Page 66 of Boss's Baby Surprise

“Leo is in kindergarten,” I mentioned. “He only goes for a half-day and then he spends the rest of the day in childcare, unless his aunt picks him up early.”

“Right, right, you moved out here with her? I seem to recall your saying something along those lines during the interview.”

“Yes,” I answered. “She and her husband (I didn’t feel like going into the details of their relationship, especially since I knew that while Marci was thrilled with being pregnant, she wasn’t so thrilled that Davey wasn’t putting a ring on her finger) transferred out here for his family. I decided it would be a good time to take the opportunity to also get out of town.”

“Well, we are glad to have you. Okay, okay, this is your desk. IT is up on the fifth floor. Rosalie will take you upstairs to get you introduced and get you all of your computer logins.”

It took a minute to remember who Rosalie was and where her office was located. I pointed back toward the front of the office space we were in. I had already met so many new people that names and faces were starting to blur.

“Right, right, she was that first office just beyond the receptionist desk on the first floor,” Dominic confirmed.

I had never been in an architectural firm as large as this one. They even had their own IT department. It wasn’t just the receptionist and the draftsperson left troubleshooting to make sure the plotting printers were connecting to computers.

After Dominic gave me a brief tour of where I’d be working, he left me on my own to find my way back to Rosalie’s office.

“Think of it as trial by fire,” he said jokingly when I accused him of pushing me into the deep end of the pool without even knowing if I could swim.

The hardest part of getting back to Rosalie’s office was getting myself out of the maze of cubicles my workspace was in themiddle of and to the elevator bank. Fortunately, Rosalie’s office was close enough to the elevators on the first floor that I didn’t get too lost. Besides, all the offices with doors had those glass walls, so I could see which one she was in.

I knocked on her door and she waved me in.

“Did that man abandon you?” she asked with a broad smile on her face.

“He did seem to take great pleasure in my panicked response when he told me I was on my own to get back here,” I said.

“Dominic tries to be a hard ass, but he sucks at it. He’s too nice.” Her phone rang, and she laughed as she looked at it. “Speak of the devil.” She answered the phone, and Dominic’s voice filled her office.

“Has the new kid made it there yet?”

“She’s sitting right here, and you’re on speakerphone.”

“Good, good, you didn’t get lost. I knew you could make it,” he said with his quirky double words.

“I managed to find my way here, no help to you,” I said, jumping into the easy camaraderie that was in the office.

“Try not to scare her off, Rosalie. And have her back to me after lunch.”

“Thanks for making my job easier.” She laughed as she hung up the phone and turned her attention back to me. “We have paperwork for you to fill out, and we have to get your employee ID badge. Oh, and we need to make sure that you’re set up with IT for computer and network access. Then we need to spend some time going over how we track billable hours.”

I smiled to myself. I was going to have billable hours. I was so excited.

“Everything okay?” Rosalie asked.

I nodded. “It’s just my first time having billable hours. It kind of feels like I made it, you know?”

“But you’ve been working in architectural firms, I thought,” she said.

“Yeah, I spent the last few years as a receptionist for one while I finished up my degree. I pretty much helped around the office. I’m pro at getting the plotter back onto the network. Other than that, I’ve worked as an intern, and none of that is billable.”

Rosalie nodded in understanding. “I admire your enthusiasm.” She gestured in a circular motion with her hand before bringing all of her fingers together quickly. “Please keep that in mind when you are actually tracking your work. It is probably the one thing the creatives moan about the most.”

I suppressed a giggle.

“Why don’t we get started?” Rosalie stood up.

I followed her out of her office and into an empty room with some equipment. She walked me through the process of having a picture ID made. We waited around while my ID card was processed. It was still warm when she handed it to me.

“Don’t lose that, it is also your key card.” She began rummaging through a cupboard and pulled out a box of different colored lanyards. “You don’t have to use one of these if you don’t like them, but until you figure out what you want, these are handy. You need to keep your key card on you at all times.”

---