I gazed at the flawless blue sky that was darkening with each passing minute. How was I going to survive months of this? Was every aspect of my life his until he wrote me the recommendation—if he wrote me the recommendation?

Was it really worth all this pain and suffering to put up with this cocky jerk? Jane Eyre had done it. Her boss, Mr. Rochester, had been an utter jackass, too. But stupidly, she’d fallen in love with him.

Well, there was no chance of that in my case. It was more likely I’d murder him if I could figure out a way to hide the body. That solid, perfectly toned body with just the slightest hint of a tan. He must have worn a lot of sunblock, because he wasn’t as tan as I’d expect someone who was outdoors as much as he appeared to be—

“And what the hell are you daydreaming about?”

I jerked back to reality to find him standing right in front of me. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that stretched across his broad chest and sturdy shoulders. I could see the edge of his band tattoo peeking out from underneath the tight left sleeve, waves stylized in three different shades of blue.

“Earth to Weiss. What are you thinking about?”

Flustered, I tore my eyes away from his arm, unable to even look at him now. “Sunblock,” I blurted.

“Sunblock?”

“I was—well, just wondering why you aren’t more tan.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Because I hardly get a chance to hit the waves anymore. Today was a rare exception—for the forty-five minutes that it lasted.”

“Ah,” I said.

He bent and scooped up the envelope I’d brought him. “I have reports to finish, and I had to have these brought to me because the meeting was changed to first thing Monday morning.” He shot me a hard look. “If I have to spend the time mopping up your messes, then the least you can do is help.”

He had a point. I was, after all, responsible for all this emergency crap he was being forced to deal with. I leaned forward and grabbed an empty legal pad and a pen that were sitting on the coffee table, ready to take notes as he went through the pages.

“Why didn’t you fire me?” I finally asked, after a long moment of working up the courage to question him with the one thing that had been burning in my mind for the past two weeks.

He looked up from his paperwork after a long pause. “Maybe because I believe a person can be competent in spite of fucking up—literally.” He fixed me with his intense hazel eyes that glowed almost amber. The hand resting atop his muscular thigh closed into a fist. “That being said, maybe you should have thought about the possibility of losing the internship before you went on your little sexcapade and decided to record it.”

I opened my mouth and then shut it. I wondered how he knew that I was the one who’d recorded it. Then I remembered the brief part at the end of the video that showed me turning to grab the phone and switch it off. I guess that had been a pretty big clue.

“It was really bad judgment.”

“You need good judgment if you want to succeed in business, Weiss. You can’t let the heat of the moment take over. Even if it was the best sex you ever had,” he said with a strange look on his face. He looked like he was reveling in my discomfort.

My cheeks flamed and I nodded, feeling like a chastened schoolgirl at the front of class, about to have her knuckles slapped by the schoolmaster’s ruler. Rochester had yelled at Jane Eyre so many times, but she’d had the courage to speak up to him and they’d become friends.

I didn’t have that courage, and I doubted I’d ever become friends with Jordan Fawkes. But I was determined to make things right—if I could.

“There’s something you might not know about—about that thing I’m not supposed to talk about.”

His expression was completely neutral, but his eyes looked wary. “Oh? And what is that?”

“The guy—I’m pretty sure he was an employee too.”

Did I imagine it or did the color drain out of his face? “But if you don’t know who it is, how do you know that?”

“Because of the badge in the video. That’s not my badge. It’s the wrong color.”

“So you think it’s his?”

“It has to be. I’m sure he has no idea who I was either. And he has no incentive whatsoever to step forward, so I think the secret is safe. I just—just thought you should know.”

“So is that why you uploaded the video? You thought it would be safe because no one would know who either of you were?”

His question stunned me. “Actually…that was an accident.” Ugh, April…way to prove to your boss that you are even more of a fuck-up than he previously thought.