Seth

This month turned into hell. News of my return had hit the press and I couldn't avoid reporters. They appeared as I ran errands, prolonging simple tasks and aggravating me. "No comment" had become the words that I parroted just to get some peace. I hadn't seen Anna, and I had no intention of seeing her, but no one seemed to understand that.

In a bid to avoid the flock of reporters, I came into the office even earlier and left as late as I could manage.

Surely there was another Sinclair they could bother. Another brother that could give them column inches. Where was Aiden when you needed him?

Returning from lunch, a photographer whose flashbulb incessantly went off in my face had followed me back to the building. My hands balled into fists, and I felt the anger coil in my chest until I wanted to pull it back and land it across his cheek. Thankfully, for him, the building was in sight and I slipped through the door that behaved like a barrier.

The pain radiated through my jaw as I clenched my teeth and took the lift straight up to the top floor. When the doors opened, I was greeted by the sight of three strangers standing nervously near the assistants' desks. One of them was an elderly gentleman who rested his walking stick on his lap, another was a girl with neon pink hair, a septum piercing and multiple tattoos, and the last was a man dressed sharply in a suit and clutching a folder.

"Kirsty," I asked, ignoring the three of them.

The bowl that sat on her desk momentarily distracted me. Brightly coloured lollipops filled the container, and I imagined that this had to do with the ray of sunshine we'd recently adopted into the company.

"Yes, Mr Sinclair," she asked, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Why are there people on my floor?"

"Kiran's interviewing for a PA this afternoon."

It was difficult to ignore the frown Kirsty wore. She probably found it easier to work with Kiran than myself.

Kiran had sprinkled her pixie dust everywhere. The kitchen held a selection of herbal teas instead of just coffee, the floor always smelled of something spiced, and someone was mostly in the doorway of her office, trying to catch her attention. That last one irritated me more than I liked to admit. Paul, the owner of a healthcare analytics business, continued to stand at her door, eliciting laughs from her, forcing me to schedule an update meeting with him at the end of the month. That put the fucker back in his office.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"One of the boardrooms. She told me to send the first one down to her in ten minutes."

"If anyone looks for me, I'll be with her."

Kirsty didn't stop me as I walked away, throwing one last cursory glance at the three applicants.

Two floors below sat multiple rooms that were used for meetings, presentations, and interviews. It didn't take long for me to spot Kiran through the glass front of one of them. Her long hair was twisted up into a bun and she wore a bright yellow dress that swayed around her knees. She looked like one of the sunflowers she kept in her room. Kiran easily made herself the most colourful person in the building every single fucking day. There was no avoiding her. She was not made to blend in.

Rising from the chair, she stuck her hand out before shaking thin air. What the fuck was she playing at? I watched carefully as her mouth moved and then as she turned, I noticed a bright orange sticky note stuck to her ass.

God help me.

I walked into the room without warning, and she jumped, letting out a squeak.

"Kiran," I said. "What are you doing in here?"

Her cheeks were pink. "I was preparing for the interviews."

"By talking to yourself?"

"Would you believe one candidate is actually a spirit with excellent credentials?"

"With you? Yes."

She laughed.

Kiran did that a lot. The sound often drifted across the corridor, loud enough to be heard through my closed door. There was more than one occasion where I'd left the desk, wanting to know what or who amused her, but stopped myself from venturing out of the room.

"I get nervous," she explained. "I thought I would practise so I don't mess it up when they come down here."

After the office incident, I thought Kiran might be cautious around me or treat me with indifference, as was the case for most of the staff. But she continued to smile if she caught me in the corridor, even if I didn't have the heart to return it.

"It might help if you aren't decorated in stationery," I told her.

Without thinking, I reached out around her, aiming for the sticky note. A sharp pain radiated in my stomach as her fist met my abs with surprising force.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

Doubled over, I held up the tiny square of paper. "You must have sat on this," I mumbled. "I'm not sure how well that would have gone down during interviews."

"Shit!" Her eyes grew wide. "I'm so sorry, Seth. I thought... You don't know who's a creep these days."

I sucked in a deep breath and straightened up slowly. "Are you sure you only take yoga?"

"I took a few self-defence classes last year. Are you okay?"

The concern was written all over her face and it made something deep inside me stir. I hadn't seen someone look at me like that in such a long time. Like they actually cared how I might feel.

"I'm fine," I told her. "I think it was the shock of the assault."

"Assault seems a little harsh," she argued. "What are you doing down here?"

"I came to find you. Have you seen your candidates?"

"Mhm," she said, pinching the note from my fingers and going back to the file on the table. "Spotted them earlier."

"They were the top applicants?"

"They were the applicants that I thought would work best with me."

"Kiran, those are two very different specifications."

"I know," she said airily.

"Who's on your panel?"

"Gareth is coming up from human resources. Just the two of us."

"I think I should sit in as well."

She turned back to face me. "I don't think that's necessary. Aren't you busy this afternoon?"

There were a few spreadsheets that needed looking at before the quarterly meeting, but it could wait. My growing concern was that Kiran would employ someone that would waste her time and leave her looking for another assistant in a few weeks.

"There's nothing pressing," I lied.

Kiran pushed herself up so that she sat on the edge of the table. Her dress slid a few inches higher and my gaze ran over her thighs. A flurry of thoughts ran rampant in my mind, none of which would make her believe I'd pulled the note from her dress out of kindness.

"You're not happy with my choices, are you?" Kiran said, cocking her head to the side.

"I didn't see their applications."

"Exactly. But I did. And I spoke to each of them informally."

"What?"

"I like to speak to people before I interview them. All the formalities make people nervous, so you never get who they really are. A video chat before can give you a better idea. It's how I've always hired my staff."

"Do you do anything traditionally?"

"I put my knickers on one leg at a time."

It was meant to be a joke. It was a comment to make me laugh. But all it did was make my mind wonder about what she wore beneath that dress. If she was just as colourful or if she leant towards something tamer. Thoughts that were wholly inappropriate for me to be having about an employee. I clenched my teeth and thought about the football scores to stop all the blood rushing south.

"I'm sure you do," I muttered.

"This isn't my first rodeo, Tin Man. I know what I'm doing."

Tin Man. It hadn't taken long to figure out what she meant by it. Kiran believed I didn't have a heart, and she wasn't wrong. There was no doubt in my mind that she'd dug up everything she could about me. The breakdown of my relationship and my subsequent handling of it was available for anyone with an internet connection.

"I just caught you interviewing thin air. Forgive me if I'm a little sceptical," I said, feeling irritated by her.

Having Kiran in the vicinity gave me emotional whiplash. Her sunny disposition and approach to business grated on my nerves, but if I found myself looking at her for too long, my inner teenage boy rose to the surface.

"If it makes you feel better, you can sit in," she said, sliding off the table and standing in front of me. "But you're not allowed to interrupt. This isn't about your company. This is for me."

"Fine," I said, even though I disagreed.

Gareth from HR joined us, and I took a seat beside Kiran as the interviews began. She had a talent for making people feel at ease, assuring them it was a chat. I wanted to remind her she was running a business that turned over a hundred thousand pounds in profit last year and was projected to do even better this annum. She needed a competent assistant who could handle pressure. But I promised her silence, and I was a man of my word.

Sitting back in the chair, I noted things about Kiran. She talked with her hands, gesturing wildly. When she found something amusing, she scrunched her nose. And she listened to every wild tangent without a care for the time.

Three interviews took nearly two hours, but she was still smiling by the end. As Gareth disappeared back to his floor, she shifted in her chair and turned her attention to me.

"Who did you like best?" she asked.

Glancing at her folder, there was clearly one candidate who stood out. I tapped the name 'Astra Bishop' on the piece of paper before her. The page was decorated in Kiran's looping cursive from the notes she'd taken.

Kiran's hand suddenly shot out and covered mine. Her palm was soft against my skin and she lifted my hand gently from the table.

"What happened?" she asked softly.

Her gaze was on the fingers of my left hand and I curled them into a fist, hiding them from her.

"Sorry," she apologised, letting go of my hand. "That was so rude of me. I shouldn't have —"

"It's okay," I said, clearing my throat.

Flexing my fingers, I showed her again. My middle finger was half the height it should have been.

"My brother slammed my hand in a car door and broke my fingers. Damage was worse on that one and they couldn't save it," I explained.

"Why did he do that?"

The corner of my mouth twitched at the memory. At the time, it wasn't funny. I swore I would kill Aiden, but the older we got, the more ridiculous the story was.

"I was thirteen, and he was eleven," I told her. "And he just found out I erased his progress on Pokémon blue."

Kiran stared at me before she let out a nervous giggle. "You can't be serious."

"Very serious. He thought he was going to leave home and become a master."

"Did he?"

"No. He's a doctor."

"Both are noble causes," Kiran said gravely.

"I guess. I'm still disappointed he never brought an Articuno home."

"Maybe he felt he already had one," she said, closing her folder.

Momentarily, her warmth had caught me off guard, and I revealed a small piece of myself to her. But she suddenly wrapped it in a layer of caution as if she realised who she was talking to. It made me sit up straight and put up my walls again.

"Is that what you think of me?" I asked. "I'm an ice monster?"

Kiran looked up, setting her dark brown eyes on me. They flickered with emotion as she said, "Not at all."

Curiosity gripped me hard and fast. "What do you think of me?"

She smiled, getting up from her seat. "We don't have time to delve into that now. I need to phone Astra and let her know she got the job."