Chapter 15

“Take care, Tala,” I said as the girl in question climbed out of the car. “Apologies again for keeping you so long.” I recovered a business card from my shirt pocket, where I always kept a handful, and offered it to her. “Shoot me an email during work hours tomorrow, and I’ll start your transfer process with HR. If you change your mind—”

“I won’t!” Tala said quickly. “It’s such an amazing opportunity, I—I’d be crazy not to take it!”

I smiled wryly. “Alright. Take care of yourself. And come straight to my office tomorrow morning. We’ll have a lot of work to do.”

“Yes, sir!”

After a brief goodbye, I pulled shut the Phantom’s door and Mayu drove off. The drive here had been somewhat awkward, though I think I salvaged it by bringing up work topics to distract my new assistant from the situation.

“She seems nice,” Mayu said, speaking for the first time since she’d noticed Tala.

“I hope you understand that you are gonna be punished for that,” I said, flipping open my laptop. “Does Paz still want to see me?”

Mayu groaned. “Maybe? I dunno. I think she’s still working.”

“Really?”

“She gets paid by commission,” Mayu explained. “Not work hours.”

“Doesn’t she work for her uncle?” I asked, raising my gaze to peek at her through the rearview.

“Sometimes he hires her to do some jobs, but she’s not, like, an employee.” She glanced in the mirror, then back at the road. “She has a deal with him where she pays for use of his building and equipment and such.”

“I see.” I thumbed Paz’s name into my contact list and started the call. She picked up after four rings.

“Mr. Sheffield,” she said. “I see we’re kindred spirits when it comes to working late.”

“So it seems. Do you want us to pick you up still, or...?”

“Sure, I’m almost done here anyway. How did you like the car?”

“Check your bank account,” I said teasingly while giving Mayu the go-ahead to pick up Paz. “I’m sure you’ll figure out how I feel from that.”

She hummed. “That’s more than we agreed.”

“Twenty percent, yes.”

“I’m not going to fuck you for this money, Mr. Sheffield.”

“Neither would I expect you to,” I said, watching the weather turn outside as rain began to fall. “In America, we tip for excellent services rendered. You will, however, be helping me with electronics shopping this weekend.”

After a short silence, she chuckled. “I suppose I did volunteer.”

“That you did. We’ll be seeing you soon, then.”

“I’ll start closing up. See you soon, Mr. Sheffield.”

“A bribe was never gonna work,” Mayu said, glancing at me from the mirror. “You shoulda asked me first.”

“It’s not polite to eavesdrop, Mayu.” I went back to my emails.

“She’s gonna be even more guarded now, though.”

“You’re the one who wanted her to move in with me,” I said. “That’s also a bribe. Probably an even worse one. The kind that comes with strings attached.”

“Yeah, but it was me saying it,” she muttered. “It’s different.”

“Maybe, but the goal isn’t having sex with Paz.”

“That is one thousand percent the goal,” Mayu whined. “What are you even talking about? Did you hit your head and forget?”

“No...” My eyes passed over a gigantic spreadsheet with numbers I couldn’t hope to comprehend. I clicked onto the attached internal report but couldn’t make any more sense of that. “It’s possible I might need to hire her for an important job. Something I need someone I can trust to do. We’ll see.”

“Ooh, hiring her to do a real job is good! She loves it when her skills are appreciated. And she knows that you fuck everyone that works for you, so...”

“Hush, kitten,” I said in light reprimand. “If you keep saying these things out loud, you’ll spook the fish.”

Mayu cackled.

It was pouring by the time we got to the shop. Paz looked miserable, waiting for us under a too-small umbrella. We rushed her into the back seat, but she was already soaked. At least it wasn’t cold out.

“You shoulda waited inside,” Mayu said. “I don’t think we have towels or anything.”

“I didn’t want to make you wait for me to close up,” Paz said. “It’s faster this way.”

I looked her up and down, unimpressed. Her white shirt was entirely see-through, revealing a black bra beneath. Her jeans were a shade darker than they should be and dripping from the bottom hem into her shoes. Her wet black hair was plastered all over her face and neck and the very light makeup she usually wore was smudged.

“Mayu, you’re cleaning up the back when we get home,” I said, which earned me a whiny complaint.

“I’ll—” Paz started.

“You’ll go straight to the shower, missy.”

She stared into my eyes for a moment. I returned her gaze.

“Okay,” she eventually said.

“We can go?” Mayu asked.

“Yeah,” Paz said. “Like I said, I already closed up.”

Mayu took us onto the street, and we were on our way home. I kept working on my emails, and Paz watched the rain through the tinted windows in silence.

“Mr. Sheffield,” Paz said after a few minutes. “Do you mind if I—”

“Feel free to do anything you want, Paz,” I said, not taking my eyes off the screen. “Radio, AC, anything.”

“Alright,” she said, pulling down the privacy curtain between the front and back seats.

“Hey!” Mayu complained.

Then I heard the rustle of clothes and glanced over to see what Paz was doing. She had her white shirt over her head, soon shucking it off entirely. Once freed from the wet polyester, she started to do the same with her pants, after removing her shoes and socks.

With each pull against the wet jeans, her bra-clad breasts jiggled mightily. While the pants proved more of a challenge than the shirt, they were slowly peeled off over the course of an effortful minute, revealing black cotton panties underneath.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the view,” I said carefully, “but why are you naked, Paz?”

“Paz is naked?!” Mayu shouted from the front.

“I don’t like wet clothes,” Paz said. “They feel gross.”

“I ... see,” I said.