Ellen shifted in her seat and crossed her legs. “Mmhmm.”

  She wasn’t going to make this easy on me.

  “Can you tell me what she said? Does she want to work there? Is she looking to transfer?”

  “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

  What do you think? Of course I’d love that. It would solve every problem. Then, I could finally fucking be a man and ask her out, make her fall head over heels in love with me, and have all my babies before she even realizes what’s happened.

  Those were all the things I thought in my head but didn’t dare say out loud. Not to my assistant. And not to anyone.

  “Ellen, why are you making this so hard on me?” I pouted. I actually fucking pouted to the woman who felt like a second mom to me, hoping she’d take mercy on my soul and give me all the details.

  “Ugh,” she groaned. “I have to admit, it’s a little fun, torturing you,” she said with a shrug, and I laughed again. Ellen was full of surprises today. “Okay. So, she is very interested in advertising in the theme park division. She checks the internal job board every day, but she’s too scared to apply for anything again.”

  I stiffened in my chair, my posture instantly shifting. “What do you mean, again? And why is she scared?”

  “Why do you think?”

  Dammit. This woman was going to make me literally pull every morsel of information from her piece by piece. She refused to give me anything without begging.

  “Ellen,” I groaned, and she waved me off.

  “Oh, you’re no fun,” she mockingly complained, and before I could continue my petulant whining, she continued, “You and I both know Marlo won’t let her go. She applied to something a year ago, and he made sure to bury the application. Then, he called her in his office and told her if she wanted to leave this department, she’d have to quit the company altogether.”

  It took everything in me not to go all caveman and storm into Marlo’s office and toss him out the damn window. It was only the second floor, so I knew he’d survive. I’d never been more tempted to provoke violence in my life. I had known he was an asshole, but this was another level of selfishness. The real reasons Marlo didn’t want Lily to leave was because she was too good at her job and he liked looking at her ass. I’d seen him do it on more than one occasion. Like that motherfucker had even a sliver of a chance with my girl. Over my dead body.

  I inhaled a long and what was supposed to be a calming breath through my nose, closed my eyes, and counted to ten before reopening them. “Ellen.”

  “I know, Declan. I told her to report him.”

  “She’d never do that,” I said, shaking my head like I somehow knew her far more intimately than I really did.

  “She loves working for Rockline. She doesn’t want to have to leave.”

  My breathing had grown erratic, my chest tightening with each breath I took, which was supposed to be doing the opposite. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Declan, don’t do anything stupid,” she warned, but I couldn’t promise her that, so I said nothing. “This all happened a year ago. She doesn’t seem as mad anymore.”

  Somehow, that made it all worse. That meant that a part of Lily had given up. You see, Rockline Studios didn’t only create blockbuster movies for the masses to consume in theaters and online. We also owned publishing houses, record labels, radio stations, theme parks, cruise lines, television channels, and sports teams. If it was even remotely beneficial to the brand, we had our hands in it. And the minute it stopped making us money, we pulled out and sold it.

  That was where our department, Planning and Development, entered the overall picture. We handled any and everything the company was looking to buy or sell across each division worldwide. Every person in our department, the assistants included, were handpicked, interviewed multiple times, and top-fucking-notch. The rest of the company knew it too. Our staff had a reputation of not only being the most cutthroat division on the entire studio lot, but also the most talented. To say we were feared wouldn’t be an exaggeration. We had the power to shut down your department before you even knew it was in trouble.

  But in that same vein was the CEO’s overall vision that he demanded of us. He implored those of us who managed teams to really get to know everyone in them and forge an honest working relationship based on mutual respect and effective communication. He believed that if his employees were happy, they would do a good job. It was a simple concept really and part of the reason why I loved working here so much. I respected my boss and his outlook on running things.

  I took it upon myself to have monthly check-in meetings with my direct staff, making sure they were mentally okay, still interested in being a part of my team, and I vetted any complaints or issues that might be growing underneath the surface. I completely understood that if, over time, the job they did lost its luster and another position within the company became more desirable. I’d personally helped my last junior director move over into one of the publishing houses when she told me that she had an interest in acquiring children’s books.

  The way I saw it was that it was my responsibility to help people reach their full potential, not keep them stuck doing something they would eventually hate and resent me for. I believed that we spent so much of our lives at work that we might as well love what we did while we were there.

  But apparently, I was the only fucking one.

  SOMETHING IS UP

  LILY

  Ellen walked out of Declan’s office with an odd expression on her face. It was truly unreadable. She gave me an even weirder look as she walked into our shared cubicle and sat down in front of her computer without saying a word to me. I watched her for a second or two before Marlo’s phone started ringing and distracted me.

  “Marlo DeLong’s office. This is Lily. How can I help you?” I said into the line before a familiar voice greeted me.

  “Lily, my favorite! How are you today?” the senior vice president of marketing bellowed into the line, the same way he always did whenever he called and I answered.

  “I’m good, Mr. Callaway. How’s New York this morning?”

  “Freezing. I refuse to go outside. Tell me it’s eighty degrees in California, and I’m hanging up the phone,” he teased, and I laughed to myself before a shadow creeped over me and stopped.

  Glancing up, I saw Marlo standing there, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

  “Who is that?” he whispered harshly, and I covered the mouthpiece with my palm before whispering back the answer.

  Marlo thrust his finger in the air, pointing toward his office as he stomped away—a silent demand that I get off the line and transfer the call. He hated that I chit-chatted, as he liked to say, with anyone who was calling for him.

  “It’s not. It’s pretty cold here too,” I lied because it wasn’t cold.

  There wasn’t even a chill in the air even though it was late December and there should have been. California’s weather was weird. It was so close to the holidays, but it felt nothing like it outside. Unless snowmen built out of sand and six-foot surfing waves at the beach felt like Christmas to you.

  “You’re lying,” he called me out with a gruff laugh. “I like it.”

  “Mr. DeLong is waiting, so I’d better put you through,” I said before placing the call on hold, the line flashing. Before I could alert Marlo to Mr. Callaway’s waiting, he picked it up.

  I was going to pay for that later with a stern talking-to or a reminder about my role in the company versus Marlo’s. I never understood why he didn’t see my being friendly to his associates as a good thing. The people who called for him enjoyed talking to me first. I was a reflection on him. And they all loved me. So, how was that so bad?

  “He’s going to blow a gasket one of these days,” Ellen said, and I turned to look at her, resignation in my eyes.

  “I know. He hates me,” I said because I was truly starting to believe that he did.

  If Marlo actually liked me, he would treat me nicer. But he didn’t. And he never had.

  I’d tried to transfer into another department once last year, but he’d found out about it and buried my application, letting me know that I hadn’t worked here long enough to warrant a transfer. Something about paying my dues and if I wanted to go somewhere else, then maybe I should quit the company altogether.

  I’d never felt more dejected before in the workplace, but I sucked it up, determined to figure out a way to leave without Marlo finding out about it. I could have quit, like he’d suggested, and found a new job, but I loved working here. Rockline Studios was exciting with movies and television shows being filmed outside and celebrities eating in the commissary—you never knew who you might run into. And the perks were unlike anything I’d ever experienced before—lavish parties, theme park passes, and Hollywood movie premieres.

  To put it mildly, I never wanted to work anywhere else again.

  Not to mention the fact that Dreamboat Declan was here. And if I was forced to stay put in this particular position, at least I got to see him every day. He saved me, and he didn’t even know it. Declan made my personal hell tolerable. Heck, he made me want to tolerate it.

  Whenever I considered transferring out of P&D, the thought of never seeing Declan again sent me spiraling into some sort of schoolgirl depression. The studio lot was massive, and the separate divisions had very little interaction on a day-to-day basis. There was a very large chance that when I left here, I’d never run into or see Declan again.

  I couldn’t even stomach the idea of it. I didn’t care how “pathetic” that might make me. In my head, Declan was all mine—to do with what and how I pleased and as often as I craved him. Every freaking day, I thanked God that he didn’t have a girlfriend. How he’d avoided being snagged up, I had no idea, but trust me, I wasn’t complaining.

  “I don’t think he hates you.” Ellen’s voice busted into my thoughts, and I’d forgotten that we were even having a conversation.

  “Well, he definitely doesn’t like me,” I argued, and she made a sour face.

  “I think he’s just miserable. He takes it out on you.”

  I tossed my hands in the air like I was holding a pair of pom-poms. “Yay me.”

  “I shouldn’t tell you this but,” she started to say before thinking better of it and shutting her mouth. “Oh, never mind. Sorry.”

  Who does that? You can’t just start to tell a person something and then take it back!

  “No! What were you going to say?” I asked—pleaded really—hoping that it had something to do with Declan professing his undying love for me and her knowledge of said love.

  “It was nothing. Slip of the tongue,” she said innocently, and I scowled at her in response.

  There was no amount of whining or cajoling that was going to get Ellen to spill the tea on something she had no intention of telling me, so I didn’t even bother trying.

  “Fine.” I turned back to face my computer and began responding to the emails that had piled up in the last fifteen minutes.

  Being an executive assistant was relentless. The job literally never ended. Just when you thought you might get a reprieve, the phone started to ring, the emails began piling back up, or a last-minute meeting needed to be coordinated with at least ten people—all of them in different time zones. Not to mention, the constant building of slide shows. P&D lived for PowerPoint presentations. Every single potential acquisition required one. Either showing why it was beneficial for us to try to purchase or why it wasn’t.

  “Are you coming to the party?” Ellen asked, once again diverting my attention in her direction.

  “Yes. Of course. Are you?” I said because I always went to Rockline Studios New Year’s Eve parties, and I assumed that everyone else did, too, even if I never saw them there.

  “I’ll be there,” she said with a beaming smile that I rarely saw.

  Most normal companies held their holiday parties either well before or around Christmas but not us. No, nothing at Rockline Studios was typical by any means. Or boring. Employees weren’t required to attend the yearly bash, but if we did, we were guaranteed to be at the most exclusive New Year’s Eve parties in all of Los Angeles.

  I had to admit that the party was genius from a marketing perspective, so whoever had originally thought it up deserved a freaking medal. Or a brownie. It was an invite-only, VIP affair that many clamored to get a ticket to. They placed requests on social media sites, bartered and begged their agents to do whatever was necessary to get them in.

  A-list actors and actresses were always invited, and the majority of them attended, only opting out if they weren’t in town. There was no other acceptable reason not to come. No one in the entertainment industry wanted to miss out on the networking opportunities that the studio was famously notorious for breeding. Many Oscar-nominated movies were conceived during the Rockline New Year’s Eve bash.

  Rockline was one of the largest movie studios in LA, and each year on New Year’s Eve, our enormous production stages were turned into a themed party, complete with fully constructed movie sets and realistic props. Last year, a lake that you could take an actual boat ride on had sat in the middle of what was supposed to be Central Park. I’d never been to New York before, but I’d assumed the party was an exact replica.

  This year, the theme was the Roaring Twenties—after our biggest box office–grossing hit. I couldn’t wait to see how it would be decorated. Not to mention the fact that I was absolutely in love with the dress I’d bought for it, complete with fringe and a feather headband.

  “Are you bringing your husband?”

  “You think Henry would let me go to that party by myself? Not a chance,” she said, and I laughed. “Plus, if I saw Scarlett Johansson without him, he might divorce me.”

  “He’s a big ScarJo fan, huh?”

  She groaned. “The biggest. It’s okay though because I’d leave him in a heartbeat for Kevin Costner.”

  I started laughing. “Good to know.”

  “What about you?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What about me, what?”

  “Which celebrity do you have a thing for?” she asked, and I pursed my lips together as I thought about the question. “Oh, come on, Lily. It can’t be that hard. Who was the first man that came to your head?”

  Declan.

  Declan was my celebrity crush. Be quiet. I knew he wasn’t a celebrity, but there was no room in my heart for any more unrequited love affairs.

  But I couldn’t tell her that.

  “I don’t know. I mean, they’re all good-looking. But they’re so much shorter and skinnier than they look on TV.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” she said right as the phone rang, and she sprang into action to answer it.

  It absolutely was the truth. All the guys in Hollywood looked like they were over six feet tall and super beefy whenever you saw them next to their leading ladies. But the thing was, the girls were all so teeny-tiny that it didn’t take much for the guys to appear bigger than they were. For example, if a girl was only five foot two, then even a guy at five foot seven would look like he towered over her on the big screen. And we all knew that five foot seven wasn’t very tall for a dude.

  Sorry, guys.

  It was a weird reality whenever I saw the actors in person at these parties or walking around on the lot. They tended to be fairly short. Super skinny. And they almost always had softer, suppler skin than I did. The majority of the actors in this town were way prettier than I was.

  I liked a manlier man. A guy who actually did tower over me. And one with muscles that included some actual body fat on the percentage scale. I wasn’t into stick-thin pretty boys. Men like Declan were more my type. Mussed-up hair, chiseled jaw with scruff that begged to be played with. Thighs that were thicker than mine with what hopefully led to a similar appendage inside his pants.

  No sooner was I sketching Declan’s naked form in my mind than he appeared in front of Ellen’s desk, talking in a low voice. I glanced at him, steeling my gaze so that I wouldn’t give away all the dirty things I’d just been thinking. In return, he gave me a forced smile before walking away, and Ellen looked at me like I had a neon sign over my head, displaying all of my fantasies in detail.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

  Ellen blew out a breath and shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Is Declan mad at me?” I pushed, knowing that I was treading on dangerous ground.

  “Why would my boss be mad at you?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “I’m not getting in the middle of you two.”

  She’s not doing what? Getting in the middle of us? I wish there were something to get in the middle of.

  “What do you mean?” I asked in shock because the last time I’d checked, my crush was pretty one-sided.

  “Like I said”—she put her hands up again—“not getting in the middle of it.”

  “Ellen”—I rolled my office chair into the middle of our shared cubicle, my curiosity piqued—“you worked here when there was all that dating drama before, right?”

  Ellen’s face damn near lit up. I’d never seen her look more excited as she scooted her chair closer to me. “I was. You don’t know, do you?”

  I shook my head and listened closely as she told me two stories. One about a guy named Andy and the other about a man named Gustavo. I’d heard bits and pieces of what had happened, but they were nothing in comparison to what Ellen shared. She knew every single thing, and she explained it all to me, in excruciating and graphic detail before mentioning that Declan had been working here as well at the time of both incidents.

  If there had been an ember burning inside of me for Declan, Ellen doused it with waves of water, extinguishing it before it had the chance to grow into a flame. There was no way, after learning what I just had, that Declan would ever cross that line with me—or anyone. He was too honest and too good at his job to risk losing it.