Lily woke up in a bed that didn't feel like her uncomfortable lump of foam. She groaned in decadent satisfaction as the black smooth and silky sheets – the likes of which she had never slept on before – rolled under her, with the room coated in ambient warm lighting.
She blearily opened her eyes and saw a naked muscular torso beside her, a dragon tattoo snaking up the ribs of this mysterious person. Lily smiled infatuatedly. Her dreams felt realer as the days passed, it even started adding things to the body the man had in her dreams.
It wasn't the first time she had dreamt of Logan this way, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.
Logan Carter, the object of her affections, was the president of Carter industries, the company under which she was working as a temporary administrative assistant on the second floor.
Logan Carter himself was on the eightieth floor, and her job could never get her up there, so her best bet to see him was the seven second window she had as he walked from the stairs on the first floor to get to his private elevator on the second floor.
Of course, this meant that she had to get to work at six in the morning, three hours earlier than she was meant to resume.
The first time she had seen him was due to a mistake she had made in filing her immediate boss' schedule for the day. She had rushed over at six to correct the mistake before she could get an earful from the people who already abhorred her presence. Then, she had seen him and immediately she was smitten. Her heart constricted and a stampede of elephants played around in her belly.
The day after, she went to work at six again and lo and behold, she and he were the only people in the building save for the security. Even the janitors resumed seven, so there was no one to block her perfect view of the world's most handsome man.
She had always wondered why his elevator didn't start from the first floor but it was all the better for her. He was a tall and well built man, handsome as the Greek gods of old and the contrast between his dark hair and light brown eyes never failed to bring a quake in her knees every time she saw him. She had heard him speak on the phone once as he crossed from the entrance of the second floor to his elevator and his voice was deep and smooth, caressing her ears like a velvet covered bed on a lazy Sunday morning.
It had been the most shocking thing for her when after six months, her infatuation refused to fade. She had seen him in all sorts of moods and he hadn't ever glanced up to see her watching him attentively.
She had seen him angry, annoyed, irritated, blase, and smiling. His smile was the most precious thing ever, he always just quirked up a side of his lips very slightly, almost imperceptibly unless you had spent months studying his expressions. His smile also always came behind a cup of something steaming. Lily immediately started drinking hot coffee at six to match up with him, even though it tasted like bitter regret.
At events he appeared, he was always reserved and completely unsmiling, preferring to sit at his high table and glare at everyone else. He reminded her of her best friend, except her best friend was a lot more outgoing and smiley, but she bore resemblance with her temper and eye color.
The past month had clearly been weighing on him, he had eye bags bigger than she had seen on anybody and he had started staying at work more, meaning she saw him less and less since he didn't need to come from home. Not even his hot coffee made him smile anymore and Lily found her heart shattering everytime she saw him.
Lily often cursed herself for her job not even allowing her to dare tell him a polite hello, not to speak of asking him how he was. An assistant to an employee on the second floor did not dare show her face to the big boss. Most of the people on the first seventy floors probably hadn't seen him in real life as they had no direct business with him, she had only been lucky to discover his pattern as he came earlier than everyone and left later than everyone.
It wasn't like Lily wasn't qualified enough for a higher position. In fact, she was qualified enough to work on the eightieth floor itself save for her lack of experience. The reason she was permanently cursed to be on the second floor was because her father banned her name countrywide from ever getting a job. Frankly, Carter industries accepted her as an assistant because her best friend was on the seventy-eighth floor and she had snuck her documents in. When the manager in charge of hiring found out who she was, he wanted to cast her away. Her friend's connections were solid enough to make sure they accepted her in, even if only as an assistant, a job she was wholly and completely overqualified for.
Her family life was complicated at the very least and maddening at most. Her father, Henry Brownson, had a legitimate wife and two children who he loved so very dearly and her mother, Camille had caused the bond between the man and his wife to weaken after she drugged him and conceived her to extort child support and hush money from him. As a result, the man hated Camille, viscerally, and the hate transferred onto the bastard child she gave birth to.
He had rescued her from her mother, who hadn't bothered to name her or properly take care of her. A two year old Lily had been malnourished and left to raise herself while her mother unfeelingly went out to party and get high, day in and day out. It seemed even the hate he felt for her was not enough to make him leave his third child at the hands of an uncaring monster.
Lily got her name from her father's wife, Lucille. The woman never liked her either, but at least Lily got to eat three square meals and sleep in a proper bed. They had left her to be raised by the servants of the Brownson household, far away from the two legitimate and prim children, Celine and Jason Brownson. The servants knew that she wasn't worth anything in the eyes of the Brownsons so they had fed her and tossed random books at her, that was the extent of care they showed.
Life continued like this for Lily until she turned into a teenager and her father thankfully thought it necessary for his daughter to go to school. There, she had found out that her half-sister Celine was the most well-mannered and wonderful person to ever exist. Celine and Lily were like two peas in a pod when the Brownsons weren't looking and for the first time in her life Lily felt loved.
That all fell to hell when her step-sister came into the picture. See, her mother got tired of the 'meagre' amounts of hush money and just went ahead to marry a filthy rich man that was never home or available for her, a perfect money pump. The man came with a daughter, a vile creature that decided to make Lily's life hell just for the fun of it. She had expertly spun lies and wove tales that made everyone in her class hate her, especially Celine.
Since then, Lily was sent to a different school than the Brownsons and it progressed that way till after college. She faced her studies squarely and got her doctoral degree. She had learnt by then that love wasn't something she would ever get from her family and she adjusted to it accordingly. The universe hated her however, as she got a boyfriend - that happened to be a rich second generation heir - and started forgetting that love wasn't for her. She was perfectly punished for forgetting by catching her so-called boyfriend in bed with her step-sister, unremorsefully.
He claimed she was too much of a nobody to be accepted by his family while her step-sister from hell, Jolie, was a bigshot actress with her father's backing. Lily had no one and she had spent three months crying until she had no more tears to cry.
She shook her head to dispel her thoughts, bygones were bygones and she wouldn't hold it against them because she couldn't do anything about it. Lily blinked her eyes open again to see dream Logan and immediately recoiled at the revulsion in his eyes.
It was completely shocking, dream Logan always looked at her with love and his little smile. Not his real range of expressions.
"Who are you?", he said, his voice a dichotomy of smooth and rough as a large hand came underneath her chin to lift her eyes up to meet his and Lily was nearly struck dead by the fact that his touch felt absolutely real. He had locked up her jaw with his hand, squishing her face.
"Does the little mouse lack vocal chords?", he said again in a voice that sounded like the rumbling of distant thunder, it sent tremulous shivers up her spine and her cheeks warmed up. A man who had just woken up was a gift from heaven, especially a man who sounded and looked like Logan did regularly.
"I… I'm…What the fuck?", Lily said dumbly, her brain still offline from the fact that Logan Carter was right in front of her with his naked torso and dragon tattoo. He looked at her like she was dirt under his shoes before releasing her chin and running a hand through his delightfully mussled hair. It looked like someone had made their mark on the man, as small nail scratches littered his taut muscular back and his hair looked like he rolled out of someone else's bed.
The realization that the someone else was her hit her like a sack of flour to the head. Did she sleep with Logan?! How?!