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A/N: Thanx to everyone who reviewed! And about the whole ‘Spike can’t be an evil child prostitute crime ring lord!’ thing...well...wait and see, is all I’m gonna say :)



~*~



The next morning found Buffy standing in front of her mirror, staring at her reflection. She was holding up various outfits, but she hadn’t yet decided which one to wear. Was she going for serious and trustworthy, or fun-loving and a little bit slutty?



“They’ll underestimate me if I dress like a slut,” she mused. “Okay then.” She held up a yellow skit and a white blouse. “Hi! I’m Buffy, the new secretary!” she said to the mirror, “And please, just ignore me while I report back on your every activity to my boss in LA, whom I really don’t like but who says we need to bring down this crime ring, led by the hottest guy I’ve seen since oh I dunno pretty much ever...” She trailed off, plopping down on the bed and sticking out her lower lip in what was undeniably a pout. “Crap.”



Unfortunately she didn’t have much time to mope. The clock already read 8:45. She had to get dressed soon, or she’d be late.



“Stupid Captain Rayne,” she muttered, yanking on the skirt, “Making me do spy-stuff. I don’t like spy-stuff.”



She yanked on a pair of flip-flops and stared at herself in the mirror. To tell the truth, the barely recognized herself. Officer Summers had been who she was for so long that seeing herself as a carefree young woman was majorly freaky.



She took a deep breath and grabbed her purse. “You can do this, Buffy. You can.”



She arrived at the Jenkins building just before nine. She stood for along time, staring at the nondescript grey building. “Headquarters of a gang worse than the Crips,” she muttered, walking up the steps. “Yay. This should be barrels of fun.”



She was going to just open the door and walk in, since she worked there and all, but right before she put her hand on the knob it turned and was opened by Faith.



“Hey, B.” The brunette grinned at her. “Come on in. The staff’s fucking crazy without that blonde bitch Harmony, we’re gonna need you today.”



“Um. Okay.” Buffy frowned as they walked in. “So, no secretary results in major badness, right?”



Faith laughed. “I’ll let you decide, B.”



They walked through a series of halls. At first Buffy tried to keep track—this was stuff the Captain could definitely use—but the twisty halls were too, well, twisty, so she gave up.



Faith led them up a pair of stairs and up to...



“It’s a door,” Buffy observed, giving the other girl a quizzical look. “A big, grey door.”



“Kudos to Sherlock.” Faith rolled her eyes. “The real operation’s behind the door.”



“Uh-huh.” Buffy reached out and pushed the door open...



And very nearly fell over in shock.



She was standing in the middle of a humongous room, three stories high and about half the size of a football field. She knew the Jenkins building was big—it took up like three blocks or something—but this was more than just big. Big could not possibly describe the hugeness that was the Jenkins’ headquarters.



Open hallways were attached to the walls on the second and third floors, and doorways opened into what she assumed were more rooms. Holy crap, she thought, staring at the dozens of doors lining the two upper floors. Looks like it takes a lot to run a crime ring!



She turned around to ask Faith where she worked, only to find that the brunette had disappeared when she’d been looking around. “Major weirdness? Check,” she muttered, staring around desperately. Where the hell am I supposed to work?



“Hey! Blondie! Get your ass over to your desk!”



The nickname alone told her who was yelling, and the accent only reinforced the hunch. She suppressed a shiver and walked over there. Wonderful. Bid, bad man ordering around all day, the same big, bad man who shoved his boot in a guy’s face last night while I watched...this is really just terrific.



“So, this is my desk?” she asked in what for her passed as a perky manner. It was a huge desk set up against the farthest wall. Filing cabinets were behind and beside it, and huge stacks of papers covered most of the wooden surface.



“Yeah. Now listen, you watch the entrances, got it? Business we’re in, we need to know everybody who comes in an’ out. Someone you don’t recognize comes in, you buzz me.” He pointed to a huge intercom. “Mine’s the only room on the ground floor. Other than that, sort all these bloody papers an’ put ‘em in the proper files. You got all that?”



Buffy was staring at the desk with huge eyes, feeling more than a little dazed. OK Summers, don’t get all wiggy on him now...wah. What happened to, ‘these are the bad guys, you shoot them with the gun?’



“’Ello?” Spike snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Earth to Goldilocks! I haven’t got all day, y’know.”



“Oh! Sorry.” She smiled at him in what she hoped was a cheery manner. “So I sit at the desk and file papers?”



“Yeah, pretty much. ‘s not exactly a difficult job, so you shouldn’t have a problem with it.”



“What?!” A voice in her head warned her not to fight the boss, but she didn’t listen. “Are you calling me stupid?” She questioned in a dangerous voice.



He smirked at her. “Might be. Wait—yeah, ‘m definitely callin’ you stupid. A bloody idiotic, silly little chit.”



“You—you—jerk!” She spluttered, unable to come up with anything more creative or insulting. Her fist was doing most of the talking. It flew up and toward his face with blinding speed.



He was faster. He caught her fist in his hand and forced it back down. Anger sparked in his eyes. Blue eyes, her beyond frightened mind gibbered. The bad evil man has blue eyes. Very pretty blue eyes. No, Buffy. Pretty blue eyes equals very very bad, okay?



And yet when he back her up against the edge of the desk, she was too frozen, too busy staring into those eyes of his, to stop him.



“’M gonna give you a piece of advice, kitten,” he said in a soft, deadly voice. “You’re not the one in charge here. That honor goes to me. And in place like this, you’d best be watchin’ your step. Maybe you were safe back in LA with all the thugs walkin’ round callin’ themselves cops. You’re not safe here.” His hand tightened ever so slightly on her fist.



It hurt. It hurt enough that if she had any sense at all, she would have shut up and sat down and worked like a good little secretary. But Buffy had never been the sit-down-and-shut-up-type. Besides, in a way bizarre kinda way, she liked fighting with him. “Are you trying to scare me again? ‘Cause, it’s really hard to take a wanna-be Billy Idol freak seriously.”



He narrowed his eyes, but just then, his cell phone rang—and the tune was a Billy Idol song. She smirked at him and sat on the edge of the desk as he stepped away from her and checked the caller id. “Shit,” he muttered, before flipping the phone open. “A’right, talk, Bit,” he ordered. “What’s the problem?”



He was silent for a moment. Buffy took the opportunity to stick her tongue out at him—totally juvenile, she knew, but for God’s sake, the man looked seriously hot in a suit.



And even hotter when he scowled at her...



Focus, Buffy, she scolded herself. You’re not here to seduce your hot evil crime-ring-running boss, okay? Yeah, that was why she was swinging her legs on the edge of her desk, doing her absolute best to be seductive, right?



“He did what? Dammit, ‘m gonna kill him...no, you annoyin’ chit, not lit’rally...good. Yeah, you do that. Right, then. See ya.”



He hung up and rounded on Buffy. “You. Get your ass in the chair and keep it there. I don’t have time for your shit. Someone named Dawn comes in, you get her straight to me, got it?”



“Um...” she hopped off the desk and hurried around to the other side, sitting down. “Dawn. Okay.” She smiled at him. “Thanks for giving me this job, Spike.”



He sent her a look that could only be called one of deep disgust. “Don’t even try it, pet.”



She winced as he slammed the door to what she assumed was his office. Oh, yeah. I’m sure this job will be laughs, hugs, and puppies.



*



Spike felt bad as soon as he slammed the door, because the person sitting on his couch jumped about a half a mile into the air.



“Jesus, you white boys are all the same,” Charles Gunn berated him, tucking the gun he’d pulled out back into his pocket. “Let a girl get you all pissed—it’s pathetic, you know that?”



“She’s not a girl, she’s the sodding cop sent to spy on me and m’ company,” Spike snapped. “An’ that’s what’s got me so mad at her, not the fact that she’s a girl!”



He was lying, of course. Even he knew he was lying. You’re damn pathetic when you can’t even fool yourself about something.



He had the worst luck when it came to these things. Why the hell had Rayne sent him such a pretty girl? Weren’t there right ugly chits in the LAPD, too?



Gunn, too, was staring at him like he’d just tried to convince him the earth was flat. “’M tellin’ you, the fact that she’s a bird—“



“Has everything to do with it. Admit it, Spike, you think she’s hot.”



“I do not!”



Gunn just looked at him. He was really good at that, Spike mused as he walked over to the desk and picked up a paper, stubbornly refusing to meet Gunn’s eyes. Just starin’ at you till you caved...



“Okay, fine, maybe a little.” When he saw Gunn’s smug smile he snapped, “Hey. A little, mate, so wipe the grin off your face.”



“Okay, okay, a little. I’m down with that.”



“Down with what? You Americans, always so—oh god.” His eyes finally focused on the piece of paper he’d been holding for the past few minutes.



“What’s up?” Gunn tensed, ever so slightly, but it was the look of someone readying themselves to kill.



“It’s them. Makin’ trouble, again.”



“We gonna go and stop ‘em?”



“Um...” Spike plowed a hand through his hair. Bloody hell. A chap can’t get two minutes’ rest around here, can he? “Yeah. Yeah, we’ll do that. Buffy!” he hollered.



Something banged, and a few seconds later Buffy was standing in the door, holding a stack of papers and looking extremely annoyed. “What...sir?” she added, scowling at him.



He smirked back. Probably shouldn’t have, but really, he couldn’t help himself. She was too cute when she got mad. “’F Dawn comes in while ‘m out, just amuse her for awhile, a’right?”



“Amuse her?” Buffy repeated incredulously. “You want me to...amuse her? What the hell am I, a babysitter?”



Spike had had enough. There was a job to do, and the little blonde cop was in his way. Not too bad a view, but still...down, boy. She’s a bloody cop, remember? “No. You’re my employee, which means you do what I say, when I say it, you got that?” He caught her fist right before she landed a punch on him—girl could really throw one, all things considered. “And no hitting! This is a civilized establishment, y’know.”



Buffy narrowed her eyes at him, but really, what was she supposed to say? He had her trapped, and he knew it. “Fine. Sir.”



“Excellent!” He walked past her, barely resisting the urge to pat her on the ass. She had a cute one, all firm and tight...damn. “Be seein’ you!”



He heard her mumbling behind him, something about assholes and fornicating pigs. Jesus, she even sounded cute when she was threatening death by slow torture.



He grinned. “C’mon, mate,” he said jovially to Gunn, “Let’s go get down an’ dirty, shall we?”



And as they left, he could resist turning back around and mock-saluting his smoldering secretary. “Oh, an’ do us a favor, pet. Get the coffee on for when we get back?”



He dodged the heavy book she threw at him and left the building laughing.



A/N: OK, so it’s way shorter than what I usually write, but I have major writers’ block, plus spring break ends tomorrow :( . So I’m feeling a little down. Review plz and there’ll be more, promise!






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