Secretary gets in bother (4)
I believe the answer is:
pain
'bother' is the definition.
(I know that bother can be written as pain)
'secretary gets in' is the wordplay.
'secretary' becomes 'PA' (abbreviation for personal assistant).
'gets' says to put letters next to each other.
'pa'+'in'='PAIN'
(Other definitions for pain that I've seen before include "Sensation of hurt" , "Tiresome figure" , "Symptom of hurt or disorder" , "French bread?" , "Suffering, distress" .)