The Last Name
"Next."
The word came out flat, bored and slightly irritated, the way Ryker Bennett said most things. He did not look up from the document in front of him. He had been sitting behind that desk for the past forty minutes interviewing candidates for the personal secretary position and every single one of them had managed to waste his time in a unique and deeply personal way.
His assistant director, Marcus Webb, leaned against the far wall with a tablet in his hand and the expression of a man who had stopped believing in miracles somewhere around candidate number four.
"This is the last one," Marcus said quietly.
"Thank God."
The door opened.
Ryker still did not look up.
He heard heels. Not the desperate click of someone trying too hard. Just a steady, unhurried pace that crossed the room like it belonged there. The chair across from his desk pulled out and someone sat down without being invited to, which was either incredibly confident or incredibly stupid. In his experience those two things lived very close together.
He looked up.
He wished he had waited another second because the extra second might have prepared him better.
She was not what he expected. She was not what anyone would expect sitting across from Ryker Bennett in a corner office on the thirty second floor of one of the most powerful buildings in the city. She was young, maybe mid twenties, with dark hair pulled back in a way that was professional but slightly imperfect, like she had done it on the train. Her eyes were steady on his, dark and completely unbothered, and her face was the kind of beautiful that did not announce itself loudly. It just sat there and quietly ruined you.
Her suit was clean but it was not expensive. He noticed things like that.
"Lucy Skye," she said, before he could speak. Her voice was even and unhurried. "I know I am the last interview of the day so I will not waste your time with small talk."
Ryker leaned back slowly in his chair. "You just did."
She blinked once. "Excuse me?"
"Telling me you will not waste my time is itself a waste of my time. Start with something useful."
Any other candidate at this point would have flushed red, stumbled over an apology and lost the entire interview in the next ten seconds. Lucy Skye tilted her head slightly, the way someone does when they are recalibrating, and then she nodded once like she was filing the information away.
"Fair enough," she said. "I managed the scheduling, correspondence and crisis communications for a mid size logistics company for two years. When their operations director quit without notice three months before a major government contract deadline I stepped in, coordinated three departments and delivered everything on time. I did not have the title for it and I was not paid for it but I did it because it needed to be done. That is how I work."
Ryker studied her for a moment. "Why did you leave?"
"The company folded. Bad leadership at the top."
"And before that position?"
"Two jobs. Both ended the same way. Companies that could not manage themselves." She paused. "I seem to have a pattern of being the most competent person in a sinking ship."
Marcus made a small sound from across the room that was almost a laugh. Ryker did not look at him.
"My hours are not reasonable," Ryker said. "I send emails at two in the morning. I expect responses. I cancel weekends without notice. My last three secretaries all resigned. The first lasted six weeks, the second lasted three and the third left a resignation letter on my desk that was mostly just profanity."
Lucy looked at him steadily. "What did the profanity say?"
Something shifted slightly in his jaw. Not quite a smile. Not anything close to one actually. But something. "That I was impossible."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
She was quiet for exactly three seconds. "I grew up sharing a one bedroom apartment with my mother and two younger brothers. I worked my first job at sixteen. I have never once in my life had the luxury of walking away from something difficult because it was uncomfortable." She held his gaze without flinching. "Impossible does not scare me, Mr. Bennett. It just means everyone else already quit."
The room was very quiet after that.
Ryker looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked down at his document and picked up his pen.
"Monday. Seven am. Do not be late."
Lucy stood, smoothed her jacket and picked up her bag. She walked back toward the door with that same unhurried pace she came in with.
She did not say thank you.
He noticed that too.
