Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Evan placed a reassuring hand on the man’s chest. “What’s your name, sir?” she asked softly.
“Gerald,” he wheezed out.
“Hi, Gerald, I’m Evan. Are you experiencing chest pain?”
He nodded.
“And breathlessness?”
He nodded again, wincing.
“Are you allergic to aspirin?”
Gerald shook his head.
“Good.” Evan turned toward George. “Run to the pharmacy as quickly as you can and grab a packet of aspirin and some water. And make sure the side entrance isn’t blocked for the ambulance.”
My general manager didn’t even question her authoritative tone.
“Are you a medic?” asked the worried woman I suspected was Gerald’s wife.
“I’m a qualified first aider,” Evan replied.
How did I not know that? Surely that was something I should know about her. Especially as her employer. My entire staff should know who the first aiders in the building were.
The wife looked near tears. “Will my husband be okay?”
“He’s doing fine,” Evan evaded, patting Gerald’s arm. “The ambulance will be here soon.”
“Is he having a heart attack?” The wife began to cry.
Gerald shot her a concerned, pained look.
Evan rubbed her hand down Gerald’s arm to soothe him. “I don’t know for sure. But some aspirin should help until the paramedics get here.”
For a few more minutes Evan spoke quietly and calmly to the man and he stared into her eyes, seeming to relax. Not long later George appeared, breathless and sweating with the goods in hand.
I watched on from the side as Evan helped Gerald take the aspirin with some water. She did it with that same mature calm and a small, reassuring smile on her face she’d worn since we’d arrived on the scene.
Minutes later, the paramedics made their way through the department to Gerald. I was completely focused on Evan, who quickly and efficiently relayed the man’s symptoms to the paramedics and told them she’d given him aspirin.
“Are you a doctor?” one paramedic asked in a tone I didn’t like.
I stepped forward. “She’s one of my first aiders.”
The paramedic nodded. “Fine, fine, good. Can you make sure everyone’s out of the way, Sir?”
Evan and I did just that, cutting a way through the store for the paramedics to get out with no fuss. Customers watched on as we passed through, the store brought to a standstill in some departments because of it. It barely registered with me.
I was completely and fully aware of the small, incredibly capable woman at my side.
Once the ambulance departed I turned to Evan, staring into her gorgeous dark eyes and said gruffly, “You were wonderful.”
She beamed, her smile causing this ache in my chest I didn’t fully understand. “Thanks. Happy to help him. He should be okay.”
“You were so calm and in control.”
It was bloody impressive.
George appeared, and then Alan and the young boy who’d come running to alert us to the situation. They surrounded Evan, marveling at her handling of the situation and congratulating her.
The overwhelming urge to snatch her up from the lot of them came over me.
“Haven’t you ever been infatuated with a woman?” Her question from weeks ago came back to me.
My answer was ‘no’ then.
But it had changed.
Evan with her sunny disposition, her kindness, her surprising maturity, the ease with which I could talk to her, had become an obsession. I wanted to possess every inch of her, like a fucking territorial caveman, and I’d never felt that way about a woman.
It had taken me fifteen years to finally find a woman who filled my thoughts and drove me to distraction.
And it would have to be my best friend’s little sister.
It wasn’t the forbidden thing that got me hot.
She did.
It was the forbidden thing that made it hurt.
Because I couldn’t have her.
Reid
Early December
It was very difficult to avoid a personal assistant.
Something about their entire job revolving around personally assisting, I suppose.
There was no getting away from Evan at work, as much as I tried.
The woman was driving me to madness.
Was this love? This insanity?
Searching for the sound of her voice, the tinkle of her laughter, the smell of her perfume.
This knot in my gut and absentmindedness that seemed more appropriate for a teenager than a full-grown bloody man.
I’d taken to sending Evan home earlier than usual. It had been a bad habit of mine to let her work almost as late as I did, but I’d insisted she leave at the end of her working day. She’d tried to resist, but my snapped demand that she do as she was told halted any further arguing. In fact, she’d started to treat me with a cool distance that was driving me up the wall.
I should be grateful for it.
Yet every time she smiled at another staff member or laughed on the phone with someone, it made me miss the ease between us all the more.
It was for the best, I kept telling myself.
My eyes flicked to the wall clock and I wasn’t even surprised to discover it was just past eleven o’clock at night. I’d been working later once Evan left the office because it was the only time I seemed to be able to fully concentrate.