s doing the touching.”

His voice was rough in the quiet office. The usual buzz of phones beyond the door was silenced, thanks to the carpet renovations that hadn’t yet started.

I used the pad of my finger in soft circles, trying to focus on matching his skin tone.

Not the fact that this definitely wasn’t in whatever dusty handbook of assistant duties lay in a drawer in HR.

Not that I was close enough to smell his cologne. Something smooth and spicy and oddly perfect for him.

“There.” I finished my work and recapped the concealer. “You look five years younger.”

Which was ridiculous because the man wasn’t thirty. Sometimes his accomplishments, his confidence, and his attitude had me forgetting there were only a few years between us.

Right now, only a few inches.

My gaze moved from his neck to his jaw, his face. The blue gaze that I swear sharpened when it met mine.

I’m not a stickler for personal space but the expression on his face reminded me I was all up in his.

“There’s something I don’t get,” I said under my breath. “If you hate me so much, why did you ever have me assigned to work for you full-time?”

Avery made a noise low in his throat. “You think I hate you.”

“Come on. You haven’t smiled at me in two years. I probably could’ve stopped showing up and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

He blew out a breath. “Trust me. That I’d have noticed.”

His low voice sent prickles down my spine.

“Mr. Banks?”

My head jerked toward the door and Avery shifted back in his chair. Emma, Payton’s assistant, hovered in the open doorway. “They’re waiting for you in Reagan.”

“I’ll be right there.”

By the time I’d looked back, he’d shoved a stack of papers in his briefcase and rounded the desk.

Without a look over his shoulder, he was gone.