The CEO's Right Hand and the Baby on Board: A Modern Workplace Dilemma

"Miss Moreno, freshen up and join me in the living room in 25 minutes. We'll be working through dinner," Harold Reyes ordered, removing his tie with one hand and pouring himself a drink with the other. Asha Spence Moreno looked at her boss with hidden anger behind a calm exterior. She was worn out. After arriving at Parita airport that afternoon, they had been non-stop, going from one meeting to another, trying to handle the bureaucratic barriers that had delayed the start of Harold's new hotel project. All she wanted was a hot shower and a good night's sleep, knowing that they would have to keep up the frantic pace tomorrow. Unfortunately, her wish would not come true as her boss wasn't finished working, and that meant no rest for Asha until he gave the okay. "Understood, Mr. Reyes," she replied meekly, speaking in a low and emotionless tone. He didn't acknowledge her answer, instead picking up a newspaper and reading the headlines with his customary focus. Realizing she had been dismissed, Asha turned and headed to her room. Upon realizing that she would be sharing the penthouse suite of one of the most exclusive hotels in Japan with her boss, Asha was briefly filled with dread. However, that feeling quickly dissipated as soon as she laid eyes on the suite. Her entire apartment back in Panama could fit into this place multiple times over. The suite boasted three enormous bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a spacious living room. Harold Reyes spared no expense when it came to accommodations. Until construction on his hotel was complete, he would stay in what would soon become the second-best hotel in Japan. Asha rolled her head and heard her neck pop, feeling a deep exhaustion wash over her. Meanwhile, her boss appeared unfazed and full of energy, which was particularly frustrating as it directly affected Asha. She sighed and allowed herself a brief moment of self-pity before searching for a change of clothes and heading to the bathroom. Exactly twenty minutes later, she returned to the living room dressed in a comfortable, modest blue slip dress that was a far cry from the business suits she was typically required to wear for her job. Her short bob was still damp from the shower, and she had skipped makeup.  She hoped that the boss wouldn’t mind her lack of formality and was relieved to note that he’d removed his tie, unbuttoned the top two buttons of his white shirt, and folded back his shirtsleeves to reveal extremely masculine forearms. Her favorite kind—strong, lightly dusted with hair, with raised veins mapping a path to his capable-looking hands. He looked up and grunted when she entered the room. “Good, you’re back. We have to go through today’s minutes and compile a list of the most pertinent facts. Then take care of the day’s correspondence. You get started on that; I have to make a few phone calls.” He turned away from her and lifted his phone to his ear. Asha stared at his broad back for a moment before trudging over to the laptop with a muffled sigh. She wondered if he’d ordered room service yet; she was starving.  She glanced around the room and gasped in outrage when she saw the room-service cart standing off to the side of the room, with the uncovered empty plates precariously stacked one on top of the other. Another quick look around the room told her that there was definitely no other food around. Had he actually forgotten to order something for her? Was the man wholly incapable of thinking of anybody but himself? She picked up the room telephone to order her own meal, but he had finished his call and cast her a sharp look. “Stop wasting time, Moreno,” he growled, tapping away at the screen of his phone. “We have a lot of work to do. I didn’t bring you along to sit around looking pretty and doing nothing.” The injustice of that statement left her fuming, and she bit back a sarcastic retort, knowing that she had no alternative but to swallow down the anger she felt toward him. Asha knew that—due to the last-minute nature of this trip—she’d been his only choice as assistant. And since the man had avoided testing her full potential in the office up until now, he didn’t trust her to get anything done competently.  Still, Asha had jumped at the opportunity to join him. The heady excitement of a trip to Japan combined with the desire to prove herself capable of doing this job to both Harold Reyes and to herself had proved hard to resist. Yet now, feeling completely overwhelmed, all she wanted was to run back home with her tail between her legs. All because her boss was doing his level best to be an ass. Don’t respond! Don’t respond! She repeated the two words over and over to herself. No mouthing off at the boss, no matter how much he deserved it. An hour and a half later, after they had powered their way through a series of e-mails and memos and had pored over her notes from the day’s many meetings, Asha was starting to feel cross-eyed from staring at the computer screen too long. Her brain was scrambled, and she was practically drooping with exhaustion.  Even though she hadn’t eaten since the flight—a decade ago—she was too damned tired even to think about her stomach. Harold Reyes peered at her when she stopped tapping at the keys and frowned over the top of his black-rimmed glasses. “Let’s take a five-minute break,” he suggested, and Asha almost melted into a puddle of gratitude. She stretched lavishly and enjoyed a jaw-popping yawn at the same time. A quick look at her boss told her that while he had suggested a break, he wasn’t taking one himself—his head was once more bent over zoning ordinances and blueprints.  The man really was tireless, a trait that she found both admirable and frustrating at the moment. She supposed years of international travel and frantic work schedules had inured him somewhat to the effects of a forty-eight-hour-long day, one that had started on a completely different continent. She padded over to the huge floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked Japan in all its sparkling glory. She had never seen anything remotely close to this spectacular view. The city was vast, and its lights sprawled as far as the eye could see. Despite being forty floors removed from the heaving excitement of the city, Asha could feel it calling to her like a seductive siren. She turned away from the allure and found herself inadvertently appreciating a spectacular view of a different kind. Big, sexy Harold Reyes as she had never seen him before, ruffled, stubbled, and completely disheveled. The look suited him and gave him an edge that the normally smooth, urbane man kept hidden beneath layers of intimidating sophistication and flawless tailoring. It was an image of the man she really preferred not to have in her head, because it made him seem a lot more human—more approachable—than he usually was. He looked up and happened to catch her eye, and even from across the room, she could see something spark and smolder in his gaze. It was gone in a flash, and she wondered if her tired brain had tricked her into seeing things.  She wandered over to the exquisite coffee table where she had left her cell phone to charge and checked her messages. A couple from her brother, Luc, and her best friend, Cal, and one informing her that she could very well have won five hundred grand already! Fantastic. She allowed herself a moment of pure whimsy—with her “winnings” there’d be no further need to spend her mornings making coffee, watering Harold Reyes’s precious ficus, or sending the polite equivalent of “Thanks for the s*x.  Let’s never see each other again” notes with flowers to her boss’s random lady friends. In the nearly four months that she’d been working for him, she’d already sent five notes accompanying equally polite, pretty floral tributes. It was sickening.