Crash

CHAPTER TWO: EVIE

When I whirl in the direction of the voice, I see Alex, the company's managing director. All six-foot-something, dark hair, and blazing eyes glare at me from the door that had been closed a few seconds before.

"I-I . . ."

"Is that the Corp Comm file on the tire-recycling program?" he growls, and I nod enthusiastically. "Fucking marketing. They take so long with everything."

Hey! We do not! I want to shout, but he's obviously angry so I stand, frozen to the plush gray carpet.

"Gather those papers and get the coffee on. She'll be here soon."

She? Who? What?

"Uh, sir, I—"

Alex steps closer and his smell washes over me. Whoa, yum. I breathe deep a few times, trying to drag more of his scent into my nose. My heart pings around my rib cage.

"I told the agency that I didn't want the girls to call me 'sir.'" He gives me a once-over, and I detect a suspicious, or possibly skeptical, look on his face.

"Sorry, sir." I look up, then down at my feet. "Sorry, Mr. Jenkins, but I think there's been a mix-up."

"Yes. There has been a mix-up. Corp Comm has screwed up, and on top of that, the agency obviously sent me a temporary personal assistant who's subpar. Go get the coffee. My grandmother will go ballistic if I don't have something hot and alcoholic waiting for her."

I press my hand to my chest. His poor granny.

"The coffee's in there." With an arrogant gaze, he points at the door where he'd emerged, then walks around the front of the desk and sinks into the black leather seat. "And make it strong. Three fingers of Kahlúa—the bottle's on the table."

Shaking, I collect the papers and set the file on his desk. I guess there's no harm in making the guy and his grandmother coffee, right?

Sabrina would call me obedient for doing something like this, but I think it's old-fashioned manners. Even if Alex Jenkins is a prick. I'm an intern, and I'm here to make life easier for the employees. If I do, I'll be noticed and get a full-time gig. Maybe this is a test from the universe, and a full-time job at this company will magically open for me by tomorrow morning.

That's the kind of thing my business school advisor would say, although she never mentioned anything about what to do about arrogant managers. A sigh escapes my lips as I look around.

The room's something of a studio apartment, with a fancy stainless-steel coffeemaker on a sleek table near a small fridge, a clothing rack with identical dark suit jackets and white shirts, and a cozy-looking gray sofa that's aimed at a flat-screen TV.

He must work so hard that he stays here sometimes. I fiddle with the coffeemaker buttons. As the machine churns out the fresh-smelling brew, a disconcerting realization comes over me.

He thinks I'm his personal assistant.

It's kind of funny, really, a man so powerful not knowing his own assistant. But he'd said something about a temp, and with the mercurial temper he exhibited, I suspect that he goes through staff quite quickly.

Thank God I'm in a whole different department, away from such wrath. Even though he is impossibly good-looking, I'd hate to be around such arrogance for forty hours a week. And he's probably the kind of boss to make his secretary work overtime.

Wait. I'm working overtime. I calculate the time and a half in my brain and figure I'll get an extra . . . eighteen bucks in my paycheck if I work three hours of OT. I stifle a sigh.