Unexpected Mates ~ Book One
Chapter 1

Staring through the double-glazed, insanely tinted window of her boss’s hundred-story highrise office, Sylvie Hart couldn’t understand why she insisted on taking the stupid assistant position nor why she hadn’t been fired yet. She was always too slow, too messy, and too damn loud—his words, not hers.

Elias- fucking- Fletcher. Undeniably sexy but a rich dickhead, nevertheless.

“Hart, what the fuck are you doing in here?” His throaty growl made her jump and stomach clench.

“You told me to bring you the contracts from the Jupiter meeting,” she replied with a wobbling voice, gesturing to the stack piled on his obnoxiously large desk. She tried to keep her voice even, but his powerful aura made her sweat. Her legs squeezed together, smothering the throbbing between her thighs.

The second she met him for her interview, the undeniable sexual chemistry sizzled between them, perhaps more one-sided than Sylvie liked to admit, but it was there. It took two stomach-churning interviews full of smouldering looks and ridiculously hard questions for him to growl out, “You’re hired,” despite her absolute shock. Dozens of people waited outside his office that day with better outfits and probably better references, but she got the job. Effective immediately. He even made her fetch him a coffee. Black, no sugar. Boring and bitter.

She swallowed, flitting her eyes around his office again as he regarded her.

The office looked more like a small house, with furniture, a coffee table, a mini fridge and an ensuite bathroom. He could live there if he wanted to. Walking over and picking up the top one, Elias flicked through the pages with a tight jaw. His icy blue irises lifted from the paperwork to her hazel ones, and his brow furrowed.

She swallowed and clasped her shaking hands behind her back, inadvertently making the fastening around her breasts tighten, her lacy white bra peeking between the buttons.

His eyes flickered a fraction before she released her hands and clenched them at her sides. She shouldn’t have borrowed her roommate’s clothes. While Fern had the superior wardrobe, her tiny chest always caused issues for Sylvie around the bust.

“Why are you still here?” he questioned, dropping the papers and placing his flat palms on the desk. His pale forearms sported thick veins popping out from the pressure of his rolled sleeves.

“Sorry, Mr Fletcher. I’ll go now,” she said, dropping her gaze to the floor and walking carefully to his glass doors. She prayed her heels wouldn’t buckle as she felt his gaze drilling into her back.

Rounding her shoulders, she gripped the metal door handle, hissing at its coldness before looking back at her boss. Even after four weeks under his scrutinising gaze, she still wanted him to do naughty things to her. She usually got over her work crushes after a few conversations and harmless flirts, but this time felt different.

He was different.

His dark curls brushed his forehead as he stared her down. Even at their distance, she still shrank under his sharp gaze.

“Speak, Hart.”

She swallowed and cleared her throat. “Just- just let me know if you need anything else.”

He blinked and turned around, using his hand to wave her away. If she didn’t know any better, she could’ve sworn an unfamiliar bulge pressed in the front of his tailored suit pants. Damn, he looked good in black.

Not wanting to tempt fate, she hurried from his office, passing more fishbowl offices.

Glass, glass and more glass.

Sylvie didn’t want to think about how much cleaner they went through. They were all empty too. Only Elias, Natalie and Sylvie were working on the floor. Though there was another office, fully furnished two down from hers, she never saw anyone in it.

“Sylvie! Over here,” Natalie called from the front reception; the transparent panel desk made of- you guessed it- lay covered in different magazine covers.

“What’s all this?” Sylvie asked, fingering the glossy papers.

“Don’t touch anything! I’m making an inspiration board,” Natalie whispered, snatching the picture of white lingerie and glueing it to an A3 piece of paper.

“Okay, I’m gonna go then.”

She half-turned when Natalie waved her hand, beckoning her closer.

“I was gonna ask you if you received any emails from a sh- a man called Rowan Hex.”

The way Natalie whispered the name made shivers run along Sylvie’s body.

She thought back to all the work emails she had read from the morning and the day prior and shook her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell, sorry. ”

Natalie pulled a face and stuffed her ‘inspiration board’ into a manilla folder before sliding it between more folders at her feet.

“Who is that anyways?” Sylvie asked, crossing her arms across her chest.

Natalie scrunched her nose and shook her head. “Just someone wanting to form an alliance of sorts. Offer some improvements to the business.”

“This business?”

“Yup,” Natalie popped the ‘p’ and smiled coyly. “He’s gonna help me get a better position, too.”

“Oh.” Sylvie quickly looked at Elias’ office with a frown. The plans sounded a little sinister, and she preferred not to be caught having a conversation about his business.

“Don’t worry,” she said, grinning again, “He’ll like the change. Believe me.” She used her pointed acrylic nail to pick between her teeth and ran her long tongue across them.

The whole ordeal looked odd, but Sylvie smiled. “Okay, well, I should get back to work then.”

She turned and scampered back to her office, trying to ignore the weird tingling down her spine.

Her emails never stopped coming. Delivering Elias with club and hotel sales reports, contractors’ requests, and planning meetings with ridiculously influential people were only a few of Sylvie’s responsibilities, and she barely understood any of them. A few of her emails even appeared written in code, or at least she hoped, as the contents were entirely gibberish to her untrained eye.

‘Artefact signature -9.381700, -54.178064. Enemy equipment located and destroyed.’

She googled the numbers and found the location was in the middle of Brazil, with no building in sight. When she asked Natalie about it, she seemed just as clueless.

Nevertheless, the mention of artefacts made her wonder if Elias was doing some secret shady antique dealings. She watched far too many crime shows, but the thought of him being an art thief helped ebb her desire each time they inevitably spoke.

Sighing, she sent another hotel sales report to the printer, hoping it was the one Elias wanted. Oasis Hotels. He said he needed the sales numbers and nothing else, so she triple-checked the select page to print was 16 and watched the copy dart from her printer. The burning ink smell made her nose scrunch, and she wondered why she couldn’t airdrop them to him. It would be so much faster and have less paper waste. Of course, she wasn’t exactly the picture-perfect environmentalist; she still drank coffee from a takeaway cup and occasionally bought into fast fashion. Still, the thought of a big corporation like theirs and its carbon footprint made her stomach drop.

From her window, the company’s name reflected at her mockingly from the twin building opposite. Another one of Elias’. Fletcher investments. She rolled her eyes. Millionaire Playboy names every building he buys after himself and hides from the sun. “And I’m completely obsessed with him,” she whispered, burying her head in her hands.

“Grow up, Sylvie,” she chastised herself before rolling back in her chair and swiping the paper up, marching to the door. The tapping of ferocious typing echoed through the corridor, and Sylvie snickered. What the hell could Natalie be typing about so quickly? She was the most leisurely-correction, lazy person Sylvie had ever met. Fern would correct her again and call the behaviour ‘efficient.’ However, Fern was also lazy, so Sylvie didn’t consider her words very often.

Before returning to the dungeon, Elias called an office; Sylvie tiptoed to Natalie’s desk, watching her speed typing on her baby pink keyboard. Her fingers were moving so fast they appeared blurry, and Sylvie scoffed, startling Natalie right out of her writing.

“Jesus, girl. You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were Elias.”

Sylvie laughed softly. “With that ridiculous typing speed, I’m surprised the whole building hasn’t come up here to see what you’re doing.”

“Really?” her wide eyes and quivering lip made Sylvies’s face fall. She looked genuinely afraid.

“Are you okay? What’s going on?”

Natalie quickly pressed escape a dozen times and pulled her inspiration board out again, tucking her white-blonde hair behind her dainty ears. She fingered the images on her lap and jiggled her leg. “Nothing, nothing. Just take your papers and go before Elias shows up...”

Her words died in her throat, eyes widening as her head lifted, staring over Sylvies’s shoulder.

Without turning, Sylvie knew that motherfucker was behind her. The hairs on her nape stood, and she spun too fast, losing her balance on Fern’s favourite stilettos, the force throwing her nose-first into his rigid torso.

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