His Challenging Lover Read Free

his help, of course.

Chapter 2
     
    Autumn came into the office early the next day, needing to get some work done in the quiet time before the rest of the staff came into work. She couldn’t believe the week she was having. First, her best friend gets arrested for murder and next, yet another assistant quits on Xander. That was the third one in six months! What does that man do that annoys them so much?
    Okay, so the last one wasn’t up to scratch. She was embarrassed to say it, but she’d known from the beginning that that one wasn’t going to work out.
    But in her defense, she had to work closely with Xander each time they hired a personal assistant for him. During that last round, she’d just short circuited the interview process because it was getting harder and harder to be around him. Keeping her distance was the most important way she kept her sanity while working so closely with him. Unfortunately, doing interviews for his assistant meant sitting next to him, feeling the man’s heat emanating from his body even from the distance she maintained from him. She couldn’t handle that for more than a few days so she’d convinced him that the last woman was good enough.
    Now she had to pay the price for cutting the interview process short. She had to go through the whole process over again: sit next to him, listen to his teasing comments, and argue with him about one candidate or another.
    It was an exhausting process.
    She couldn’t understand why even her office had to be so close to his. It was like the man invented ways to torture her.
    But of course, he couldn’t know how she felt about him. To the rest of the office, she and Xander were combatants with brief periods of peaceful coexistence. Lately though, those peaceful periods were few and far between. They had been snapping at each other more often lately and, although at times it was exhilarating, she had to admit that it sometimes became exhausting.
    Especially when one of his lady loves came to pick him up for their date.
    She truly hated the man during those periods. It wasn’t even that the man had a type! He dated redheads, blonds, brunettes. He escorted celebrities, famous actresses, social butterflies and power-hungry career women.
    With a sigh, she wiped her eyes and shook her head. “Enough!” she told herself firmly. “The day marches on!” And so would she.
    She turned around and looked at her computer. She had numerous issues to deal with and not much time to finish them. She was worried about her friend Mia who was battling murder charges, but every time she asked Ash about her, he just told her that he had everything under control. She had to trust him on that. And if anyone could get Mia out of that mess, it would be Ash. He was brilliant.
    Mia would be in the office again today, answering more questions from Ash and his team. Maybe the two of them could catch a movie tonight, escape from the pressure of Mia’s murder charges and Autumn’s irritating boss.
    She sighed and slid her chair under her desk, losing herself in the latest plans to make the law firm more efficient. Once again, she lost track of time as one issue after another cropped up during the morning. She loved her job, loved the way people relied on her to smooth out the troubles. Fixing things was her forte and she thrived on finding good solutions to every problem and keeping The Thorpe Group organized.
    When she finally realized how hungry she was, it was past the normal lunch period. She grabbed her wallet and headed outside, raising her face up to the warm sunshine. There wouldn’t be too many more days like this, she thought. The days were already shorter and there was a definite bite to the night time air. Winter was coming quickly.
    Despite the later hour, the lunch crowd at the building deli was heavy and Autumn sighed as she waited at the end of the line. This deli was always crowded but it also had the best sandwiches at a reasonable price for several miles.