Chapter Text
“Mr. Blackmore, your three o’clock will be here in twenty minutes.”
Sebastian glared down at the receiver on his desk, the soft voice of his personal assistant having pulled him from the monotony of numbers that he had been crunching. He cleared his throat as he pressed a button. “Very well, Ms. Ashcroft. I will be down at the conference room in ten minutes.”
Pushing back from his desk, Sebastian stood up and took a second to stretch out his back, the muscles on either side of his spine protesting the fact that he hadn’t taken a break since his last meeting around ten thirty that morning. He had been working on quarterly reports for well over a week now, burning the midnight oil and working well into the night as he raced against the clock to get them finalized.
A knock at the door to his office had his head jerking up but before he could call out to come in, the door opened, his assistant bustling into the room like a whirlwind. Her long chocolate tresses were pulled back in her signature high ponytail, the soft curls bouncing as she walked, tiny wisps of hair breaking free to frame her heart shaped face. She had on
his favorite
a black pencil skirt with a gold zipper, opting for a soft champagne button up blouse today. Her arms were full, one arm wrangling a massive binder—with all of its color coordinated tabs—that was never far from her reach and a large hot coffee gripped in her other hand.
“Your tie is crooked.” She called out as she plopped the binder on his desk.
He watched in amusement as she used her now freed hand to flip through the tabs until she landed on the purple one. “Why are we pulling out the hit list this early, Ms. Ashcroft?” Sebastian asked as he perched on the corner of his desk, his eyes glued to the soft curve of her neck.
A scoff slipped from her red painted lips as she looked up at him from behind the tortoiseshell frames of the glasses she occasionally wore when she was too tired to be bothered with contacts in the morning. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Sebastian always thought the glasses amplified the mesmerizing flecks of gold swirling within the soft, mossy green of her irises.
“Joja Corp. is not someone you want to be messing around with.” Her eyes narrowed at whatever look was on his face before her head dipped down, returning her attention to the all important binder. “I wanted to make sure you were up to speed on exactly what was on offer before you met with those vipers.”
Ah. That’s right, it was some new investment firm he was meeting with this afternoon. Fuck if he knew, that’s what he had an assistant for in the first place. Sebastian was good with numbers not people. “So why did we agree to the meeting at all then?”
“You don’t tell Joja no.” She said, like it was a commandment that everyone should be aware of. “You do your best to make things unattractive and—” Her voice trailed off as she looked up at him again. “Oh for Spirits sake.” She bit out, setting down her coffee then took a step towards where he was sitting on the corner of his desk. “Hold still.”
Pressing herself in between his outstretched legs, her hands reached for his tie, untying it then beginning the process of retying it as she muttered under her breath, voice too low for him to make out the words. Although perhaps that was due to the fact that his heart was pounding so hard he was surprised she couldn’t hear it. Sebastian had to physically restrain a shiver as her hands brushed over the skin of his neck, the soft scent of sugary citrus intertwined with indulgent notes of coconut drifting up to his nose from her perfume, making his mouth water.
She was so close he was able to make out the faintest dusting of freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose, a hint of faint shadows cast over the tops of her cheeks from the long dark fan of her lashes. She bit her lip as she concentrated on tying some sort of intricate knot in his tie and Sebastian had to look away before he lost the tenuous grip he had on his control and kissed her like he had been dying to since the day she walked into his office nearly a year ago.
Hazel fucking Ashcroft. If she wasn’t so damned good at her job, Sebastian would have fired her months ago, her very presence wreaking absolute havoc on his life. But no, the little minx had to be one of the most competent and capable women he had ever had the pleasure of encountering. She put up with his irritable moods, understood when he needed space and shuffled the calendar to account for it, she was organized to a fault, and hell, had even picked up on exactly how he liked his coffee each morning without ever asking him.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. And she was completely, utterly, and irrevocably off limits. He was a consummate professional, never allowing any of the filthy thoughts in his mind to see the light of day. Immediately shutting them down and stuffing them in the back of his mind whenever they arose.
Every so often, she would throw him through an absolute loop, throwing out signals that she was just as affected by his presence as he was hers. He couldn’t count the amount of times he had sat at home, a glass of bourbon in hand, and played those moments over and over again in his head, dissecting them and ultimately deciding he was reading too much into it before he drained the glass and took a long, cold shower.
But now, with her standing between his legs and her hands on his chest, he was having a hard time gaslighting himself into believing she wasn’t interested.
“You know a lot about Joja, yeah?” He asked, struggling to remember the train of conversation from just a few moments earlier, needing to steer his errant thoughts back into safer waters.
Her eyes flew up to meet his, a flash of fear he would have surely missed if he hadn’t been intently studying her, darkening the meadow green of her irises to the velvet emerald of forest undergrowth. “I used to work for Joja.”
Their lips were only inches apart, the air between them suddenly crackling with tension. Sebastian swallowed as her eyes flicked down to his lips momentarily before locking back on his. “Oh?” He replied, rapidly losing all interest in whatever it was that they had been discussing as a soft blush began to bloom over her cheeks.
“Mmhm.” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, her body swaying towards him, bringing them even closer together.
“Then perhaps you should be the one leading this meeting.” He teased.
Unable to resist, one of the hands he had been loosely resting on his thighs came up and tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, very careful to not brush against her skin, bracing himself for her to shake away his touch and step back. He felt her stuttered inhale at his movement, her fingers faltering from where they were still holding onto his tie, those pretty green eyes fixated on his lips again.
“That would be—” He took the chance, his hand cupping her jaw and tilting her head ever so slightly, as her eyes dilated. “—unorthodox.” Her last word was barely more than a breath.
Fuck it.
He moved, slowly lowering his head, giving her ample time to pull away. But she moved too, pushing up on her tiptoes to close the distance between them. Sebastian’s lips grazed over hers, testing, teasing, the contact barely more than a whisper of a touch.
The blaring sound of his phone startled them both apart. Sebastian’s hand dropped back to his lap as she took several large steps away, immediately turning around and bringing a hand up to her lips. He scrambled for the phone, leaning over his desk and pressing the intercom button. “What?” He barked into the speaker.
“Your clients for the three o’clock meeting are here, sir. They said conference room eight was empty. Did you change locations and not update the calendar?” The mousey voice of the building’s receptionist had him gritting his teeth.
He glanced over at where his assistant was currently pacing in circles near the door, her hands yanking on her ponytail. Shit, he fucked up. “Canc—”
“—don’t you fucking dare.” Hazel hissed as she whipped around. Her green eyes flashing, index finger pointed at him, cutting him off before he could even get the word out.
Sebastian cleared his throat, throttling back the urge to hang up the phone and finish what they had just barely started. “Mindy, let the clients know I was held up on another call. I’ll be down in less than ten.” Without waiting for a response he removed his finger, disconnecting from the intercom before looking back up at his flustered assistant. “Hazel—”
“—No.” Her hands smoothed down her skirt, something he had noticed she always did when she was anxious. Without another word, she moved back to his desk, resolutely keeping her eyes averted and head down.
When she reached for her binder, Sebastian put his hand on top of the damned thing, preventing her from pulling it off the desk. Irritation mixed with hot shame swirled in his gut. Surely, he hadn’t misread the situation this badly. “I’m sorry.” The apology felt like acid on his tongue.
She sighed, abandoning the binder and letting her hands drop back to her sides, still not meeting his eyes. “You’re going to be late.”
“Hey. Look at me.” Sebastian’s heart was pounding in his chest, he needed to get a read on the situation, hating the way he couldn’t tell if it was disgust or just embarrassment coloring her features. Slowly, she obeyed, tilting her head up, a stricken look on her pale face. Fuck. “I’m sorry, Hazel. That was inappropriate on so many levels—”
“Please stop.” Tears filled her eyes as she looked away.
Not knowing what else to do, he scooped up her binder and held it out to her, his heart aching as she grabbed it and held it to her chest like armor before turning and quickly walking towards the door. “Hazel.” He tried one more time, needing her to know, to understand that he was sorry, he should have been more in control, that none of this was her fault.
She whirled, her eyes flashing from behind her thickly framed glasses. “I said drop it, Sebastian!” His heart kicked hard as she used his first name for the first time. “Forget it ever happened, because that’s what I’m doing!”
The click of the door closing softly behind her was louder and more final than a gunshot.