It was 11:47 on a Thursday night when Cameron Hayes appeared at Audrey’s door.
Cameron was the CEO of Hayes Enterprises: arrogant, relentless, a workaholic, and far too handsome for his own good. But that night he was not the controlled man Audrey knew from the office. He was drunk, stumbling, his tie crooked and his eyes bloodshot.
The worst part was what he said when she opened the door.
“Audrey, I need you.”
Not for work. Not for a meeting. Not for a presentation. He needed her.
And she was wearing her blue pajamas with the kitten print.
The doorbell had dragged her out of an accidental nap on the couch, a book still open in her lap, glasses crooked on her face. She had adjusted them, walked to the door, looked through the peephole, and felt her heart stop. She opened it so fast she almost tore off the doorknob.
“Mr. Hayes, what are you—”
He stumbled forward. She grabbed his arms on reflex, and his weight against her was warm and solid, the smell of whiskey mixing with the expensive cologne he always wore in a way that was disturbingly familiar.
“Oh,” he said, with a drunk smile that was absurdly beautiful. “You’re here.”
“I live here. Are you okay?”
“No.” He walked into her apartment, tripping, and she caught him again. “I’m terrible. I’m—”
He stopped and looked at her with dark eyes that were usually cold and controlled at the office. Now they held something she couldn’t name.
She shut the door quickly. The neighbors didn’t need to witness this.
“You’re drunk. How did you find my address?”
He let himself fall onto her couch. “HR files. I’m the boss. I have access.” His eyes moved over her slowly. “You’re in pajamas.”
“I was sleeping. It’s almost midnight.”
“There are kittens on them.”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Yes, there are kittens. So what?”
He tilted his head, a strand of hair falling over his forehead. “It’s ugly.”
“Excuse me?”
“No, wait.” He laughed — a genuine, drunk laugh, completely different from the cold calculated smiles he gave at the office. “It’s not ugly. It’s cute. Like you. Cute, but weird.”
“You came here to call me weird?”
Then he became completely serious. His eyes found hers with an intensity that stole the air from her lungs.
“No. I came because I need you.”
Her heart beat so hard she could hear it.
“Need me for what? Meeting tomorrow? I already prepared all the—”
“No.” He stood abruptly, stumbling, and grabbed her shoulders with both large warm hands. The proximity was overwhelming. “Not for work, Audrey. For me. I need you.”
She couldn’t process the words. Couldn’t breathe properly.
“You’re irritating, you know,” he said, his hands still too close to her. “Always punctual, always proper, always—” He stopped and swallowed. “Perfect. And I hate perfection because it makes me feel messy. And you have these ridiculous glasses that make you look like a sexy librarian but you don’t even know you’re sexy. That drives me crazy.”
“I—what?”
His words were breaking down every barrier she had carefully built around her feelings for him.
“And you wear these ugly cardigans,” he continued.
“My cardigans are not ugly,” she interrupted, indignant even in the middle of the chaos.
“They are. But I like them. And that doesn’t make sense.” He sat back down and put his head in his hands. “Nothing makes sense since you started working for me.”
“Mr. Hayes, you’re very drunk. I think it’s better if you—”
He looked up at her, and all her rationality evaporated.
“I fell in love with you.”
The silence that followed was so deep she could hear the kitchen clock marking the seconds.
“What?”
“Fell in love.” He laughed without humor, rough and painful. “Ridiculous, right? Cameron Hayes. CEO. Workaholic. Never loses control. And I’m in love with my proper secretary who wears kitten pajamas.” His eyes met hers, full of a vulnerability that hurt to look at. “I’ve never met any woman like you, Audrey. Never. But you’re different, and I don’t know how to deal with different.”
Tears threatened her eyes. “You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do.” He stood again, completely invading her personal space, close enough that she felt heat radiating from him. “I know exactly what I’m saying. I’m in love, and it’s horrible, because you shouldn’t be my type. You’re everything I don’t look for. But you’re everything I want.”
“Cameron.”
His name left her mouth without permission, soft and loaded with all the emotions she had been denying for months.
He froze. “You called me Cameron.”
“Because you’re making me feel things I don’t know how to deal with either.”
He touched her face with a gentleness that completely contradicted the intensity of the moment. His hand warm against her cheek.
“I need you, Audrey. Even if it’s wrong, even if it’s crazy.”
He leaned toward her, and she pulled back on reflex.
“No. You’re drunk. This isn’t right.”
He laughed, sad and defeated. “Always so proper.” He stumbled again, and she automatically caught him. “Even when rejecting me, you’re proper.”
She guided him back to the couch, trying to ignore the fact that her heart had been simultaneously shattered and rebuilt.
“Can I sleep here?”
“You’re going to sleep here. I’m not letting you drive like this.”
She arranged a pillow under his head and brought a blanket from the bedroom. He was already half asleep by the time she covered him.
“You take care of me,” he murmured, his voice fading. “Always take care. At work. Now here.”
“You’re perfect,” he said, his eyes closing completely.
“I’m not,” Audrey whispered.
“You are. My perfect weird ugly pajama.”
Then he was asleep, breathing deep and even.
Audrey stood beside the couch looking at Cameron Hayes, the most impossible man in the world, vulnerable in a way she had never imagined he could be.
That was when she finally admitted she was completely, hopelessly in love with him.
She couldn’t sleep. She called Sophie at three in the morning, whispering from the kitchen while Cameron slept on her couch.
“My boss is on my couch,” she said when Sophie answered.
“What?”
“Cameron Hayes. CEO. Drunk. On my couch. He said—” She paused, because saying it out loud made it even more real. “He said he’s in love with me.”
The scream Sophie let out almost pierced her eardrum.
“Audrey, the hot billionaire CEO is in love with you.”
“He was drunk. He called my pajamas ugly. Called me weird.”
“Which pajamas?”
“The kittens.”
Sophie laughed. “But he said he likes them even though they’re ugly, right? And that your glasses make you look like a sexy librarian? Audrey, that’s a complete declaration from a drunk man.”
“Tomorrow he won’t remember any of it.”
“Or he’ll remember everything and be a defensive jerk.”
Audrey stared at the closed living room door. “Do you like him?” Sophie asked.
“He’s my boss. He’s arrogant, workaholic, impossible.”
“But?”
“But when he looks at me, sometimes I forget to breathe. And tonight, when he said those things, drunk and vulnerable—” Her voice failed. “I wanted to believe it.”
“Then tomorrow you’re going to have to deal with this. Wing it and call me immediately after.”
Dawn came gray and slow. At half past six, Audrey heard Cameron move on the couch. She carried two cups of coffee into the living room and watched him sit up slowly, bringing a hand to his head, looking around in confusion.
She placed a cup on the table beside him, unable to meet his eyes. “You showed up here last night. Drunk.”
She saw the exact moment the memories returned. His face went pale.
“I—what did I—”
“You said some things. But you were drunk, so—” She forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “We can forget it, right?”
Cameron picked up the cup. For a moment their fingers touched. He looked at her — her glasses, her face without makeup, the kitten pajamas she hadn’t changed out of.
Then she watched the barrier go up. She watched him close off everything he had shown the night before.
“Right. Forget it. I need to go.”
He stood too fast, grabbed his jacket.
“Your car is outside, but I don’t know if you should drive yet.”
“I’m fine.” His voice was cold, professional, distant. “Thanks for letting me sleep here.”
“You’re welcome.”
He walked to the door. His hand on the doorknob. He didn’t look back.
“See you at the office. And Audrey—” The pause carried the weight of the world. “Nothing that happened last night changes anything. Professionalism. Understood?”
Her heart sank. “Understood.”
The door closed with a soft click that echoed through the empty apartment.
Audrey slid down the back of the door to the floor. The tears she had been holding all night finally fell.
He was an idiot for pretending nothing had happened.
And she was an even bigger idiot for believing, even for a few hours, that someone like Cameron Hayes could truly fall in love with someone like her.
At the office the next morning, he called her Miss Bennett. Twelve times across the span of three hours, she counted. Not Audrey. Miss Bennett. As if her name had been erased from his vocabulary overnight.
Every interaction was icy and formal: reports, meetings, coffee, documents. He never looked at her longer than the task required.
When lunch finally came, she escaped the building and called Sophie from a bench in the plaza outside.
“He’s treating me like a complete stranger,” she said.
“Defense mechanism,” Sophie replied, with the infuriating confidence of someone who always knew exactly what was happening. “He’s scared of what he felt, so he’s pretending he didn’t feel anything.”
“It’s hurting, Sophie.”
“Of course it is. Because you really like him.” A pause. “Then make him feel something. Be unexpected. Be brave. Do something he doesn’t see coming from you.”
She went back to the office that afternoon and walked into his office without knocking — an audacity so unlike her that she surprised herself.
“The meeting with the investors has been scheduled for three o’clock as you requested.”
He didn’t look up. “Right. Thanks.”
She took a breath. “And about what you said last night.”
Cameron froze completely. His fingers stopped moving. His shoulders went rigid.
“I told you to forget that, Miss Bennett.”
“What if I don’t want to forget?”
She took a step toward his desk. Her heart beating so hard it felt ready to escape her chest.
He finally looked up. Really looked. His dark eyes carried something dangerous and vulnerable at once.
“Audrey.” His voice was a warning and a plea in the same syllable.
“You said you’d never met any woman like me,” she said, taking another step, refusing to back down. “Was that true, or was it just the alcohol talking?”
“I was completely drunk.”
“But drunk people say the truths they hide when they’re sober.”
“Or they say meaningless nonsense.” He stood abruptly, putting the desk between them. “Forget all of it. It was a terrible mistake.”
The pain was physical, sharp like a blade. But Audrey refused to let it show.
“Right. Understood perfectly.”
She turned to leave.
“Audrey, wait.”
She stopped. He opened his mouth, then closed it, running a hand through his hair in a gesture of pure frustration.
“Nothing. You can go.”
She left. And then clearly heard something strike the desk with violent force.
He had punched the furniture.
The small, petty satisfaction at knowing she affected him as much as he affected her was practically the only thing keeping her from crying in the hallway.
That evening, Cameron finally appeared at her desk just as she was shutting down her computer to leave.
“Can I talk to you in private?”
“Is it about work?”
“No. It’s about what happened last night.”
Her heart raced. “But you said to forget all of that.”
“It’s been very hard to forget.”
He stepped toward her. “It’s been hard for me too,” she admitted quietly. “But if that’s really what you want—”
“No.” The word came out with surprising, almost desperate force. “That’s not what I want. Not at all.”
“Then tell me what you really want, Cameron.”
He ran a tired hand over his face. “I don’t know how to do this, Audrey. I’ve never felt anything like this. It scares me.”
“It scares me too.” She took a step toward him, closing the distance. “But pretending this feeling doesn’t exist won’t make it disappear.”
“I know.” He moved closer, until she could feel the heat of his body. “I’m sincerely sorry for today. For being so cold. For being a complete jerk.”
“You really were a jerk today.”
“I was,” he agreed. “Because when I see you, I can’t think straight. This morning at your apartment, in those ridiculous pajamas, too beautiful for your own good — I desperately wanted to kiss you. That terrifies me in a way I can’t explain.”
“Why does it terrify you so much?”
“Because I’m your boss. Because I could ruin everything. Because you deserve someone much better than a workaholic who shows up drunk at your door in the middle of the night.”
She slowly raised her hand and touched his face, feeling the roughness of his stubble. “What if I want exactly you? With all your imperfections. Complicated. Workaholic. Simply you.”
“Audrey.” Her name again, like a prayer.
“You said you needed me,” she said. “Well, I need you too, Cameron.”
He kissed her.
It was intense, desperate, completely perfect. His hands held her face with a gentleness that contradicted everything else — as if she were something precious that might break. Her hands went to his hair. The kiss tasted of unspoken promises and all the things that had gone unsaid for months.
When they finally pulled apart, breathless, she could barely form a thought.
“Wow,” was all she managed.
Cameron smiled — one of those rare, genuine smiles that transformed his face. “I fully agree.”
“What happens now?”
He rested his forehead against hers. “Now we try. Slowly. At our own pace.” Then he pulled back just enough to look at her. “But there need to be ground rules.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What kind of rules?”
“Here at the office, during work hours, we keep everything completely professional.” His fingers traced the outline of her jaw. “But out there, away from everyone’s eyes, you’re completely mine.”
“Possessive?”
“Extremely. Is that a problem?”
She bit her lower lip, failing to suppress a smile. “No. Definitely not a problem.”
The weeks that followed were the most surreal of Audrey’s life.
During the day, they were the perfection of professionalism. She was Miss Bennett, punctual and efficient. He was Mr. Hayes, the impossible CEO, as always. No one had any reason to suspect anything. But at night, he was simply Cameron — and she was discovering sides of him no one else had permission to see.
Small restaurants where no one from the company would recognize them. Long walks through the park where they talked about everything and nothing, about books she was reading and buildings he wanted to build and all the inconsequential things two people talk about when they are learning each other. Nights watching movies in her tiny apartment while he complained about her romantic comedy selections with the specific pleasure of someone who is actually enjoying themselves.
He was surprisingly sweet when he was away from the critical eyes of the corporate world. The controlled, relentless CEO disappeared, and in his place was someone who laughed too loud at bad jokes, who remembered small things she mentioned in passing weeks earlier, who showed up at her door with takeout on the nights she had exams and sat quietly at her kitchen table while she studied because he said the company helped him think.
It should have been uncomfortable. It wasn’t.
One Thursday, he appeared after work with Chinese food, and they ended up eating straight from the cardboard boxes on the living room floor because Audrey insisted it was more comfortable. Then he wandered off and opened her closet.
“Audrey, how many cardigans do you own?”
Heat rose immediately to her cheeks. “About forty-seven, give or take.”
“Forty-seven.” He turned to face her with wide eyes. “You’re telling me you own forty-seven cardigans?”
“I really like cardigans. What’s the problem?”
He started laughing — a genuine, loud laugh that echoed off the walls. Then he pulled her close, arms around her waist. “You’re absolutely impossible. You know that?”
He kissed her softly, enough to make her knees weak.
“And I completely love that about you.”
He froze. She froze. He had not meant to say that, and they both knew it.
“You—what did you just say?”
“I meant that I like that. Of course I—”
“No. You said love.”
She pulled back from his arms, needing space to breathe.
He wouldn’t quite finish the thought. Not yet.
A week later, on a Friday evening, they were on her couch watching a movie she was only half paying attention to. She wore the blue kitten pajamas. His arm was around her shoulders, and she was pressed against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
“Those ridiculous pajamas are still extremely ugly,” he said, interrupting the movie.
“And yet you’re still here every night saying exactly the same thing,” she replied without looking away from the screen.
“Because I love you, you idiot.”
He said it so naturally it took her three full seconds to process.
She pulled back, turning to face him with wide eyes. “What? What did you just say?”
His expression moved rapidly from calm to absolutely terrified. “I—damn. That wasn’t how I was planning to say it for the first time.”
“Cameron.” She said his name in a whisper, tears already forming.
“Forget it. Please, just forget I—”
“I love you too.”
He froze. Turned slowly to look at her.
“Even while wearing those absolutely horrible pajamas,” she said, laughing through the tears running freely down her face. “Especially in these horrible pajamas.”
He kissed her, deep and certain, sealing something that felt like a promise.
Nothing in life stayed perfect forever. A colleague named Jessica — executive-level, ambitious, impeccably blonde, with an eye on Cameron that she had made no particular effort to conceal — had been watching the change in their dynamic with cold, calculating eyes. Audrey found out the hard way during an important investor presentation, when her laptop files had been deleted and replaced with a corrupted error message. Jessica’s too-sweet smile from across the conference table told her everything she needed to know.
Cameron handled the meeting smoothly with backup files he had brought precisely for situations like this. Professional, unruffled, giving nothing away. Afterward, the IT department confirmed what they both suspected: the files had been accessed from Jessica’s terminal at two in the morning on Sunday.
Cameron fired her the next day in front of Audrey, in a tone so cold and controlled it sent a chill down her spine even knowing the anger wasn’t directed at her.
“No one hurts Audrey and continues working here,” he said. “Absolutely no one.”
Audrey watched Jessica leave the building with security, cursing about favoritism the whole way down. She waited for satisfaction to arrive. It didn’t. Only a dull, accurate premonition that this wasn’t finished.
“Hayes Enterprises CEO Involved in Romance with Secretary.” Photos of them leaving a restaurant together. Articles speculating about favoritism, inappropriate relationships, questionable professional merit.
She called Cameron immediately. He answered on the first ring.
“Jessica leaked it before she was fired,” he said. “She planned it perfectly.”
“Everyone is going to think I got my position because of this.” Tears fell as the words came out unsteadily. “I worked so hard, Cameron. I worked so hard to be exactly where I am, and now everyone will believe I’m only there because I’m sleeping with the boss.”
“I don’t care what people think.”
“I care. I care a lot.” She heard how frustrated and exhausted she sounded. “I need time to think.”
She hung up. She ignored his calls for two weeks, and then three, locked in her apartment in the particular misery of someone who wants to call back and can’t make herself do it. It wasn’t just the scandal. It was something she hadn’t admitted even to herself: that Cameron was a workaholic who canceled plans for meetings that appeared out of nowhere, who answered emails during dinners, who made her feel like something he fit into his schedule when there was space left between the endless hours of work.
Sophie showed up in the third week with the spare key she had been given for emergencies.
“Enough,” Sophie said, throwing her bag on the couch and crossing her arms. “You can’t hide here forever.”
“I’m processing.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” She sat beside Audrey and took her hands. “He loves you. You love him. You’re both miserable. So why don’t you solve this?”
Audrey told her everything then — the canceled plans, the emails during dinner, the feeling of always being second to the work. When she finished, she felt strangely lighter.
“Did you talk to him about any of this?” Sophie asked gently.
“No,” Audrey admitted. “I just ran away.”
“Then you know what you need to do.”
Three weeks after Audrey stopped answering Cameron’s calls, she received an unexpected text from Ryan, his vice president and closest friend: “Shareholders meeting today at three. You should come. Please trust me.”
She arrived at the auditorium a few minutes before three, wearing one of her favorite cardigans, slipping into a discreet spot at the back. The place was packed with shareholders and executives and board members, all speaking in low voices as they waited.
Cameron walked onto the stage at exactly three o’clock. Impeccable in the dark gray suit she knew was his favorite. But something was different in his expression — a nervousness she had never seen in him before, his hands slightly tense around the microphone.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for attending this quarterly meeting.” His professional voice, steady and controlled. “But before we discuss numbers, I need to say something of an extremely personal nature.”
A murmur moved through the auditorium.
“Many of you have heard the rumors that recently circulated about me and my executive assistant, Audrey Bennett.”
He paused deliberately, and then his eyes swept the auditorium until they found her at the back.
“I’m here today to confirm that those rumors are completely true. I love her. I’m in love with her, and I don’t care who knows it.”
Tears formed in Audrey’s eyes as Cameron stepped down from the stage with firm steps, walking the center aisle directly toward her. Two hundred people turned their heads to watch. She could only see him.
“Audrey, I was a complete idiot,” he said when he reached her. He took her hands with a gentleness that contradicted the intensity of the moment. “I’m a workaholic who cancels plans and answers emails at dinner and doesn’t know how to stop working long enough to deserve someone like you. But you made me want to be better. You made me realize there’s life beyond the office.”
He stood in front of her, in front of all those people.
“I don’t want to hide this from anyone anymore. I don’t want to hide you from anyone. So I’m asking you, in front of all these witnesses: will you try again with me?”
Tears were running freely down her face, but she was smiling at the same time.
“You’re absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “You know that?”
“I know.” He smiled — the rare, genuine smile she loved. “But I’m your ridiculous, if you’ll still have me.”
“Yes. I forgive you, you impossible idiot.”
He kissed her right there in the center of the packed auditorium. The sound of applause echoing off the walls was the most surreal thing she had ever experienced: two hundred people clapping for their imperfect, complicated love.
Six months later, they were moving into a new apartment they had chosen together.
Audrey was carrying a box when Cameron stopped in the middle of the living room, staring in absolute horror at the number of boxes labeled “Audrey’s clothes.”
“Tell me you didn’t bring all forty-seven cardigans,” he said.
“It’s fifty now,” she replied with a mischievous smile. “I bought three more last week. They were on sale.”
He started laughing, shaking his head, then pulled her close with his arms around her waist.
“Completely impossible to deal with.” He kissed her softly. “That’s exactly why you’re perfect for me.”
“Even when I’m wearing the kitten pajamas?”
“Especially when you’re wearing those ridiculous kitten pajamas.” He paused for effect. “Which are still extremely ugly, just so we’re clear.”
“And yet you’re still here every night complaining about the same thing.”
“I’ll always be here, Audrey.” His voice had gone serious, quiet and honest. “You made me believe there’s something more important in the world than work and endless meetings.”
“And you made me believe I can be loved exactly as I am,” she said. “With my glasses, my fifty ugly cardigans, my absolutely ridiculous pajamas.”
“They’re not ridiculous.” A small smile. “Okay, maybe a little ridiculous. But they’re completely yours, and that makes them perfect.”
“I love you so much,” she whispered against his lips.
“I love you so much more,” he replied, kissing her again.
That night, after an exhausting day of moving boxes, they sat on their new couch watching a movie. She wore the blue kitten pajamas he pretended so much to hate. He held her, his chin resting on the top of her head, his heartbeat steady against her back.
“Do you remember that night you showed up drunk at my door?” she asked, interrupting the movie.
“How could I forget. Probably the most embarrassing moment of my life.”
“You said you needed me.”
“It was completely true.” He kissed the top of her head. “It’s still true. Every day.”
“I need you too,” Audrey said quietly. “My arrogant and completely impossible ex-boss.”
“Ex-boss. Now I’m just yours.”
“Completely mine,” she agreed, turning to kiss him.
She thought about everything that had started on that night — the drunk man with the crooked tie stumbling into her apartment, the kitten pajamas, the declaration she had been afraid to believe, the morning when he had closed off everything she had hoped for, and all the difficult, honest work of getting from there to here.
Imperfect love, full of flaws and problems.
Real, honest, true love.
Love that was completely theirs.
Outside the window, the city was settling into its evening rhythm. Somewhere across town, Sophie was probably sending a string of congratulatory messages, and Ryan was composing something that would make Cameron laugh despite himself. They had people around them who had watched this unfold from the beginning and found it entirely predictable, and Audrey found that she didn’t mind being predictable at all.
Some stories look inevitable in hindsight. This one had started with a drunk man at a midnight door and a pair of ridiculous pajamas, and it had taken a great deal of embarrassment and stubbornness and hurt and honesty to arrive here, in this apartment that was theirs, in this life that was theirs.
Worth every bit of it.
Adrian Hawthorne is a celebrated author and dedicated archivist who finds inspiration in the hidden stories of the past. Educated at Oxford, he now works at the National Archives, where preserving history fuels his evocative writing. Balancing archival precision with creative storytelling, Adrian founded the Hawthorne Institute of Literary Arts to mentor emerging writers and honor the timeless art of narrative.