Her Dark Wolves

First Day & Nicknames

Chapter 4First Days & Nicknames

Lily's POV

She arrived at eight forty-five. Fifteen minutes early, because Lily Hayes did not

do late not on a first day, not ever, and certainly not when her new bosses

had already seen her slightly drunk and indignant in a nightclub. She needed every

professional advantage she could manufacture.

The forty-second floor looked different in daylight. Still intimidating all clean

lines and expensive quiet but less like a lair and more like a place where real

work happened. She found her desk immediately: a sleek station positioned just

outside the double doors of the main office, with two monitors, a leather-bound

planner, and a small gold nameplate that simply read Executive Assistant.

No name. She noted that. Filed it away.

She set down her bag, straightened the nameplate two degrees to the left, and

got to work.

You must be the new one.

Lily looked up. Leaning against the partition beside her desk was a woman

about her age warm brown skin, natural hair pinned up with a pencil she'd

clearly forgotten about, reading glasses pushed to the top of her head, and

the expression of someone who had worked here long enough to find it

entertaining rather than terrifying.

I'm Naomi,she said, extending a hand. "Senior analyst.

Third desk on the left. I've been here two years and I am the only person

on this floor who will give you the real orientation not the HR version.

Lily shook her hand. Lily. And I would love the real orientation.

Naomi pulled up a chair, sat down like she owned it, and lowered her voice

to a conspiratorial murmur. Rule one the coffee machine on the left

is broken. Has been for six months. Do not touch it. Rule two the twins

take their meetings back to back on Tuesdays so block nothing before eleven.

Rule three she paused, studying Lily with something that was half

amusement, half genuine warning pdo not let them rattle you. They do it on purpose. It's a test.

Lily thought about amber eyes and the words nine o'clock, don't be late.

Noted,"she said. I think I've already started the test.

Naomi looked at her for a moment. Then smiled wide and geniue andconspiratorial. , I think you and I are going to get along just fine."

By nine-thirty, Lily had reorganised the scheduling system entirely.

Not because it was broken it was functional but because functional

was not the same as efficient. She could see immediately that the previous

assistant had booked things reactively, slotting meetings wherever space

existed rather than grouping them by priority, location, and energy cost.

The result was a calendar that made two of the most powerful men in the city bounce between back-to-back calls and forty-minute drives across town for no logical reason.

Lily fixed it. Methodically.

Internal briefing consolidated from three separate slots into one. Saves 40 mins.

Legal review moved from Friday p.m. to Tuesday a.m. when counsel is sharpest. Lily's note:

Friday afternoons are for closing, not reviewing.

Lunch window blocked. Non-negotiable. Previous assistant had them in meetings through lunch four days a week. rescheduled to account for time zone difference. Saves 2 hrs of missed connections per week.Buffer thirty minutes of nothing. For the unexpected. Because there is always something unexpected. They will thank her for this.

Naomi rolled her chair over at ten o'clock, looked at the screen for a long

moment, and said: The last assistant was here for eight months and never

once touched the scheduling system."Was she good at other things? Lily asked diplomatically.

She was very pretty and very intimidated and lasted about as long as

most people do in that chair.Naomi tilted her head. You're

different ,I just started.

Yeah, but you reorganised a CEO's calendar on your first morning without

being asked and you don't look scared. That's rare up here.

Lily almost said something about having nothing left to be scared of after

the weekend she'd had. She decided against it. Instead, she just pulled up

the correspondence folder and got back to work.

The intercom on her desk buzzed at eleven-fifteen. A voice came through

low, precise, no preamble. Jason.

Ms. Hayes. Our office. Two coffees.

Naomi, from across the partition, without looking up: Coffee machine

on the right. Black for Jason, two sugars for Tyson. And knock twice

they don't like one knock. Nobody knows why.

You're a lifesaver, Lily said, already standing.

I know. You can pay me back in lunch."

She knocked twice. Entered on the low, brief "come in" from inside and crossed the vast office with both cups balanced carefully, her spine straight, her expression professional and entirely composed.

Jason was at his desk, jacket on, three documents open in front of him.

He didn't look up immediately. Tyson was by the window different window

than last time, she noted; he seemed to rotate through them like he was

cataloguing the view and turned when she entered with that almost-smile

already in place.

She set Jason's coffee down on the right side of his desk away from the

documents without being asked, and crossed to hand Tyson his.

He took it. His fingers were warm where they briefly met hers on the cup,

and she pretended very hard not to notice.

Thank you, Tyson said. And then, pleasantly, like it was the

most natural thing in the world:

That'll be all Kitten.

Lily stopped. Turned. Looked at him with the expression she reserved for

things that required patience she hadn't agreed to provide.

My name is Ms. Hayes.Of course it is,Tyson agreed warmly. As if she'd said something

charming rather than corrective.

She turned to leave. From the desk, without looking up from his documents,

Jason spoke.

Ms. Hayes.

She turned back. He was looking at her now that steady, unhurried focus

that felt like standing in a beam of something.

You reorganised the schedule.

I did. I can walk you through the changes if

"It's correct." He said it simply. Factually. Like approving

a well-executed calculation. Every change. The reasoning is sound.

You saved us approximately three hours a week.

A beat. Lily said nothing. She was not going to preen. She was a

professional.

Good work,Jason said. And then, quiet and inevitable as

gravity.

My name is Ms. Hayes.

"We know," both of them said.

At exactly the same time.

With exactly the same tone.

Like they'd rehearsed it, which somehow made it worse.

She walked out. Closed the door behind her with a very controlled click.

Sat back down at her desk. Opened the correspondence folder.

Naomi's head appeared around the partition. One eyebrow raised.

They gave you a nickname already?"

Lily looked up. "Two nicknames. They have different ones.

Naomi stared at her. Then sat back down slowly, like she needed a moment.

In eight years of working on this floor,she said carefully,

"I have never once heard either of those men give anyone a nickname.

Not one person. Not even each other.

Well. Lily turned back to her screen. There's a first

time for everything.

She said it lightly. Casually. Like it didn't mean anything.

But under her desk, where no one could see, her fingers had gone still

on the keyboard. And her heart that traitorous, inconvenient thing

was beating just a little faster than it had any professional right to be.

By the end of the day she had cleared a three-week backlog of unanswered

correspondence, flagged four scheduling conflicts the previous assistant

had missed, set up a priority filter for incoming calls, and learned

that Naomi took her lunch at twelve-thirty sharp, had strong opinions

about the building's sad excuse for a coffee, and was, without question,

exactly the kind of friend Lily hadn't realised she needed until she

was sitting across from her in the small staff kitchen eating

disappointing sandwiches and laughing more than she had all week.

Okay, real talk," Naomi said, stabbing a cherry tomato.

How are you actually finding it? First day. Honest answer."

Lily considered. "The work is good. Really good actually it's

complex and fast and I feel useful, which I need right now."

And the bosses?

Professionally impressive. Personally...she searched for the

right word. "A lot.

Naomi laughed a real, delighted sound. "That is the most diplomatic

description of those two men I have ever heard."

"I'm a professional," Lily said, and bit into her sandwich.

Naomi grinned. "Sure you are, Ms. Hayes."

A beat. Then they both started laughing, and Lily thought not for the

first time that day, but more warmly than before that maybe this

place wasn't entirely impossible.

She thought that right up until she rode the elevator down at six o'clock

and the doors opened to reveal the lobby and across it, watching her

with eyes that didn't miss a single thing, a beautiful, cold-faced woman

in a sharp red coat who looked at Lily like she was a problem that

had just made itself known.

The woman said nothing. Just held her gaze for one long, deliberate moment.

Then smiled. The kind of smile that had nothing warm in it.

And walked away.

Lily didn't know who she was yet.

But every instinct she had said: remember that face.

End of chapter 4