Off Limits: The Billionaire's Forbidden Assistant

Stay Professional

Sofia

I'm not breathing.

Or maybe I am — just too shallow for it to count. The kind of breathing people do when they're trying not to panic, not to sweat through their blouse, not to scream into a very expensive throw pillow that isn't even mine to scream into.

Because he hasn't said a word, barely a nod, really — the kind you'd give a delivery girl dropping off his lunch.

"Close the door," he says, voice dipped in frost.

I flinch. I shouldn't. I do anyway.

The door shuts behind me with a final, unforgiving click, and for one long second there's nothing in the room but silence and the too-fast rhythm of my own pulse in my ears.

I don't know where to look. I don't know who he is anymore, and which is absurd, because I never knew who he was in the first place. I just knew the weight of his hand, the low rasp of his voice against my ear, the way he'd made me feel like the only person in a city of two million.

He stares at me now like I'm nobody. Like his teeth were never anywhere near my neck two nights ago. Like I didn't come apart under his hands, gasping things I'd never admit to in daylight. He looks straight through me, like I'm made of glass and he's already decided I'm not worth the view.

Part of me wants to believe he's performing. That this ice is a mask, that underneath it there's some acknowledgment, some flicker of I know you, I remember you, this is insane for both of us. But if this is a game, nobody's handed me the rules. And I'm already three moves behind.

Then he says it.

"Sit."

Not a suggestion. It lands like a slap.

I lower myself into the chair across from his desk like it might bite me, every inch of me strung tight. My skirt rides up an inch as I sit, and I catch the exact half-second his eyes drop before snapping back up, jaw tightening like he's furious at himself for the lapse.

I don't speak. I don't ask questions. What would I even say? Hi, remember me — you ruined my whole nervous system in the best possible way and then vanished before sunrise like a coward? No. Absolutely not.

So I sit there, matching his cold gaze with what I hope passes for composure, pretending I don't notice the tension thickening the air like fog. Pretending he's just another boss. That I'm just another new hire trying not to screw up week one.

But my stomach is a knot of live wire, because I know he's pretending too. I saw it — that flicker in his jaw, the way he blinked half a second too long when I walked in. He remembers. He's just decided it doesn't matter.

He crosses to his desk, movements smooth and economical, and lifts a sleek black folder. His fingers are precise, deliberate, cold in a way that has nothing to do with temperature. He sets the folder in front of me with a small, definitive sound.

"You'll be working off my schedule. This is the weekly agenda — memorize it." His tone is flat, efficient, stripped of everything. "Meetings, calls, events. If I'm in the room, you're outside it, ready. You don't ask questions about what I do, where I go, or who I meet with."

My fingers still on the folder's edge.

"There are rules," he continues, stepping back, achieving a stillness that feels almost aggressive. "You don't speak unless spoken to. You don't linger. You don't initiate conversation. You don't comment on my mood, my voice, or anything else about me."

My head is spinning slightly. What kind of workplace runs on rules like this?

He turns to face me fully, and it hits harder than it should — he's taller than I remember, broader under this lighting, like the hotel room had softened something in him that this office has since sharpened back into a weapon.

"And above all," he says, voice dropping a register, "you do not look me in the eyes unless I've given you permission to."

My breath catches. It's not even the words. It's the way he says them — like each one costs him something he'd rather not spend.

I nod slowly. "Understood. Sir."

Sir. The word tastes sour going down, like fruit gone slightly off.

His eyes hold mine for one full, dangerous second and then he looks away, as if I've burned him just by existing in his line of sight. He pulls a printed itinerary from the desk drawer and lays it beside the folder without ceremony.

"Today you'll accompany me to a press conference at eleven-thirty. Then a lunch meeting with the regional heads at one. You wait outside those rooms unless I tell you otherwise. Make yourself useful. If you're confused, figure it out. I don't have time to hand-hold."

The click of his pen against the desk is the only sound for a beat.

"I expect my assistant to anticipate what I need before I have to say it out loud," he adds, not looking up. "Don't disappoint me."

I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper.

He sits, finally, and pulls his tablet toward him, already scrolling, already dismissing me without so much as a glance.

I swallow whatever pride I have left. "Where — where should I sit?"

A pause. His eyes flick toward me, sharp and cutting, and then one hand lifts without him even looking, gesturing vaguely toward a small secondary desk pushed against the far wall. Isolated. As far from his as the room allows.

"There," he says. "Obviously."

Obviously.

I nod, quick and stiff. "Right. Of course."

The silence that follows vibrates like tension on thin ice. My chest feels like it's splintering under the effort of holding still, of not reacting, of being exactly the kind of professional, unbothered employee he clearly expects me to fail at being.

A knock breaks it. The door opens partway, and a familiar face leans in.

"Mr. Hernandez?" It's Paul — the man responsible for landing me in this exact predicament. "Logistics confirmed. Press floor's ready whenever you are."

Romero — Mr. Hernandez, I correct myself, the name feeling foreign and formal in my head — doesn't so much as glance my way.

"Good," he says. "I'm ready."

Paul's gaze flicks to me, and he offers a small, polite nod. "Ms. Mendez. Settling in alright?"

I force a smile that probably looks exactly as brittle as it feels. "Yes. Thank you."

You have no idea, Paul. Genuinely no idea.

Romero is already gathering his things with brisk efficiency, so I take the hint and rise, slipping quietly out of the office behind them, back toward the small desk that's apparently mine now.

I sit. I try to breathe. I try not to feel like something that got kicked and told to stay anyway. The minutes crawl by, and the silence of the outer office feels somehow colder than anything he said to my face.

Then, footsteps, low voices, moving past the hallway toward the elevators. I keep my head down over the itinerary, pretending to study it.

And then his voice cuts through, sharp enough that I flinch before I even process the words.

"What are you doing?"

My head snaps up. "Sir?"

"You're sitting." He says it like I've committed some cardinal sin. "You're supposed to be shadowing me today. Do you understand what the word assist means, or do I need to define it for you?"

The words land sharper than they should, sharper than the situation warrants, and something in my chest goes tight and hot.

I shoot up so fast I nearly send the chair backward. "Yes, sir. Sorry."

He's already turning away, no second glance spared, already three strides toward the elevator. Paul gives me a small, pitying look on his way past, and somehow that's worse than anything Romero's said all morning.

I hurry after them, folder clutched to my chest, and somewhere in that scramble down the hallway, something sharp and clarifying blooms in my chest.

This isn't him ignoring me.

This is him punishing me.

For what, exactly? For letting him touch me two nights ago? For the sounds I made, the things I said, back when I had no idea he'd be signing my paychecks by Monday? For the split second I let myself wonder if any of it had meant something to him too?

Fine. If professional is the game, I can play professional better than anyone he's ever hired.

I square my shoulders, straighten my folder, and follow — even as my hands refuse, completely and infuriatingly, to stop shaking.