“Scott, good to hear from you,” he said into the phone, pushing through the doors to the warm spring air.
LATER THAT NIGHT, Jamie still sat at his desk. Almost everyone else had gone home for the day, but Jamie remained. He needed to review some construction estimates and vendor contracts in order to begin construction on the new hotel he planned to build. This was the next step in his company’s future—upscale boutique hotels boasting the Sellers and Swerve name. Jamie shuffled through the stacks of papers and file folders on his desk. How did I get so unorganized?
Out of habit he looked over at the empty desk in the corner of the room that Martin once occupied. He sighed, lamenting his assistant’s absence and realized more every day how much he had come to depend on having someone else to help him shoulder the considerable workload. He thumbed through another stack of contracts, looking for a contractor’s quote that he needed for his newest acquisition—a small building he had bought in foreclosure near the downtown Swerve. He threw down the papers with a frustrated sigh and picked up his phone. Moving his fingers quickly, he typed out a message to his secretary, Mary, asking her to place an ad for a new assistant as soon as possible.
Jamie didn’t know what he would do without Mary. Like Trevor, she had been with him since the beginning, and she was integral in making sure the day-to-day operations ran smoothly.
He rubbed his eyes and let his thoughts roam once again to Maya Connor. With a smile, he recalled their encounters in the past twenty-four hours. First, she had kissed him and then she was sitting front-row center in Dr. C.’s class for his lecture, and then she approached him afterward, apologizing and offering to repay him in the most adorable way possible. Dr. Carmichael had called her his best student, and she must be to have earned his adoration. She would be finishing school in a couple of weeks, no actual job lined up just yet. Perhaps. Just perhaps...
Before he could stop himself, tell himself that it was a bad idea, Jamie picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number.
* * *
CURLED UP ON the couch with a wool blanket over her legs, Maya settled in after she reached for her bowl of popcorn. She didn’t care what Abby thought. Curling up on the couch and binge-watching Netflix was fun. All the fun I need, in fact. She queued up the next episode of Orange Is the New Black and sat back, letting the plush couch cuddle her in a way that no man would ever know how.
Jamie Sellers might know how, she conceded. The man looked as wicked as sin, and those strong arms she’d felt wrap around her, and those delicious lips she’d touched with her own, would certainly know how to hold and caress all of the most sensitive parts of her body.
Realizing that she had been lost in thoughts of Jamie Sellers and not paying attention to the beginning of the episode, she stopped to rewind it when her phone rang. She picked it up to look at the screen and frowned when she didn’t recognize the number as she brought it to her ear. “Hello?” she mumbled through a mouthful of popcorn.
“Is this Maya Connor?” a masculine voice that she knew, but couldn’t place, rumbled into her ear and throughout her body.
“Um, yes.” Try as she might, she couldn’t place the familiar voice.
“Hi, this is Jamie Sellers.”
What? She choked slightly as she swallowed her popcorn with her now-dry throat. “Oh, hello.”
“Well, this might seem like it’s coming out of nowhere.” Now it was Jamie’s turn to hesitate. He cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry to bother you at home. I got your number from Dr. Carmichael. But I recall you saying you didn’t yet have a job lined up after graduation.”
“Yes, that’s right.” She furrowed her brow and pulled her lip between her teeth. What is this? Why is he calling?
“Well, I was wondering if you would consider coming to work for me.”
What? “I’m sorry?”
“My assistant just quit, and I’m getting buried with more work than I can manage with each passing day. And I know it’s not a post-graduate-level job and you’re probably overqualified for it, but I’m being straightforward, working for me would provide you with a stepping-stone in your career path. I could give you some great work experience and introduce you to some important people.”
He was right. While she hadn’t counted on doing the work of an assistant after she graduated, working for Jamie Sellers would be a golden opportunity she couldn’t turn down. Her thoughts turned to the stack of job ads that she had printed, waiting for her on her desk. And then she pictured the faces of the twenty-seven other people in her graduating class, all of whom would be vying for the same jobs in a matter of weeks. Maya could guarantee that none of them currently had Jamie Sellers on the phone offering them a position.
“So how about it?”
“I’m still in school.” She closed her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t change his mind and hire someone who was actually available right away. “I still have finals.”
“That’s fine. I understand that. We can work around your class and exam schedule until you finish up. I’m just afraid that if I wait much longer, I’ll be buried alive in stacks of paper,” he chuckled, before pausing. “So, you’ll do it?”
Maya remained silent.
“Ms. Connor?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Shock had her sitting up straight, eyes wide. So, she took a deep breath, confident that her life was about to change. “I’ll do it, Mr. Sellers. Thank you for the opportunity.”
Jamie breathed a sigh. Was he holding his breath? “That’s great, you won’t regret it. Why don’t you call me back tomorrow morning, anytime between 9:00 and 12:00 would be great. You can talk to my secretary, Mary. She’ll be expecting your call and she’ll get your information and find a convenient time for you to come in for a face-to-face.”
* * *
A FEW DAYS LATER, Maya sat in the waiting area of Jamie’s office. She drummed her nails on her thigh and thought about how quickly her life was changing. In just a few days she would finally be finished with her degree. After years of hard work just to put some letters after her name, being so close to the end felt incredible. Maya Connor, MBA. To top it all off, she would be skipping the grueling cycle of résumé writing and job interviews to start her career right out of the gate as Jamie Sellers’s assistant.
Sitting outside Jamie’s office, about to start her career, was exciting. She had been surprised when she was told to meet him at Swerve Nightclub. The evening that she’d kissed him, she had caught a final glimpse of him, as he climbed the stairs, but she’d had no idea that those stairs led to the swanky, upscale, trendy offices and waiting room that the space above the club boasted. The large panels of glass, most likely double-sided and definitely soundproofed, looked down on the club, and she could see it all from a different perspective. From the vantage point of her chair in Jamie’s waiting room, she was brought back to the night she and Abby had been here. She could see the booth where she and Abby had sat and the dance floor where they had gyrated and swayed the night away. She saw the bar where she had kissed Jamie. She flushed slightly at the memory. She wondered whether or not he looked out those windows at her after he disappeared up the stairs. Of course not, she scolded herself. Don’t be ridiculous, Maya.
She covertly sneaked glances at Mary, the somewhat older, but still quite beautiful, receptionist behind the desk. She was perfectly coifed, styled and polished