The Billionaire's Assistant

Chapter 54

She didn't look up as he entered the room, picking at the sides of her fingernails and willing her ears to return to their normal hue. He sat heavily at the chair across from her, the desk between them, and leaned back, unspeaking. Kat braved a peek at him to find him staring at her, the gentler grin still on his face. She flicked her eyes downward immediately upon meeting his and he laughed.

"Kat really, what's wrong?" He asked, still chuckling. "You can't even look at me?"

"No," Kat countered icily, her eyes still on her nerve worn cuticles. "I can."

"So look at me," challenged Jove, that unreadable edge she had yet to get a full handle on breaching the surface of his words like a menacingly familiar silver fin.

Kat, her courage bolstered by her anger at her humiliation, slowly looked up at Jove defiantly.

"What?" she all spat, no intonation of a question behind her voice.

Jove blinked at her, surprised, then a grin spread across his face, the largest and brightest she'd ever seen from him.

"What?" she repeated, fighting a losing battle with the corners of her own smile under the overwhelming weight of his.

"Nothing, nothing," Jove said, his smile somehow growing.

It was beaming now, a near inversion of phosphorescence as it somehow glowed it in the light, brighter than it, drawing flecks of gold from the sunlight filtering in the large back window and using it to intensify its gleam. Kat was unwittingly smiling in earnest now, Jove's merriment near palpable and more powerful than anything she'd felt from him so far, more powerful than even her attraction to him. She wanted that smile, she wanted to beget it and bask in it, all she wanted was proximity to the man who can smile and make her feel this way.

"What?" she insisted, her tone softened and hinting at the beginnings of laughter. "Jove, what?"

"You just look cute when you're mad," he responded, and Kat rolled her eyes dramatically in a pantomime of annoyance, her own laugh finally slipping out.

"Shut up," she giggled, her thoughts of her conversation with Andy the previous night suddenly forgotten as completely as they'd agonized her.

"I'm serious," said Jove, still looking at her.

She smiled at him, more shyly as she watched his face grow contemplative as it studied hers, till a sharp rap at the door interrupted their visual connection.

"Come in," Jove called, looking up.

Kat turned to see the door pushed slowly open and an aproned barista she didn't recognize with two of the lobby coffee shops to-go cups snuggly outfitted with black plastic lids, their cardboard cup sleeves interrupting the otherwise pure cream.

"Thanks," said Jove as the young woman silently set the cups down on the desk in front of each of them.

Kat nodded her agreement of his appreciation and the woman nodded once in return and slipped out as silently as she'd entered, pulling the door closed behind her with a muted thud.

"I thought maybe that's where you were going," said Jove with a gesture to their cups. "Maybe it's why you're grumpy?"

"I don't get grumpy," Kat grumped.

"Stay grumpy if you want," he replied lightly with a shrug, reaching for his own cup. "Like I said, it works for you."

Kat looked down once more, unable to control the smile that spread across her face nor the flush that rose to color her ears.

"So, where were we," Jove said, opening his laptop. He typed in his password then scrolled through the pages Kat had typed so far, his eyes scanning the screen quickly.

"Wait," Kat cried, narrowly avoiding knocking over her coffee cup as she reached across the desk in an attempt to spin the laptop back towards her. "No, don't!"

Jove gripped the keyboard and pulled the device out of Kat's reach in one fluid motion just as she all but lunged for it, the privacy of her notes her chief concern.

Given that she and Jove had spent their day of speech writing nearly entirely distracted, Kat's notes reflected it, and she'd typed some answers to his questions, some nonsense, and quite a few of her personal thoughts and opinions about his life story. She had no idea that he'd read her notes, not before she had the chance to edit them more appropriately anyways, and her face was awash in flush, the telltale signs of her embarrassment spreading from her ears to her face.

"I wasn't done," she muttered lamely as he continued to read, his smile growing.

"He acts this way because he always gets what he wants," Jove read, chuckling.

Kat covered her face with her hands, mortified.

"You know, for some reason I don't think this should go in the speech," he quipped.

"I wasn't done," Kat repeated accusingly. "Those are just notes. Notes for me," she added with emphasis. "To help myself remember what direction I'm gonna go in with certain stuff."

"So then," Jove asked, still reading. "What does 'don't look at smile' mean?"

"Ok stop, stop," cried Kat, pushing the back of the laptop in an attempt to close it with Jove's hands still on the mousepad.

"No, I'm just wondering how that helps with the speech?" Jove asked teasingly, feigning confusion

"Stop," Kat groaned quietly, unable to retort and wanting to sink into the floor.

"Alright, alright," said Jove laughing. "Alright."

He spun the laptop back towards her then pushed it closer so it was squarely in front of her seat.

"Go. ask away."

"Umm," Kat stammered, scrolling.

She took a deep breath. The speech would have to get finished today, she would have to stay focused, no matter what. She didn't have the luxury of spending time with him, not without the cost of her own control over her desire, her very sanity. If Andy could tell she was cracking, the rest of the group couldn't be too far behind.