She hung up, and within minutes she walked into my office carrying a box of assigned novels. She placed it on my desk and sat across from me.

“Wait.” She held up her hand. “Before we start, can I ask you something personal?”

“No.”

“What if it’s something important?”

“It can’t be important if it’s something ‘personal,’ because you’re not entitled to know anything about my personal life.”

“Are you really as bad as all the tabloids say you are?” She raised her eyebrow. “Like, when do you possibly find the time to sleep with so many women since you’re always here working?”

I could’ve sworn I said no ...

I gave her a blank stare.

“I deserve to know what type of man I’m working for,” she said, crossing her arms. “Especially if this man wants me to keep the truth about how difficult he is to work for under wraps.”

“Are you threatening to blackmail me?”

“No.” She smiled. “I just really want to know if your sex life is as exciting as the press makes it seem. I actually think it’s pretty hot, and off the record, I am totally willing to look past the non-fraternization policy if you ever want to try me out.” She lowered her voice. “I can be naughty in the bedroom, too. I can let you have my pussy, and you can leave me hanging in the hotel lobby afterwards, if that’s what you’re into.”

Jesus...

“Can we please get started with the work?” I rolled my eyes. “I need your thoughts on the titles you were assigned so we can send them down to marketing tomorrow.”

“So, right after that I can go?”

No, right after that I can ‘fire’ you ...

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “What did you think of Grisham’s latest?”

“His latest what?”

“His latest book.” I pointed at the box she’d brought in, at the advanced copy of The Whistler. “It was one of the three legal thrillers you were supposed to read this month.”

“Oh, yeah.” She picked up the hardback and flipped through its pages. “I thought it was very good. Very legal, very thrilling.”

“Can you please be slightly more specific than that?”

“I really liked the book’s cover a lot.” She ran her fingers across the cover. “He really pulled me into the story with it, you know? This image of the boats docked at an orange sunset sea was quite compelling. I think the graphic artist definitely deserves an award.”

Silence.

“We’ll come back to the thrillers,” I said finally. “You were also supposed to read five romance novels. Which one would you recommend the most?”

“Well,” she said, leaning forward and pouring herself a cup of coffee. “It was a hard choice, and I do mean a really hard choice, but ... Out of the amazing ones I was assigned, I think loved the one that ended in a happily ever after the best.”

“Every romance novel ends in a happily ever after, Penelope.” I felt my blood pressure rising. “That’s what makes it a fucking romance.”

“Really? Wow. I never knew that. So, I guess I loved them all!”

I stared at her, clenching my jaw. I always thought she was on the incompetent side from the very day she started, from the moment she said, “So, you’re a literary publishing company and you only publish books? Why not movies?” And somehow, I’d managed to look past that. But this? This was bullshit and she was far worse than any of my other failed and fired assistants.

“Have you read any of the front-list books, Penelope?”

“No, but only because I didn’t know that I personally had to.” She slurped her coffee. “I mean the books got read, but you never said that I was the person who actually had to read them.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m working really smart here. I hired a virtual assistant and paid her a couple hundred bucks to read all of them. Oh, and I sent a few of them to some book bloggers on Facebook that I follow. They like, totally live for this reading stuff so they’ll probably have those ARCs done even sooner. Can you believe they like, actually enjoy reading?”

“Let me get this straight ...” I tried to keep my voice calm. “I hired you to be my executive assistant and you outsourced all of your work to other people?”

“Not all my work. Just the stuff I don’t want to do. I mean, occasionally, I’ll read a page or two to keep my brain refreshed, but reading isn’t really my thing. And you only gave me a month to read ten books. Ten, Mr. Leighton.... That’s technically hard labor and I could sue.”

“This is a fucking—” I caught myself. “This is a publishing company. We publish books, and books being ‘your thing’ is the very first thing we asked about on your application.”

“Oh, I lied about that part, but only that part. Everything else I wrote was honest, especially the part about wanting to work under a sexy CEO for a change.”

“Penelope ...” I held back a groan. I didn’t need to waste any more of my time with this. “You can get the hell of out my office now.”

“Really?” She stood up smiling. “I was hoping we’d get out of here early. My favorite show will be on in an hour. You know, maybe you should ask me to review TV shows—I’m sure I’d impress you that way.” She shrugged and headed to the door. “See you tomorrow!”

The second she left my office, I sent my advisor, Brad, an email.

Subject: Tell HR to Fire My Executive Assistant.

Now.

Right now.

Michael Leighton,

CEO, Leighton Publishing

I walked over to my beverage cabinet and unlocked it, pouring myself a much needed shot of scotch. I downed it and quickly poured another. As it was burning its way down my throat, Brad’s ringtone sounded on my cell phone.

“Yes?” I answered.

“You want to take one good guess as to what I’m looking at right now?”

“Depends on if I’ll win a prize for getting it right or not.”

“I’m staring at the cover of Page Six with an undeniably-not photo-shopped picture of you. It’s definitely you and one of your ridiculously expensive watches with a Cuban cigar between your lips.”

“Sounds like a very good photo. Feel free to send me a copy.”

“Oh, but that’s not the best part of this photo. The best part is the three bikini clad women with messy hair who literally look like they’ve all just fucked you. Would you at least like to guess the headline?”

“You still haven’t mentioned a prize. Is there a prize?”

“Playboy CEO Beds Three Busty Blondes in Belize. What do you have to say for yourself, Michael?”

“Not much.” I walked over to my desk and clicked on the picture he’d emailed me. “They did a brilliant job with the use of alliteration in the title, though. They must have finally hired a competent editor.”

“God, Michael ...” He sucked in a breath and sighed. “Do we have any grounds to threaten them with retraction and defamation, or is this true?”

“It’s partially true.”

“Which part?”

“The part about me being in Belize.”

“Please stop fucking with me.”

“Fine.” I smiled. “I only ‘bedded’ two of the busty blondes. Not three.”

“Oh, just two. Well that’s quite comforting and I guess they owe you an apology. Not. Anything else?”

“Yes. The article says I’m wearing a Rolex in the photo. I haven’t worn a Rolex in over five years.”

“Ugh.” He groaned. “I’m using one hundred thousand dollars of our public relations account to prevent them from running this on Friday. I’m also sending them an additional two hundred to three hundred fifty thousand to refrain from mentioning your name or running your picture for the next two months.”

“Thank you.”

“Please don’t. I’ll need a list of everything you’ve done over the past eight months so I can clean it up in advance. And you know, for someone who plans to take his company public within the next two years, I would think that you would try a lot harder to clean up your image and stay out of the press. Otherwise, the only investors you’ll attract will be me and you.”