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“You hired me to handle the things that need to be handled so you can finish your work in progress. Go work on that book, Mr. Thorn. Like I said, I’ll handle this.”

And just like that, I was dismissed.

I took it with good grace. No way could she handle that disaster of a room on her own. When she figured it out, she’d come to me and ask for the help she so obviously needed. I was content to wait her out.

“Suit yourself,” I said blandly and walked away. “If you have any questions, I’ll be in my office, racking up some word count.”

“Good luck,” she said in a tone that implied I’d need it more than she would.

She was a stubborn one. That suited me just fine. It would make it all the sweeter when she realized that I was right and she was wrong.

I got dressed (even I couldn’t wear a towel all day) and tried to get back to writing, but I felt almost antsy with delight. I couldn’t say why, but I was really looking forward to the moment when she caved in to the overwhelming impossibility of tackling that office on her own and came to ask me for help.

I blamed my penchant for instant gratification, but three hours later I was nearly out of patience.

Red and Blondie had long since left, gamely feeding me an abundant breakfast first. Red had prepared me eggs, coffee, and sausage. Blondie had attempted bacon, fresh squeezed orange juice, and toast.

They’d done it almost competitively, as though I’d pick a favorite between the two based on what they prepared. It was nearly charming, even after realizing after a few bites that they were both beyond dismal cooks.

Still, I’d eaten every bite of the undercooked bacon, overcooked, unseasoned eggs, lukewarm sausage, burnt toast, weak coffee, and pulpy orange juice as they both looked on with varying degrees of satisfaction, making a lot of noises about how delicious it all was.

It was the least I could do.

I politely walked them both out after I was done, but only because I wasn’t sure they’d leave unless I saw to it firsthand.

After that I felt very in control as I passed by the stepchild office without so much as glancing inside. All in good time.

But it wasn’t long before smug anticipation had turned to impatient irritation.

What the hell was she doing? Was she still working on that damned office? Did she really think she could move all of those boxes on her own? Some of them were heavy, and sassy as hell Ro had to be more than a foot shorter than me and small-framed to boot.

The thought made me unreasonably irritable, enough so that I’d risen from my chair more than once to confront her before I’d realized what I was doing and made myself move to the pull up bar mounted into the wall in the corner to do a grueling round of reps before sitting back down.

No. She’d already decided to engage me in our first battle of wills, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to cave.

A few more hours ticked slowly by, my word count sluggish but determined, my mind more than halfway directed at the new girl and what she was doing with the room next door.

I went through three cups of coffee from the Keurig machine in my office. It wasn’t my favorite way to caffeinate, but the espresso machine in the kitchen went too temptingly past the room I was so resolute to ignore.

CHAPTER TWO

I WAS MID round of pull-ups when my new assistant finally appeared in my office doorway.

It was after five p.m.

She looked exactly as she had before, completely composed, not a hair out of place, so I deduced right away that she couldn’t have gotten much accomplished in her new disaster of an office.

I lowered myself back down to the ground and smiled blandly at her. “Give up yet?”

One of her eyebrows shot up. “Of course not. It’s just one room, and it’s coming along nicely. Though I realized I should get a tour of this house… and figure out where to put my suitcases. I still haven’t unpacked my car.”

I’d forgotten about all that, nearly forgotten that she’d be staying at the house.

The assistants had always been live-in since I worked all hours of the day and night, and my place was huge. They stayed out of my wing when I wanted a break from company or needed privacy for whatever reason.

It had been so long since I’d filled the position that I’d forgotten to bother showing her where she’d be sleeping.

“Of course,” I told her and began to lead her to what was now her side of the house.