It didn’t seem to affect her job performance. She was a whiz at instant messaging and e-mails, often responding to his messages in less than a minute. She did everything he asked of her on time and cleanly, and had even gotten to the point where she was anticipating his needs.

Like now. He was sitting at his desk, and suddenly a guy from the deli had knocked on his door and brought him a turkey sandwich on whole grain.

So he IM’d her.

Is this turkey sandwich for me?

Before he could even get it unwrapped, she had replied.

Yes, it is. Enjoy.

He should let it go at that. Really, it didn’t matter. He had the sandwich. He could eat it and not worry about being interrupted in the middle of his twelve-o’clock Web conference regarding the updates to the product roadmap at First Financial. Yet this conference call was taking three times as long as was necessary, and he found he couldn’t stop himself from instant messaging Mandy again.

How do you know I would want turkey?

You always eat turkey on Tuesdays.

He wasn’t sure if he was pleased or annoyed. Probably annoyed. Because he found that for all the hiding she did from him, it didn’t stop him from wasting a great deal of time thinking about Mandy Keeling, trying to figure her out.

Which puzzled him first, pissed him off second.

Maybe next Tuesday I’ll have pastrami.

You don’t like pastrami.

How did she know if he liked pastrami or not? She never even spoke to him, hiding in her cubicle like she was afraid to come face-to-face with her ogre boss. Maybe he loved pastrami.

He didn’t, but that wasn’t the point.

He bit the turkey sandwich with more force than was necessary and nearly ripped through his tongue.

How do you know I don’t like pastrami?

You said it smelled like armpit when I was ordering party trays for the user group meeting.

How the hell she could even remember he said that was beyond him. He went two years with assistants who couldn’t even remember what floor they were on, and now suddenly he had one with magic memory.

He should be thrilled. She was a dream secretary come true.

And maybe he would be thrilled if she wasn’t avoiding him like week-old fish.

That shouldn’t bother him either. Wasn’t he happiest when people were leaving him alone? Hadn’t he rearranged his whole life so that he had the least amount of interaction with other human beings as possible aside from work? She did her job, and she did it with minimal contact with him. A perfect working arrangement.

Which didn’t explain why he was searching his brain for an excuse to force her into his office face-to-face, so he could puzzle out why he was spending so much time thinking about her.