My Secretary’s Real-Life Business Game Chapter 1

My name is Leo Grant. I'm young, successful, and the founder of a decent-sized tech company. People call me Mr. Grant.

I hired a new executive assistant, Anna Vance.

She's beautiful, quiet, and a little bit lazy. She clocks in on the dot, clocks out on the dot, and wouldn't stay a second longer if the building was on fire. A classic nine-to-fiver.

The company's head of sales, Vince Carter, took a liking to her. He started a full-blown campaign of flowers and breakfast deliveries, making sure everyone in the office knew.

I know Vince's type. He'd scrapped his way up from a small town. He was capable, but his ambition had a nasty edge. He was always looking for a ladder to climb.

He saw a girl like Anna—pretty and a little spaced-out—as the perfect rung.

I was mostly just an observer, occasionally stepping in to rescue Anna from one of his advances.

Until the day Vince stormed into my office holding a paternity test, marched over to Anna's desk in front of everyone, and slammed it down.

"Anna! What do you have to say for yourself now? This baby is Leo's!"

I was completely floored.

But what I didn't expect was Anna's reaction. She just slowly looked up, glanced at the report, and then picked up her phone.

"Hello? Mr. Wallace? Yes, it's me. I'm done playing. Buy out this company… 'Voyager Tech,' I think it's called. I want it done in ten minutes."

And just like that, my entire worldview shattered.

* * *

My name is Leo Grant. I started my own company, a modest internet firm with about a hundred employees. In my circle, people show me some respect and call me Mr. Grant.

Three months ago, I hired a new assistant, Anna.

On the day of her interview, she showed up in a simple white shirt and jeans, no makeup. Her résumé was shockingly sparse, listing only her graduation from a state university.

When HR handed it to me, they were planning to reject her.

"Mr. Grant, she has almost no experience."

I was in the middle of a headache induced by a group of investors and just waved my hand dismissively. "Her. Hire her. She looks… quiet."

And just like that, Anna became my assistant.

And she was, indeed, quiet.

She appeared at her desk every morning at nine o'clock sharp. Not a minute early, not a minute late.

The first thing she'd do was brew a cup of tea. Then, she'd leisurely turn on her computer and start sifting through emails.

She was efficient. Every task I gave her was completed perfectly, exactly as requested, but never with an ounce of extra effort.

If you asked her to summarize meeting notes, she would never take the initiative to create a supplementary PowerPoint.

If you told her to book the conference room for 3 PM, she would never ask if you wanted coffee and pastries arranged beforehand.

Zero initiative.

The second the clock hit 6 PM, her computer was off before anyone else's. She'd grab the canvas tote bag that looked like it had seen better years and vanish.

Once, at a company team-building event, everyone was singing karaoke until midnight. She was the only one who announced at nine that she was going home to sleep.

My head of administration joked, "Mr. Grant, your new assistant is the definition of someone who is just coasting."

I had to agree.

She was a young woman with no apparent career ambition, perfectly content with the status quo, probably just looking for a stable job to pass the time.

She was beautiful, though. A clean, fresh kind of pretty. Pale skin, bright eyes that always seemed to look at you through a thin veil of mist, creating a sense of distance.

Plenty of the young guys in the office were interested, but she treated everyone the same: polite, but remote.

Until Vince Carter from the sales department made his move.

Vince was our top salesman. He was sharp, a smooth talker, a real go-getter. He'd fought his way out of a small town, had an incredible work ethic, and an even more incredible desire to get ahead.

The way he looked at Anna was different.

It was the look of a hunter spotting its prey, filled with a cold, calculated certainty.

He probably figured that a beautiful girl like her, seemingly without connections and with an air of otherworldly detachment, was the perfect target.

Conquering her would satisfy his male ego without any messy complications.

And so, what I mentally dubbed the "Office Drone Mating Ritual" began.

I just never imagined the script would take such a bizarre turn.