CHAPTER 3 : One Hundred and Eighty Degrees
1224 Words
REMI'S POV
Monday morning, I stood outside Wolfe Tower at 7:45 AM with a paper cup of gas station coffee and the growing certainty that I'd made a catastrophic error in judgment.
My hand pressed briefly against my still-flat stomach before I caught myself. I had a job to focus on. A job that would pay for doctors and an apartment without an eviction notice and everything else a baby would need.
I was going to be professional. Capable. Completely normal about the fact that my new boss was the father of my unborn child.
I walked through the revolving doors.
The receptionist handed me my badge: Remi Cole, Executive Assistant, silver lettering on black. My stomach did a complicated thing.
Margaret was waiting at the elevator on fifty-eight. She walked me through the floor in ten focused minutes — break room, conference rooms large and small, my desk positioned outside Dax's office. Dual monitors, a phone system that looked like mission control, a tablet.
"Left screen is email, right screen is calendar. Password is your employee ID." She pointed to the break room. "Mr. Wolfe arrives at eight. He wants coffee immediately. Black, no sugar, one hundred and eighty degrees exactly. There's a thermometer in the drawer."
I blinked. "A thermometer. For coffee."
"Mr. Wolfe has specific standards. His last assistant brought it at one seventy-five."
"What happened to her?"
Margaret's expression answered the question. "She left to pursue other opportunities." A pause. "On her first day."
Right. Perfect coffee or unemployment. I could work with those stakes.
"His first meeting is at eight-thirty. Finance team. Read the agenda on your tablet before it starts. He expects a meeting summary within an hour of any meeting ending." She hesitated. "Miss Cole. He specifically requested you for this role, which is unusual. Either you made a strong impression somewhere, or you're being tested. Either way — do your job, and don't take it personally when he's cold."
"When, not if?"
"He's cold with everyone," Margaret said. "It's not about you."
She said it reassuringly. I chose not to think about why that was complicated.
At 8:02, the elevator dinged.
Dax walked past both of us without acknowledging our existence. Navy suit, dark hair, the kind of presence that changed the air pressure in a room without effort. He moved like someone who had never once had to make himself appear larger. He simply was.
"Mr. Wolfe, this is —" Margaret started.
"I know who she is." He didn't slow down. "Miss Cole. My office. Five minutes."
The double doors closed.
Margaret looked at me with something like sympathy. "Welcome to Wolfe Enterprises."
Five minutes later, I knocked with coffee at exactly one hundred and eighty degrees. I'd checked twice.
"Come in."
The office was massive. Floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls. Actual living trees in planters — real trees, inside. I didn't let my expression change.
Dax was typing. He didn't look up. I crossed the space and set the coffee on his desk. He let me stand there for thirty seconds before he glanced up, took a sip. Said nothing.
"Sit."
I perched on the edge of the chair across from his desk.
He studied me for a moment with those flat gray eyes. "We need ground rules."
"Of course."
"Whatever happened before has no relevance to your employment here. It won't be referenced. It won't be discussed. By either of us. If I find out you've mentioned it to anyone in this building, you'll be terminated."
"Understood."
"I don't give second chances." His voice was impersonal, the way he'd deliver a policy to any new employee. "I've fired three assistants in the past year for different reasons that all came down to the same thing — they thought the rules didn't apply to them."
"And I'm the fourth."
"You're the fourth." His eyes didn't waver. "Show me that's not a pattern."
"I will."
He turned back to his monitor. "Your first task. I have a meeting with Sterling Enterprises next week. Their CEO, Jade Sterling, will be looking for any weakness she can exploit. I need comprehensive research on their quarterly reports, board composition, and recent press coverage. Ten pages. Friday."
Four days. Ten pages. For a company I'd never heard of yesterday.
"I'll have it ready," I said.
"Good. You can go."
I got to the door.
"Miss Cole."
I turned.
He was still looking at his monitor. "Don't bring me a problem without a proposed solution. That's the only rule that matters more than the coffee temperature."
I thought about the very large problem I was currently three months into. "Understood."
I walked out and sat at my desk and opened the research files and started building a profile on Sterling Enterprises.
The problem of telling him could wait. Not forever. But for now.
By the end of that first week, I'd learned three things.
One: Dax Wolfe was a perfectionist who expected everyone around him to be psychic.
Two: I was better at pretending I wasn't terrified than I'd expected.
Three: morning sickness had absolutely no respect for professional schedules.
Friday, 9:47 AM. Deep in the Sterling report, the nausea hit like a wave. I'd been careful all week — crackers in my drawer, ginger tea, avoiding the break room when someone microwaved fish. My body decided Friday morning was the moment to stop cooperating.
I made it to the bathroom with approximately four seconds to spare.
Afterward, I sat against the cool tile wall and breathed and tried to figure out how much longer I could keep this up.
"Remi?"
Margaret. I rinsed my mouth, found her leaning against the counter when I came out of the stall. Arms crossed, but not judgmental. The expression of a woman who'd been here before.
"How far along?" she asked quietly.
My heart stopped. "What?"
"I've had three children. I recognize morning sickness." She handed me a pack of mints. "How far?"
No point lying. "Three months."
"Does he know?"
"No."
"Planning to tell him?"
"Yes. When I figure out how to do it without getting fired." I took a mint. "I needed to be in a position where I wasn't completely at his mercy before I told him. Telling him before I had the job would have meant asking for something from a stranger. This way, I've shown him I can work. That I'm not just a problem he has to solve."
Margaret considered that. "That's actually a reasonable strategy." A pause. "He found you, you know. After that night. He had people looking."
I went still. "Looking for me?"
"For weeks. You'd paid cash, hadn't given a last name." She watched my face. "When you walked into that interview —"
"Don't," I said. "Don't make it something it's not. He hired me because he needed an assistant and I needed a job. That's the beginning and the end of it."
"Remi —"
"I need to finish the Sterling report."
Margaret was quiet a moment. Then: "Tell him soon. Before you start showing. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to explain why you waited."
She left. I stood in the bathroom a moment longer, staring at my reflection.
Tell him soon. Right. Easy. Simple.
I splashed water on my face and went back to my desk.
- Writer
