Page 7

“Hey, Declan! What’s taking so long? You getting out of there? Your boss is a real asshole.”
Declan grunted. I wasn’t sure if he was agreeing with me or acknowledging my shitty joke. His grunts were much easier to read when I could see his face. “I finished compiling those new numbers you wanted. As I was leaving the report on your desk, I found your assistant passed out in your office.”
“What?” The single word leaped out of my mouth in a shout that I couldn’t stop. My heart tried to crawl into my throat, and my knees turned to water. “What happened? Is he hurt? Have you called an ambulance? Does it look like someone attacked him?” As I fired questions at him, Pierce and Rome rose to their feet as if they were preparing to jump into battle with me.
“You misunderstand,” Declan replied with his usual measured tone and patience. Nothing ruffled Declan’s feathers. “He is unconscious, seated at your board table, surrounded by papers and a bottle of your scotch. It appears he came in here to do some work and drank enough to pass out. He doesn’t appear harmed at all. Just sleeping off his alcohol.”
My relief dropped me back into my seat, my head resting in my empty hand. “You’re going to kill me one of these days, Dec,” I muttered.
“It wasn’t my intention to scare you. I thought you should know, since this seemed out of character for your assistant.”
“It is. He has my permission to use my office after hours, and I’ve invited him more than once to have a drink so long as he promised me he wouldn’t drive intoxicated. But getting drunk isn’t his style.” Something bad must have happened after he’d left the office to deal with that personal matter. “Do me a favor. Stay there. Don’t wake him up. Keep an eye on him to make surehe doesn’t try to drive home. I’ll be there in less than an hour. After I relieve you, you can head out to dinner with Pierce and Rome.”
“As you wish.” Declan hung up, but I was used to his brevity.
When I pocketed my phone, I found Pierce and Rome staring at me in shock.
“Your unflappable assistant is drunk in the office?” Rome asked.
“Inyouroffice?” Pierce added.
“Yes, and you both need to forget you ever heard about that. Something is wrong. This is not like Byron, and he needs my help. You two assholes go meet Declan for dinner. I have other plans.”
I needed to get to Byron.
My always perfect,stalwart, brilliant assistant was as Declan had described him—passed out, seated at the long shiny table off to one side of my office. The lights were turned low around most of the room. There was a glow over the table that glinted and danced along the crystal decanter and empty glass on Byron’s right. The decanter was only half-empty, and I’d had a good bit out of it prior to Byron taking some. Either Byron had been drinking before he’d made it to the office, or he was a cheap date.
As soon as I spotted Byron, I got rid of Declan, sending him off to dinner with our friends. I stood beside Byron’s sleeping form, my eyes skimming the scattered papers in front of him. They were reports from all the different departments and subsidiary businesses. There was also a legal pad filled with hisnotes, but the farther I traveled down the page, the less legible they grew.
After whatever shit thing he’d gone through, he’d returned to work on Courtland Enterprises’ problem of falling revenue. My heart simultaneously swelled and broke for him. If there was anyone in desperate need of a break, it was my poor assistant.
With Byron sleeping so soundly, I gave in to one of my greatest wishes. I reached out and lightly touched his hair, letting those fine silken threads brush along my fingertips. I shouldn’t. It was wrong. But if I couldn’t ever date him, I wanted to look back and have this tiny thing.
I rested my hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. “Byron? It’s time to wake up. I’ll take you home,” I said in a low voice.
The young man jolted upright, a piece of paper stuck to his cheek. I swallowed the chuckle that rose and plucked away the paper. The movement drew his gaze up to me as he seemed to have taken zero notice of the fact that I was still holding his shoulder.
I’d expected horror when he saw me. What I got was the widest grin I’d ever seen on Byron’s face.
“S’bastian!” he slurred. “What’re you doin’ ’ere? Oh, no! Is it Monday already?”
This time I laughed, ignoring the flutter in my chest at the sound of him saying my name for the first time. Well, almost saying it. “No, it’s Friday night. I came to take you home. It’s not good to sleep here.”
“Oh! Then I gotta clean up my mess.” He turned away from me and stretched his arms across the table, dragging the papers noisily to his body. I jumped forward and snagged the decanter and glass as they moved with the papers, and I deposited them on the hidden wet bar.
“We can leave the papers to deal with on Monday. They’ll be fine,” I reassured him as I returned to his side.
“Okay.” It was the most affable tone I’d ever heard from him. He pushed to his feet and flopped into the chair again as if his legs refused to hold him. Byron directed a quizzical look at his legs, swaying in his seat as if he were also confused by what happened.
When he made another attempt, I grabbed his arm and held him upright, stopping him from falling a second time. As we made our way to the elevators, I wrapped an arm around him while Byron mimicked me, putting his arm behind my waist while he laid his head on my chest.
“You’re tall,” Byron declared with a lopsided grin. He wasn’t wrong. I had a solid six inches on him, and I appreciated that I had a considerable height and weight advantage over him since he couldn’t walk straight.
“And you are the happiest drunk I’ve ever met.”
Byron smiled, his eyes already drooping. I suspected he’d be asleep like a drowsy toddler within minutes of starting our journey.
We made it to the garage, where my bodyguard Carl jumped out to help me maneuver the noodle-legged Byron into the back seat.