Chapter 4

Zach

Underneath the Tree

I shake my head when she walks out of the room. “A draft.” I watch her shake her hands, and I know she’s nervous when she does that. Her long brown hair falls forward when she looks down to get the files she needs. Her tight black skirt fits like a glove and goes right up to her knees. Her black and white striped long-sleeved turtleneck molds to her body. Every single day she walks in like she owns the world, and yes, every day, I get here before her just to watch her walk in. Just to have those moments while she gets settled for the day to watch her. I also spend a good minute after to make sure my cock goes down, and I don’t embarrass myself.

“Are you coming?” She sticks her head in, and I pick up the folder that I need.

We walk side by side, and I get a whiff of her citrus smell. Our hands graze each other’s as we walk into the conference room and head to the two empty chairs. I wait for her to sit before getting settled and open my file. “Sorry I’m late,” I say, laughing and looking around the table. “Let’s get started.” I look down at the papers in the file and see that it’s all different.

“Is everything okay?” Chloe asks me when I flip the papers over and over.

“This whole file is mixed up,” I tell her, looking at her and seeing her eyes flicker.

“You can use my file,” she says, handing me her own file, and we go over the notes I had.

When I walk back into my office, I go straight for my files when I hear Jax’s laughter. I look out to see him sitting on Chloe’s desk, and I get irritated. He does this every single time he stops by. “Stop flirting with my assistant!” I yell, and he looks into my office and gets up.

“Well, I see you woke up on the right side of the bed,” he says sarcastically, sitting down in the chair in front of my desk. “Is it the blue balls that have you so bent up?”

I look out toward Chloe’s desk to see if she heard him when I hiss, “I don’t have blue balls.” He tilts his head to the side.

“You haven’t had sex in over a year,” he reminds me, and I glare at him. “If they aren’t blue, they are fifty pounds.”

“I’ve been …” I don’t even know what to say.

“I know you’ve been saving yourself.” He looks at me and then turns his head toward Chloe, who is getting up now.

“I’m going to head down and get something to eat. Do you two want anything?” she asks. I shake my head, and Jax looks at her and smiles as he shakes his head.

“Are you still going away for the week?” Jax asks, and I nod. “Are you still going to spend New Year’s Eve there?”

“I haven’t decided,” I tell him the truth.

“You know what you need to do.” He folds his arms over his chest, and I lean back in my chair. “You need to get laid. Find a girl and bang the shit out of her for the whole week.”

“It’s not always about sex,” I tell him. “It’s about …”

“If you even mention the L-word,” he says, “I’m going to …”

The knock on the door has us both looking up. “I got you a protein shake,” Chloe says, coming in and handing it to me.

“Thank you,” I say, and I just smile as she walks out.

“You need to fire her,” Jax says, and I look at him as he gets up. “Fire her, and then you can have sex with her.”

“She’s the best assistant I’ve ever had.” Ignoring the fact that the thought of not seeing her every day is worse than I can put into words. He turns and looks at the tree and then back at me.

“Your tree is tilted to the side,” he says, and I look back at the tree.

“Yeah, it was draft,” I tell him, and he looks at me, his eyebrows going together.

“A draft?” he says, laughing. “What kind of draft is going to knock down a Christmas tree?”

“A strong one,” I say, and I look out the doorway to see Chloe at her desk typing away.

He shakes his head and walks out, giving Chloe a smirk. I watch her to see if she watches him as he walks out, but instead, she turns her back to him and goes over to the files she has next to her.

It looks like the same stack of files she handed me yesterday right before she left. The same stack of files I found her letter in. I open my drawer and see the letter. It’s crumpled from being shoved into Tiff’s pocket.

I grab a file and flip it open and see that all the pages in this one are wrong too. “Chloe.” I call her name, and she gets up and comes into my office. I watch her walk to me and see that her green eyes are a touch darker. “All these files,” I say, flipping the second one open, “are all mixed up.”

“Oh, no.” She comes to my side and looks in a couple of them. “Did you knock them over?” I look at her, confused. “I’m just asking. Maybe you knocked them over when you left, and the cleaning crew just picked them up for you?”

“I think I would hear files falling to the floor as I leave,” I tell her, and she tilts her head. “It must be that draft.”

Her eyes fly back down, and I can see she’s trying to think of something. “Why don’t I take these”—she grabs all the files in her arms—“and sort them and then bring them back in?”

“I’d be careful if I was you,” I say. She looks back, holding the files against her chest. “I just felt a draft.” She doesn’t say anything. She just nods her head and turns around to walk out of the room.