Page 17 of Falling for Her Grumpy Boss

I push away from the desk and sit, the leather of the chair giving slightly under my weight. The file in front of me is open, but I haven’t turned the page in a while. My hand rests on it anyway, thumb catching the corner and bending it just enough to feel the resistance before I flatten it again.

This is what I hired her for.

That’s all this is.

A knock sounds against the doorframe, close enough to pull my focus up immediately.

She’s already stepping inside when I look up, the file in her hand angled toward me.

“You wanted to review the Anderson shipment?”

The question is delivered professionally. Nothing about it should catch my attention.

It does anyway. For one brief, unwanted second, I understand exactly why men followed her lead.

I nod and motion her in. “Close the door.”

The words come out before I think about them.

She turns, her palm settling on the handle before she pushes it shut behind her. The click lands softer than I expect, but it still changes something in the room. The space feels more contained, the distance between us reduced to what sits across the desk instead of what stretches beyond it. She crosses toward me without hesitation, the fabric of her professional dress shifting quietly with each step, controlled and unhurried in a way that doesn’t ask for attention and still holds it.

She sets the file down within reach and opens it, angling the pages toward me as she starts explaining what she changed. Her voice stays level, measured, giving me exactly what I need without excess. I follow the structure at first, track the way she’s separated the suppliers and linked them back to the schedule, and I recognize the logic immediately. It fits the way I work. It removes friction instead of forcing me to adjust to it.

I should stay with that.

Instead, my attention drifts the moment she shifts her weight slightly forward, bracing her hand against the desk as she turns a page. The movement is small, practical, the kind that shouldn’t register beyond function, but it pulls my focus anyway. Her shoulders roll back for a fraction of a second, as if she’s easing a tight muscle, and the line of her body changes just enough to catch my eye before she gets back her composure.

The reaction hits before I can stop it, low and immediate, tightening through me. My grip firms against the arm of the chair, the leather pressing into my palm as I shift back a fraction, forcing space between what I’m seeing and what my body does with it.

I drag my attention back to the file and close it, setting it aside before I can keep pretending I’m still following the details. My fingers linger on the edge for a moment, grounding myself in something solid while I pull everything else back into place.

“You’ve taken pressure off every part of this operation.” The compliment slips out before I can reconsider it. I don't usually waste time handing out praise.

Her gaze lifts to mine without delay, steady and unchanged. “That was the point.”

She doesn’t soften it. Doesn’t dress it up. She says it like the outcome was obvious from the start, like there was never a version of this where she didn’t deliver exactly what was needed.

Something shifts in my chest at that, not sharp enough to name, but there all the same. She isn’t looking for approval. She isn’t performing. She did the job and expects the result to stand on its own.

The air feels different than it did a minute ago. Warmer, closer, like the space has narrowed without either of us moving.

“You’re settling in faster than I expected.”

“I don’t like inefficiency.”

My gaze drops again before I catch it, pulled back to her mouth in a way that doesn’t feel like a choice. It happens fast, the shift in focus followed immediately by the response in my body, heat tightening low, sharper now because it’s not unfamiliar anymore. I feel it sink into my core, persistent enough that ignoring it takes effort, and I straighten slightly, pressing my fingers into the desk as I force my attention back where it belongs.

“This position requires long hours,” I say, keeping my voice even. “Pressure doesn’t ease once things run smoothly. It shifts.”

“I’m aware.”

She doesn’t move when she answers. She doesn’t step back or give ground, and she’s closer to the desk than she was initially. I don’t remember when that happened. I only register it now, the reduced space, the way I don’t have to look far to take her in.

I draw in a breath, slower this time, but it doesn’t settle the way it should. My focus shifts again, tracking the line of her throat as she swallows, the movement small but enough to hold my attention longer than it should.

Then my gaze drops to her mouth again in a way that doesn’t feel accidental anymore. The shape of it holds me there for a second too long, soft but unsmiling, controlled in the same way the rest of her is.

Then she wets her lower lip.