Page 18 of Cruel Fate

CHAPTER SEVEN

Stella

The next morning, my heart’s beating like crazy. I push through the revolving doors of Maddox Industries expecting to be told I no longer have a reason to be in the building, but the security guard scans my badge, x-rays my purse, and waves me through. I still have a job, but that’s small consolation. I could be Elmer’s assistant, scrubbing toilets while he walks around outside on his smoke breaks.

I reach the basement, and Connie’s already sitting in our corner. Meeting my gaze, she raises her eyebrows.

Wearing his usual dress shirt, tie, and dress slacks, Simon pokes his head around the doorjamb of his office. He’s grinning from ear to ear as he beckons to me across the floor full of cubicles. I don’t slip off my coat. Maybe I’ll still need it.

“Stella! Good morning! Sit down, sit down.”

I want his excitement to rub off on me, but I can’t let it. “What’s going on?” I ask, perching on the edge of one of his chairs.

“I have excellent news. You’ve been promoted, and so have I.”

I blink. I never applied for a promotion. “What?”

“This morning I received an email from HR. You were promoted—all the way up to the top. Mr. Maddox, well, Zane, requested that you be his new executive assistant.”

Stunned, my mouth drops open.

Anger and joy fight inside me. The pay increase will be significant, but the position isn’t stable. Obviously, it’s contingent on how well Zane and I get along. Executive assistants know their bosses inside and out. They need to have a camaraderie.

A trust.

Does Zane trust me enough to let me handle, or have a hand in, everything he does at the company?

I don’t feel qualified for a position of that magnitude.

“You must have impressed Zarah on Friday,” Simon prods, hoping I’ll say something.

“I...guess so.” There’s no way I’m going to admit I partied with them over the weekend, though my picture outside Temptations will come out soon enough. Maybe it already has. “What about you? You seem pretty happy, too.”

“The promotion I applied for last year finally went through. As much as I adore all you lovely ladies down here, I’m moving up to the Finance department effective today. My last duty in the dungeon is having you sign the transfer slip.”

Simon pushes an iPad toward me and offers me a stylus. If I sign, I’ll be Zane’s assistant. My desk will sit outside his office on the twenty-fifth floor. Quite a step up from payroll in the “garden level.”

I don’t know Zane well enough to trust him, but he hasn’t tried to seduce me and that gives him points.

He had a nightmare as the sun came up, and to quiet him, I gave him a blowjob, trailing kisses over his belly to his erection. He fell right back to sleep after he found his release between my lips. I wondered all day yesterday if he remembered, but he didn’t text or call.

I scrawl my name on the screen, my hand shaking so terribly it doesn’t look like my signature at all.

This job is going to require parties, meetings, dinners, even business trips, and I’m not ready.

My stomach churns as I clean out my cubby. I tell Connie I was promoted and she gives me the stink eye. She’s not stupid, and she immediately puts two and two together.

“You and Zarah Maddox are besties now,” she says, scorn dripping from her words.

“She doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

That’s not a lie. This is all Zane.

Connie doesn’t believe me, and she snorts. “Take care of yourself.”

There won’t be any reason for me to come down here to see her.

I hug Simon goodbye. Unless we meet up to have coffee and chat or bump into each other in the elevator, I won’t be seeing him again, either.

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