Page 8 of The Marriage Clause

She’s an assistant. One of many and technically redundant. We already had an administrative framework before I took over the Hawkeyes; she was a holdover from Carlton’s era. Charming, apparently beloved by everyone on staff, efficient. That’s all fine, but she’s not essential.

Except my brain keeps noting things before I can stop it.

My coffee already sitting on my desk before I walk in, piping hot, as if she anticipates my arrival every morning. The way meeting packets are laid out in the correct order before I ask. The way my inbox is pre-filtered into categories that match the way I think—and I never told her my system. She just figured it out.

And the way I lose focus when she walks into a room, and I have no control over it.

I don’t like that.

She’s been running coffee experiments on me for six months. Coffee with sugar. Coffee with cream. One memorable disaster involving god-awful almond milk that made me do a spit-take in the middle of a video conference with Hong Kong over an acquisition. I caught Damien trying to hide a laugh from his office camera. I’ve grimaced at every version she’s handed me. The ten-sugar incident was either an act of war or a cry for help. I’m still not sure which. I haven’t told her how I take it because the more she gets right, the harder it will be to rationalize that firing her is the right move.

I open the file for the upcoming board session, forcing my focus onto bullet points and percentages. Marriage requirement. The board wants to hear the timeline, optics, and plans for exposure that boosts the trust’s image.

I can hear Christian’s dry lawyer voice in my head. "You know they’ll be watching for any weakness, right? Any crack. They want to see if you’ll break."

I won’t. I refuse.

If any of us fail, the trust absorbs every cent of our inheritances. Billions. Control of the money shifts back to the board—lawyers, equity managers, and men and woman my father trusted more than his own children. Men and woman who are still loyal to him. Not us.

And above them all is my aunt, Genevieve Holiday, Conrad Kauffman's younger sister, watching from the top like she’s just waiting for one of us to slip.

There’s a soft knock at my office door, and my shoulders tense before my mind catches up to why.

"Come in," I say without looking up.

Footsteps cross the threshold, light and hesitant. Paper rustles.

"Good morning, Mr. Kauffman. I brought the sponsorship breakdown reports you asked for."

Her.

Of course.

I glance up. She’s standing there in a simple blouse and pencil skirt, hair pulled back in a knot that exposes the slope of her neck. There’s a faint crease between her brows, like she’s concentrating too hard on not spilling anything.

My pulse stutters. I notice, and I hate that I notice.

I ignore it. She’s an employee. And even if she weren’t, emotions only get in the way.

"Set them on the desk," I say.

She steps closer, just within reach, and there’s a faint scent of her shampoo or laundry soap. I won’t bother to ask which. Her hand trembles slightly as she aligns the reports with the edge of the blotter.

I notice the tremble. It’s what makes me good at negotiations. I don’t miss even the most subtle of cues.

"Is there anything else you need?" she asks, her voice soft but steady.

One word slams into my brain like a warning siren.

Dangerous. Because though it’s not likely intentional, Aria is a distraction. A subtle one, but nonetheless, a distraction that has no place in my world.

I shouldn’t know the exact cadence of her voice. I shouldn’t know that she chews the inside of her cheek when she’s stressed. I shouldn’t know that she takes the stairs at the end of the day instead of the elevator, like she’s trying to stretch out her minutes in the building.

These are details I do not have the bandwidth for.

"You can go," I say.

She nods, that tiny crease deepening, and then turns to leave.