Page 16 of For the Plot

She’s incredibly competent. Overqualified, even. Too good to waste sixteen weeks as my assistant. And yet here I am. Reading her résumé for the third time like the bullet points might rearrange themselves into a reason not to call.

I lean back in my chair and slide the document aside, fingers steepling as I stare at the phone like it’s a loaded weapon.

I lied to Skye. I haven’t conducted interviews that left me disappointed. I’ve actually been putting it off. Leann left me a list of candidates already vetted. All perfectly fine. Qualified. Predictable. The kind of people who won’t make me forget where the line is. Who won’t look at me the way Skye did across that bar like I was something she wasn’t sure she wanted to approach but couldn’t stop watching anyway.

I press my thumb into the center of my palm, grounding myself. This isn’t about attraction. It’s about trust.

Leann ran my life with precision. She filtered noise, anticipated chaos before it hit, made sure the right people got in and the wrong ones didn’t. I don’t have the patience to babysit someone new. I need sharp instincts. Thick skin. A mind that can move as fast as mine. Skye has all of that.

And maybe that’s what unsettles me.

That’s not the fucking reason and you know it.

She’s not the girl I remember. That version was full of wide-eyed adoration for a boy who didn’t know what to do with her heart. This one… this woman is different.

I stand and walk to the window, fingers curling loosely into the pockets of my slacks. The city hums beneath me, cars threading through streets, pedestrians bundled against spring wind, all of them moving in a rhythm I used to crave.

Lately, it just feels loud. Distracting.

I stare out at the skyline and wonder when that shift happened. When being untouchable started to feel less like strength and more like isolation. When control stopped being armor and started becoming a cage.

When Skye said she’d been laid off, there was no self-pity in her voice. Just resignation with her cute sarcasm. Acceptance that the rug had been pulled, and now she had to figure out whatto stand on next. I know that feeling. The free fall of starting over. It’s not the kind of thing you come back from the same.

I tap my thumb against my leg twice, then walk back to the desk. My phone sits exactly where I left it, dark screen, waiting. I pick it up and open the single text message from Skye, reading it over again in my head but in her voice.

My thumb hovers over the call button. This is business, I remind myself…Just business.Sixteen weeks. That’s all. But then Archer’s face flashes across my brain.

Would he care?

I shake my head, telling myself of course he wouldn’t. Their history is almost a decade old and he’s clearly happy with his long-term girlfriend. Whatever happened between them has nothing to do with me or my company.

Then why don’t you plan on telling him?

I hit dial, pushing the last thought from my mind. It rings once. Twice. And then her voice hits my ear, bright and a little winded, like she wasn’t expecting the call but answered anyway.

“Hello?”

I exhale once, slow and quiet. “Skye, hello. It’s Reece Blackwood.”

There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line, just long enough to make me wonder if she’s going to hang up. Then—“Well, hey there, stranger.”

Her voice is lighter than it was at the bar, but there’s a flicker of surprise underneath it, maybe even amusement.

“I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time,” I say.

“I mean, I just finished reorganizing my spice rack, but other than that, I’m all yours.”

I smile. “That sounds… therapeutic.”

“It was. I even found a few spices I forgot I owned, so it should be pretty exciting time next time I cook.”

I chuckle quietly, catching myself. “I wanted to follow up on our conversation.”

“You mean the part where you offered me a job over cocktails and vanished like Batman?”

“That’s the one.”

She hums, a teasing sound that hits my nerves like a fingertip dragged across skin. “I was beginning to think I dreamed sending you my résumé last night.”