Maisey Yates - Want Me, Cowboy

“Yes. I know,” Poppy said. “Faith’s talent is a big reason why we’re all doing well. Believe me, I respect the work. However, the subject change seems a bit abrupt.”

“It is a workday.”

Deep brown eyes narrowed in his direction. “You’re really something else, do you know that?”

He did. He always had. The fact that she felt the need to question him on it didn’t make much sense to him.

“Yes,” he responded.

Poppy stamped.

She stamped her high-heel-clad foot like they were in a black-and-white movie.

“No, she hasn’t sent it through,” Poppy said.

“You just stomped your foot at me.”

She flung her arms wide. “Because you were just being an idiot at me.”

“I don’t understand you,” he said.

“I don’t need you to understand me.” Her brow furrowed.

“But you do need me to sign your paychecks,” he pointed out. “I’m your boss.”

Then, all the color drained from her cheeks. “Right. Of course. I do need that. Because you’re my boss.”

“I am.”

“Just my boss.”

“I’ve been your boss for the past decade,” he pointed out, not quite sure why she was being so spiky.

“Yes,” she said. “You have been my boss for the past decade.”

Then, she turned on her heel and walked back into her office, shutting the door firmly behind her.

And Isaiah went back to his desk.

He had work to do. Which was why he had given Poppy the task of picking him a wife. But before he chased Faith down for those estimates, he was going to need some caffeine. He sent a quick text to that effect to Poppy.

There was a quick flash of three dots at the bottom of the message box, then they disappeared.

It popped up again, and disappeared again. Then finally there was a simple: of course.

He could only hope that when he got his coffee it wasn’t poisoned.

* * *

Three hours and three women later, Poppy was wishing she had gone with her original instinct and sent the middle finger emoji to Isaiah in response to his request for coffee.

This was too much. It would be crazy for anyone to have their assistant pick their wife—a harebrained scheme that no self-respecting personal assistant should have to cope with. But for her especially, it was a strange kind of emotional torture. She had to ask each woman questions about their compatibility with Isaiah. And then, she had to talk to them about Isaiah. Who she knew better than she knew any other man on the face of the earth. Who she knew possibly better than she knew anyone else. And all the while his words rang in her ears.

I’m your boss.

She was his employee .

And that was how he saw her. It shouldn’t surprise her that no-nonsense, rigid Isaiah thought of her primarily as his employee. She thought of him as her friend.

Her best friend. Practically family.

Except for the part of her that was in love with him and had sex dreams about him sometimes.

Though, were she to take an afternoon nap today, her only dreams about Isaiah would involve her sticking a pen through his chest.

Well, maybe not his chest. That would be fatal. Maybe his arm. But then, that would get ink and blood on his shirt. She would have to unbutton it and take it off him...

Okay. Maybe she was capable of having both dreams at the same time.

“Kittens are my hard line,” the sixth blonde of the day was saying to her. All the blondes were starting to run together like boxes of dye in the hair care aisle.

“I...” Poppy blinked, trying to get a handle on what that meant. “Like... Sexually... Or?”

The woman wrinkled her nose. “I mean, I need to be able to have a kitten. That’s nonnegotiable.”

Poppy was trying to imagine Isaiah Grayson with a kitten living in his house. He had barn cats. And he had myriad horses and animals at his ranch, but he did not have a kitten. Though, because he already had so many animals, it was likely that he would be okay with one more.

“I will... Make a note of that.”

“Oh,” the woman continued. “I can also tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue.”

Poppy closed her eyes and prayed for the strength to not run out of the room and hit Isaiah over the head with a wastebasket. “I assume I should mark that down under special skills.”

“Men like that,” the woman said.

Well, maybe that was why Poppy had such bad luck with men. She couldn’t do party tricks with her tongue. In fairness, she’d never tried.

“Good to know,” Poppy continued.

Poppy curled her hands into fists and tried to keep herself from... She didn’t even know what. Screaming. Running from the room.

One of these women who she interviewed today might very well be the woman Isaiah Grayson slept with for the rest of his life. The last woman he ever slept with. The one who made him completely and totally unavailable to Poppy forever.

The one who finally killed her fantasy stone-cold.

She had known that going in. She had. But suddenly it hit her with more vivid force.

I am your boss.

Her boss. Her boss. He was her boss. Not her friend. Not her lover. Never her lover.

Maybe he didn’t see his future wife as a new car he was buying. But he basically saw Poppy as a stapler. Efficient and useful only when needed.

“Well, I will be in touch,” Poppy stated crisply.

“Why are you interviewing all the women? Is this like a sister wives thing?”

Poppy almost choked. “No. I am Mr. Grayson’s assistant. Not his wife.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Lola continued. “It’s always seemed efficient to me. Somebody to share the workload of kids and housework. Well, and sex.”

“Not. His. Wife.” Poppy said that through clenched teeth.

“He should consider that.”

She tightened her hold on her pen, and was surprised she didn’t end up snapping it in half. “Me as his wife?”

“Sister wives.”

“I’ll make a note,” Poppy said drily.

Her breath exited her body in a rush when Lola finally left, and Poppy’s head was swimming with rage.

She had thought she could do this. She had been wrong. She had been an idiot.

I am your boss.

He was her boss. Because she worked for him. Because she had worked for him for ten years. Ten years.

Why had she kept this job for so long? She had job experience. She also had a nest egg. The money was good, she couldn’t argue that, but she could also go get comparable pay at a large company in a city, and she now had the experience to do that. She didn’t have to stay isolated here in Copper Ridge. She didn’t have to stay with a man who didn’t appreciate her.

She didn’t have to stay trapped in this endless hell of wanting something she was never going to have.

No one was keeping her here. Nothing was keeping her here.

Nothing except the ridiculous idea that Isaiah had feelings for her that went beyond that of his assistant.

Friends could be friends in different cities. They didn’t have to live in each other’s pockets. Even if he had misspoken and he did see them as friends—and really, now that she was taking some breaths, she imagined that was closer to the truth—it was no excuse to continue to expose herself to him for twelve hours a day.

He was her business life. He was her social life. He was her fantasy life. That was too much for one man. Too much.

She walked into his office, breathing hard, and he looked up from his computer screen, his gray eyes assessing. He made her blood run hotter. Made her hands shake and her stomach turn over. She wanted him. Even now. She wanted to launch herself across the empty space and fling herself into his arms.

No. It had to stop.