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1
Lance
I’m starting to actually hate muffins. I have to bite back the sigh when I ask my assistant Isla, who has the very good sense not to be in love with me, to go pick up some for the afternoon meeting. It’s become expected. So has her eye roll.
“Boss? Can’t we switch it up this time? Maybe bagels? Or what about a savory cookie tray? That would be different.”
“Muffins, Isla,” I respond gruffly.
She sighs heavily. “But I’ve been to every bakery in a sixty-mile radius. You’ve tried them all.”
“Well, start over from the beginning, then. Maybe one of them has had a staff change or gone low fat. Hell if I care.” I really don’t. It’s all a cover-up.
Isla grumbles and stomps out of my office — all six feet of her since she’s wearing wicked heels that ought to be banned for what they do to her already perfect legs. Yes, I’m that guy, the one secretly lusting after his assistant while knowing she doesn’t return those feelings and never will, which means I can’t touch and really ought to find something to divert my attention. That’s how the muffins became a thing. But they’re beginning to pall and I’m not sure what to do next.
The worst part is Isla is a really fabulous assistant. She’s sweet to everyone but me, always has the meeting materials ready and perfectly stacked, keeps my calendar neatly organized with sufficient time for breaks and lunch. All things I could do for myself, but she does them better. I suspect that’s true for other things as well. Damn it all.
The meeting is a boring one. And the tray of muffins is greeted with the anticipated groan. Isla smirks and shoots me a look filled withI told you so.
But since everyone starts ribbing me about how I’m never going to find Muffin Girl and should give up and move on, I’m satisfied. Confident that absolutely nobody in the room, including Isla, knows how I feel about her. Muffin Girl will remain the unachievable dream and anyone that’s desperately hungry and doesn’t want to eat muffins can damn well bring their own carrot sticks.
Isla
My thirtieth birthday is next week. And so far, the only thing going for it is that Lance knows better than to bring muffins to the office party. I don’t know why he has to be so dense about this stupid Muffin Girl that doesn’t even exist outside of fiction. Life is not a romance novel. Certainly not in the literal sense that a story can predict the future.
I know he has no idea I’ve been in love with him since about thirty seconds after I walked in on my first day. All it took was one smile. That, and I was half-way there already because he has this most delectable cleft in his chin. The crooked smile just sent me over the top.
And then he had to go and ruin it all the following week by asking if I’d be interested in making him muffins. At first Ithought that was code for something more interesting, but no, it turned out he really meant muffins. I don’t bake. I don’t really cook either if the microwave doesn’t count and my mother and sisters assure me it doesn’t.
My look of horror must have convinced him because he never asked again. And then I found out what the muffin thing was all about and I was more hurt than anything. Because maybe that question meant he liked me at least a little, but he wasn’t going to go anywhere with it if I couldn’t bake muffins to his satisfaction. How asinine is that?
Lance isn’t stupid, he’s just dense. I haven’t seen any signs of him sleeping around or asking anyone else to bake for him. And I would know. I have full access to his inbox and calendar, as well as all the incoming packages and physical mail. I don’t think he’s been on a date since I started working here and from the sounds of it, not before either. Certainly not before the injuries that landed him in the rehab hospital and then civilian work at Alpha Corps. The man is a monk. One with a muffin fetish which is just weird.
And you would think he would want to go out and find this Muffin Girl himself. But no, he has to send me. Apparently he’ll know by the taste if she’s the girl for him. But when I pointed out that he wouldn’t know who did the baking that day, he responded that he’d figure that out once I brought back the right muffin. I’ve never actually seen him eat one, though.
Anyway. Lance aside, because that’s so clearly a thing that’s never going to happen. I need to decide how much longer I’ll torture myself by working for him. He’s a good boss, never asks me to stay late unnecessarily and always makes sure I take a full Friday off if I do have to remain late for something during the week. He asks about my family regularly and even let me bring my dog Toby to the office the time he was on meds and needed to go pee every thirty minutes.
If I started over in Seattle, I could move into management within a year or two. But I’m not sure that’s even something I want. I have no plans to stay an assistant forever, though.
I sigh as I get dressed for the day. Maybe this will be the day I meet some new guy passing through the office that will take my attention and heart away from Lance so I can move on. Doubtful, but a girl can hope.
2
Isla
Lance is like a bear with a sore paw this morning. I finally get a few details out of him, which mostly consists of a handful of grunts followed by, “Dean seduced my baby sister.”
I’ve met Dean. He doesn’t seem the type to seduce anyone. Much too by the book military and upstanding with honor kind of guy. “How old is your sister?” I ask suspiciously.
“She’s a baby. Only twenty-two,” he grumbles, looking morose.
“In the real world, that’s a grown woman, Boss,” I point out reasonably.
“In the real world, best friends don’t go around stealing a guy’s sister!” He turns away to his computer screen, so I guess this conversation is over.
I sigh and head back to my desk. There’s a calendar full of meetings today that needs careful attention because some of the bigwigs are in town. I also carefully check my surroundings to make sure there’s no sign of IPDIESAC paperwork lying around. It’s all fairly (intentionally!) innocuous on the surface, but a senior military man could spot the satirical element immediately. Lance doesn’t know that I know all about it. He’s made sure everyone in earshot is aware of his book and MuffinGirl (cue eye roll) but not that those books are generated through ACI — sort of.
Just as I’m rearranging conference rooms because the second meeting is running late and the third needs to get started elsewhere, Kayla comes bouncing up the hall. She used to walk normally, but now that she and the Colonel are a full-fledged item, she bounces. And smiles. The kind of smile that’s completely infectious because she’s just so damn happy, so I find myself smiling back.
