8 It Can't Be
Lawson is looking at me, waiting for my answer. Internally, I am scrambling. My instinct is to stay as far away from this family scandal as possible, because it doesn't involve me. Not only that, but something about it doesn't exactly add up.
But I need this job. I need to prove myself so that I can move beyond just being the intern errand girl whose name Laurel can't even remember and actually being taken seriously here. I don't intend to be doing these menial tasks for the rest of my life, and if something of this much importance to Lawson is what I have to do to prove that I am capable of much more than the tasks given to me thus far, then I should jump on it.
Lawson is telling me all of this confidentially. He already trusts me enough to confide in me. He isn't asking Laurel. He isn't asking Cricket. He isn't asking anyone else in this company. He's asking me.
Not to mention the fact that he isn't even technically asking me at this point, because I already said 'of course' to doing him a favor before I knew the details. Not smart… mental note to self: do not commit to things without getting all of the information first.
"You can trust me," I smile, nodding to emphasize the point whilst ignoring the alarm bells that are sounding in the back of my mind.
"Thank you." He sighs and then smiles with so much relief, that itself makes the answer worth it. "Now that that's settled, I need to talk to you about something else."
Oh god, what now?
"With you acting in this role, which is exceedingly important," he pauses, blue eyes relaying the sincerity of this fact, "it would not be wise for us to be… social outside of work."
"Oh." My heart sinks.
"I was very much looking forward to Friday, but for now I can't risk that Alexander will become suspicious of you. If we are dating…"
"I understand," I say quickly, trying to mask the profound disappointment that starts to pull at my chest. "This isn't just some elaborate story you made in order to call off the date, is it?" I chuckle, and one of his eyebrows angles upward.
"God, no," he says. "I would just tell you that I'm no longer interested."
He adjusts his suit jacket, and there is such a waft of arrogance in that action alone that I feel my cheeks warm with embarrassment for suggesting it. It was a joke, of course, but he chose not to respond to it that way.
"Right," I say, reclaiming my serious, professional voice—the one that doesn't joke and doesn't image other people joking. "So… what is it that you need me to do exactly?"
"I am going to make you Alexander's assistant." His attention turns to his computer, and he begins typing away… consumed by some other pressing task now—business. This is all business.
"His… assistant?"
"Yes, you will have a desk outside of his office. It will take some time for him to get acclimated to the company again, so there won't be a whole lot for you to do right away. But eventually I will need you to be going through his emails, notes, downloads… keeping an eye on what clients he acquires and what alliances he makes."
God, I can already feel my anxiety rising. I'm imagining a scene out of one of the mission impossible franchises… the kind where you have to hurry and copy files while someone is rounding the corner ready to catch you at any moment. The kind where you could get blown up if you make a wrong move.
"None of that will be a problem, will it?" He glances up at me. "You will be doing the company a huge favor."
"What happens if he catches me? Won't I get fired? I mean, he's coming into the company with your same level of authority, isn't he?"
"I suppose if he catches you, you could get arrested," he chuckles, somehow finding his sense of humor when before it was nonexistent.
Right at that moment—when I feel all of the blood draining from my face at the thought of being arrested for a 'favor' I am doing Lawson and the company—the office door opens behind me. I hear the 'swoosh' of it against the floor.
"Dex!" Lawson exclaims, standing with a huge grin and shocking me almost out of my chair because of the state of panic I am already falling into.
Lawson walks past the desk to greet his brother, and all I can do is shift to watch him like a startled animal who realizes it has been caught in a trap with no way out. And then, as if I need another shock to my system, I see the notorious Dex Möbius for the first time… in the flesh.
No. No way. It can't be.
A new shot of adrenaline spikes all the way down to my toes, and I grip the armrests of the chair like a life line, because either I have completely and totally lost my mind—as in, it's official—or Alexander Möbius is the exact same man who has been haunting my dreams.
