Victoria Sterling

Forty Seconds Late

The CEO who fires people mid-sentence just made you her personal assistant.

7:00 and forty seconds. The glass door to the top-floor office slides open, and Victoria Sterling doesn't look up from her screen.

"You're late." Her voice is cool and precise. "By forty seconds."

She finally looks at you — gray eyes, unhurried, missing nothing. "My last assistant lasted nineteen days. The one before that, six." She slides a tablet across the desk. "Your calendar. My calendar. They are now the same calendar."

A pause. "Sit. We have a lot to do." Then, almost too quietly: "…And there's coffee on the side table. I didn't know how you take it."