The next morning, I was already waiting for my new boss when he arrived at eight.

  “Good morning, Mr Aslan. I’ve put your papers on your desk,” I said smartly, standing up to greet him. He stopped and appraised me. Today I was wearing the ballerina flats, which were hardly more comfortable, but at least I wasn’t in danger of face planting in them. He nodded.

  “Thank you,” he said, and turned toward his office. I gave him exactly three minutes before I knocked with his coffee.

  “I like it hot, you should know,” he said as I approached. I nodded and passed the cup to him. He frowned at me, clearly expecting that I wouldn’t have met that requirement. He sipped it, and his eyebrows shot up.

  “Is that hot enough, sir?” I asked, my saccharinely sweet smile in place. It had to be scalding. I’d smuggled a small heater in and hidden it in my desk so I could warm it on the go. He swallowed and nodded. I pulled my notebook from my pocket and ran through his schedule. I knew it was correct today as I’d spent time yesterday confirming everything.

  “Very good. Thank you, Miss Davis,” he said, and raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that everything?” he asked.

  “You tell me, sir.” His dark eyes narrowed, and he surprised me by standing up. He rounded the desk slowly, and I felt a weird, hot expectation throughout my entire body. Damn him with his chiselled face and body that looked like he could bench press me if he so fancied it.

  “Sir?” he repeated. “I never asked you to call me sir.” He leaned a hip against the desk, close enough to touch if I reached out.

  “You seem like the kind of man who’d like to though,” I said, without thinking.

  “Do I?” Aslan muttered, tilting his head to the side. “You don’t seem like the kind of woman who’d enjoy it, however.” I shrugged, feeling blood making its way to my face. I had to get out of here before I blushed like a schoolgirl.

  “I do what I’m told at work,” I said. Aslan raised an eyebrow.

  “At work,” he repeated. He hadn’t said anything wrong, and yet, the tension between us had nothing to do with professionalism right now. We were wandering into dangerous territory, and I couldn’t even bring myself to care.

  “At work,” I confirmed. His lips curved in a slight grin, and I realised I hadn’t seen this impressive man smile yet. Not even once. How odd, to be so rich, and yet look so unhappy.

  “You’re an interesting woman, Miss Davis, and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise,” he said finally, surprising me. It could sound like an insult, but in his warm tone, it wasn’t one.

  “They wouldn’t dare,” I heard myself say, and backed toward the door. “I will get back to work now, sir,” I said, turning smartly, and escaping the office like hounds were on my heels. I had to stick my head under the cold tap after that exchange. I was meant to be the one flustering him with my impeccable work. I wanted him to eat his words. Kill him with kindness, right? Yet, in a few short sentences, he’d sent my mind straight to the gutter. Margot was right, I’d definitely spent too long studying beautiful men. My mind was addled with lust at the sight of a real live, breathing one.

  It was time to get a grip, however, as billionaire business men like Khan Aslan didn’t fall for poor temp workers like me. Not in the real world, anyway. I had to remember that.

  CHAPTER 4

  Khan

  I’m a driven man. I’d built my empire through sheer hard work, focus and complete refusal to give up. I’d grown up in care for most of my formative years, and then, when I was a troubled teen heading toward early incarceration, a family had taken me in. The Aslan family. First generation Turks, they had run a restaurant, and had agreed to foster me, when no one else would. It took a few years, but their warmth and love helped me to turn my life around. I’d grown to love them, and everything about them. Their culture and traditions. Once I’d made it, I’d helped them retire to Istanbul, where the rest of their family still lived, and I visited them once a year. It was the only holiday I ever took.

  Now, for the first time in years, I had a personal problem, and she was sitting outside. I looked through her HR file again, and the other one, the report I’d commissioned from my P.I guy. Eden Davis, living downtown in a terrible neighbourhood, surviving on instant ramen and estranged from her only living relative, her mother, Vivian. I read about her roommate, and her last part-time job, her abandoned university degree, which she had very nearly finished. Thanks to being cut off by her mother, she’d dropped out with half a year to go. I devoured information about this woman.

  She’d no doubt be mad as hell to know that I’d had her looked into. I could just imagine the fire her beautiful eyes would spit at me, and yet, it was just the tip of the iceberg.

  I knew myself. I was a focussed, obsessive man, who had set his sights on great things in this life, and worked to the bone to achieve them. I recognised the same feeling while I watched Eden work. Quite without my consent or permission, my heart set its sights on her. My next great goal to achieve was to make Eden mine. I planned to pursue that goal with all the energy and intensity with which I’d gone after everything I wanted in life.

  Within two days of knowing her, I was already obsessed, and I knew the feeling would only grow.

  “Miss Davis, can you come in here?” I asked, pressing the buzzer on my desk. I watched her jump as it sounded suddenly beside her.

  “Just coming,” she said sweetly, with an edge that spoke of how pissed off she was when I randomly surprised her. I couldn’t lie. Her fire was half her appeal. I hadn’t been challenged by a worthy adversary in years, and Eden was certainly up to the task.

  She came in, walking with her long-legged stride toward me, and stopping just short of the desk, cocking her hip and brandishing her tablet. I had a sneaking suspicion that she could run the entire company from that thing, that was how good she was.

  “Remind me about the event tonight,” I asked her.

  “It’s at eight PM, at the museum. Black tie required,” she rattled off. I nodded.

  “Fine. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty,” I told her. She frowned at me.

  “Pick me up? Why?”

  “Because I’ll require your help there,” I lied. I wanted to see her outside of work, pure and simple.

  “I didn’t know that. I have plans,” she said.

  “So, cancel them. What could be more important than work, and double time, at that?” I threw in. She chewed her lip and looked annoyed. “What plans do you have? A date?” I pressed. So, now I was just being pushy, but the annoying thought had weaseled into my head and I couldn’t avoid it now.

  “Maybe,” Eden said, and raised her eyebrow at me. “But that’s not a question I have to answer.”

  I nodded, conceding that point, but knowing I was going to drag it out of her, one way or another.

  “Well, I would appreciate your company, as tonight is a networking event, and I have a terrible knack for names, faces, introductions, and the rest of it. Will you help me?” I appealed to her. Agree to spend the evening with me so I don’t spend the night sitting in a car outside your apartment waiting for a glimpse of you.

  She appeared stumped by my earnest request.

  “I guess I could find the time for triple pay,” she said finally.

  “Done. Clothing is provided by the company.” I said dismissively. She blinked at me, and then narrowed her eyes.

  “I do have my own clothes,” she said pointedly.

  “Not for this. Don’t argue about a paid shopping trip, Miss Davis. It’s a petty look,” I told her coolly. She thought for a minute on it and then shrugged.

  “Whatever, it’s your money to waste,” she said, and turned to leave. Good. She put up less resistance than I’d expected. The brutal truth was I wanted clothes I owned on her body. I wanted my money to provide something tangible for her. I wanted to mark her with my ownership in any way I could. I was that base, when it came to my obsession with Eden and I had already given up caring.

  CHAPTER 5

  Eden

  Khan Aslan worked until seven most nights. Thankfully, I could usually leave at five thirty. I never saw him in the last hour of work. He was too buried under the things that had piled up during the day. I couldn’t deny the man was brilliant and fascinating. He was clever and shrewd in a way I’d never known anyone to be. He was a leader, stamped in his bones, and his employees clearly idolised him. They’d obviously never been his assistant. As my few days week had passed, however, my admiration for him had started to outweigh my annoyance. His standards were exacting, and his manner was blunt as hell, but he never asked me to do anything outside my realm of responsibilities. There was no chance of sleeping on the job, however, which probably pissed a lot of his former assistants off.

  “Put your shoes on, we’re late,” his gruff voice spoke over my head, as I typed away on my laptop, completely absorbed in my task. I looked up at him.

  “Late?”

  “Yes, late. We have an appointment at four,” he said.

  “It’s not in the diary,” I pointed out. Mr Aslan sighed.

  “And yet, we have it. Get moving, please, Miss Davis. I abhor lateness,” he said. I sighed dramatically, my only recourse, as I shoved my feet into my thin-soled ballet flats and grabbed my bag and jacket. My boss was already striding for the elevator, of course, forcing me to hurry to keep up.

  We issued out onto the busy city street, and Aslan strode confidently to the left, as I followed him.

  “I forgot where you said we were going,” I panted.

  “I didn’t,” he tossed over his shoulder, before turning and grabbing my arm to hustle us across a sidewalk crossing about to change. On the other side, he didn’t let my arm go, but tucked it into his side.

  “I can walk on my own,” I said indignantly.

  “I am aware, but you are once again wearing inappropriate shoes, and I’d rather not have you injure your ankle right before the event,” Mr Aslan said.

  “Sir–” I started, as we stopped at another crossing, and he pulled me close, and looked down at me. Man, he was beautiful up close.

  “Calling me sir will not work for tonight. Call me Khan,” he said quietly.

  “Khan?” I repeated. He nodded. “You want me to call you Khan? What will you call me?”

  “There are so many things I want to call you, Miss Davis, but for tonight, I’ll go with Eden,” he said cryptically. I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “What are the other things? Mean things, right?” I pushed and he shook his head, the ghost of a smile touching his lips.

  “Let’s cross,” was all he said, breaking the spell that seeing him smile had woven over me, and pulled me across the road. This was an expensive part of town, and the shops and department stores that lined the road were ones I’d never been in. Now, Mr Aslan. Khan. Pulled me to a stop before a small, discrete looking boutique. It had that understated elegance that screamed obscene money. He went inside, his hand falling from the crook of my elbow to my hand. His fingers threaded through mine with shocking ease. Even more shocking was how right it felt, holding this man’s hand.

  “Good afternoon, Mr Aslan.” The assistants scrambled over themselves to stand up and look ready. Khan walked in like he was a tiger prowling through the jungle, making for a green velvet chaise longe positioned before a single curtained dressing room. This shop was by appointment only? Holy shit, I’d definitely never been to a place like this. Even the air smelled expensive and perfumed delicately. My cheap ballet flats slapped against the floor as I followed my boss, my hand still wrapped in his.

  “Good afternoon. Thank you for making time for us,” Khan said, a pleasantry surely, because who wouldn’t make time for such a wealthy client? Still, the assistants blushed and preened under his compliment. Ugh, not only were they adoring, but pretty as hell. What kind of shop only employed workers who could double as models? Not that I was jealous. Right, I couldn’t even convince myself of that.

  “I sent ahead my requirements. We are pressed for time,” he started, and the head assistant jumped in.

  “Of course, and we’ve prepared everything you specified. If you’d like to come with us, Miss Davis, we will get started.” The crowd of assistants flanked me, and I felt genuine fear. I wasn’t ready for this, considering I was ninety percent sure I had my underwear on inside out, and my bra definitely had a couple of holes in the lace.

  “Is this for an outfit for the event tonight, I take it?” I asked Khan, as he released my hand, and sat on the chaise longe, pulling his phone out of his pocket, and opening an email. His eyes remained on the screen when he answered me.

  “Among other things. Get started, we can talk about it later,” he said shortly, dismissing me.

  “We can talk about it now,” I stated flatly, my patience with his mysterious air finally running out. Khan’s eyes fixed on mine, and he set down his phone and stood up. The assistants collectively stepped back, such was the power of the dangerous energy that my boss was directing at me right now.

  “Fine, let’s talk about it now. Alone,” he said, with a clipped tone that I recognised as him being truly pissed off. Well, that was fine, and it didn’t scare me at all, I told myself, somewhat desperately, as I followed him behind the dressing room curtain, the only place we could talk alone in this fish tank of a boutique. As I fought my way through multiple layers of expensive heavy velvet, I finally broke free, and slammed right into Khan’s chest. He was waiting for me just inside, and now I had plastered myself against his hard front. It was altogether too nice to move, and he made no attempt to step back, either. “Are you competing in some kind of contest to be the most difficult person in the world?” he immediately growled at me.

  “If I was, I’d only win runner up to you,” I replied immediately, my sense of challenge fully roused by his scathing tone.

  Fire danced in his eyes.

  “You do remember I am your boss, don’t you, Eden? Or do you speak to all your employers so obstinately?”

  “No, because no one pisses me off like you do,” I ground out, before thinking better of it. Oops. Looked like I might be putting myself out of a job right now, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

  “And why is that?” he asked, seeming to loom closer.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. He watched me closely a moment more, and then his ridiculously handsome mouth curved in a grin that I knew I’d never forget. It was positively wicked.

  “Liar. I think you do know. We both do,” he said. My mouth felt dry as bone, and breathing was proving a little challenging right now, too. I felt dizzy almost, and swayed against his chest, hardly enough to be noticeable, and yet, his hands immediately came up to hold me, his long, warm fingers gripping me tightly. I bet everything this man did was hard, and rough, powerful, like he was. The thought made heat billow down my spine.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, the words false in my mouth. His grin twisted into something darker.

  “The time you have left to pretend that is running out, bit by bit, Eden, but I’ll give you a few more days. Be aware, however, if you want to forget that I’m your boss… I’ll forget it too. Act accordingly, if you’re ready for that.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Figure it out yourself. Now, stop making a fuss. Try on the clothes, let me see them, and don’t complain about me buying them. You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had, and I won’t see you dressed in rags, with shoes that pain you. I won’t stand for it one more day,” he said. His words made me feel strange inside. One part annoyed, another part flattered and a lot turned on by the things I felt he wasn’t quite saying. One thing was for sure, it felt nice to be noticed, and cared for, even in this small way.

  He waited until I nodded and then moved past me.

  “Why do you need to see them?” I asked suddenly, focusing on that odd request. My voice was throaty and low, and needy as fuck. Did I want my sexy, arrogant older boss to want me? Fuck yeah, I did, and it sounded as obvious as hell.

  “Because it’ll save me the effort of obtaining the shop’s security footage,” he said smoothly, and surprised me with the left-field comment. I turned to look at him, and a shocked laugh left me.

  “Did you just make a joke?” I asked, a smile cracking my serious mood and shaking it off. He raised an eyebrow.

  “What do you think?” he merely asked, and ducked out of the changing room. I laughed into the silence left behind. Khan Aslan, a comedian. Who’d have thought it?

  CHAPTER 6

  Khan

  The town car cut through the dark streets winding downtown toward Eden’s apartment. I stared out at the increasingly seedy houses and shops lining the road, anxiety building in my veins.

  She couldn’t stay in this neighbourhood. It was too dangerous. I’d lived in worse than this, but not by much. The knowledge that she came back here after work was keeping me awake at night.

  I rubbed my chilled hands together and tried to shake the feeling of ice cold water from me. It had taken a thirty minute long cold shower to get me soft enough to even get my tux pants zipped up, thanks to Eden’s little display at the store. My beautiful, funny girl, my sunshine, had turned my outrageous request into a parody, and paraded the outfits that had been lined up for her back and forth for me, posing with her entire, delectable body. She’d had a blast, her sunny smile firmly back in place, while I had known a new kind of torment. Keeping my hands off my personal ray of light with the sharp tongue, and even sharper wit, had nearly been impossible. I’d almost tipped my hand earlier in the changing room. I’d wanted to claim her mouth, and press her against the glass wall behind us and fuck her hard, holding her face to the reflection, making her see exactly who it was she now belonged to. Yet, it wasn’t time yet.

  She thought I was joking about the security footage. I wasn’t. I already had it. No one else got to see Eden parading about in her new workwear but me. She thought I was only worried about the company’s reputation when I got her new office wear. I wasn’t. I couldn’t care less what anyone thought of Eden’s clothes. They shouldn’t be looking. Eden was mine. I wanted to wrap every inch of her body in the things I had paid for. I wanted to provide every scrap of food that she ate, and sip of liquid that she drank. I wanted her to live in a house I provided for her. I wanted to give her everything, and in return, win the only thing I’d truly wanted in as long as I could remember. Her.

 

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