Read 7:02 AM.
He reads every message I send. Every single one — and he knows I can see him read them. That’s not a bug in our relationship. That IS our relationship.
I’m Taylor Quinn, and for three years I’ve run CEO Matthew Murray’s entire life by text: the dentist appointments he pretends he doesn’t need, the pitch decks he swears he read, the dying office fern I water out of spite. Forty-two thousand messages. First one lands at 7:02 every morning. Somewhere around month eleven of almost — the lingering looks converted into jokes, the brushed hands filed under plausible deniability — I did something no executive assistant should ever do.
I gave the CEO a performance review. Locked door. Color-coded file. Red pen.
The review was supposed to be a joke. It stopped being one somewhere around “exceeds expectations, in every category.”
Now we’re a secret with read receipts — careful at work, careless everywhere else, and fluent in the one language where neither of us can hide. Because a relationship conducted in timestamps has nowhere to run when my ex resurfaces after fourteen months of silence. When I carry a secret for two weeks that nearly costs me everything. When a San Francisco firm offers me a COO title and double my salary — and the man who’s spent a year reading every word I send counters with the only offer that matters:
Stay. As an equal.
One year after the review, at 11:59 PM, he sends me a photograph with no caption at all.
My reply is still typing…
Read Receipts is Book 4 of the Taylor Quinn Romance series: a steamy boss-and-assistant workplace romantic comedy told in text messages — for readers who like their slow burn with banter, their CEOs six-foot-six and impossible, and their happy endings earned one timestamp at a time.