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I made a quick call to my housekeeper, and she agreed to come sanitize the kitchen as soon as humanly possible.

No one should have to eat in there after that, particularly Ro.

“They’re gone, and the kitchen is going to get a good scrubbing,” I told Dair and Ro as I re-entered my office.

“That’s reassuring,” Dair said dryly.

Ro was behind my desk, sitting in my chair like she owned the place. Dair was lounging in one of my comfy leather chairs. I sprawled out on the room’s biggest sofa.

“Sorry Ro, I hope you don’t quit on me now,” I said with mock solemnity. “I’ll do better, I swear.”

“I find you exceptionable for too many reasons to list,” she said flatly, not looking up, “but I’m not quitting.”

“That’s not even a word!” I told her.

That clearly tickled her. She looked at me and smirked. “I’m sorry to burst your bubble there, English boy, but perhaps your command of the language isn’t what you thought it was.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Not a word.”

She grinned. “Look it up.”

“I don’t need to look it up. I know.”

“If you’re so certain, look it up.”

I looked at Dair. “Back me up, man.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Look it up.”

With a sigh, I did.

“Oh, now I recall,” I said as my search quickly proved her right. “It was the way you pronounced it that threw me off.”

“You’re full of it,” she said smugly.

I pointed at Ro. “Look at her, Dair. She already thinks she runs this place. This isn’t even her office. That’s my desk.”

Ro, working busily on my computer, looked up at that, arching a brow. “You know you asked me to work on your emails, right? And my office doesn’t have a computer yet.”

I cursed. All the ways I’d been goofing off today, and I’d completely forgotten to get another computer. “Do you want a desktop or a laptop?” I asked her.

She appeared pensive for a moment before answering. “Let me look online. I’ll find something, and you can tell me if it’ll work.”

I shrugged. “Whatever you want. In the meantime you can work there, and I’ll work on my laptop over here.”

Ro went back to work, and I turned my attention to Dair.

He waved a hand between me and Ro. “This seems to be going well. It’s already the most productive working relationship I’ve ever seen you in.

I realized he was right. Hands down, Ro was killing it compared to her predecessors.

“I could do with less naked people having sex on counters,” Ro piped in.

Unhelpful, I thought.

“I said I was sorry,” I told her sullenly. Saying sorry was hard enough. I hated repeating it.

“Hostile work environment,” she muttered, not looking up from the computer.