Page 1 of Quarantined with the Billionaire

Chapter One

I frowned as I rolled my desk chair into the conference room on the third floor, reminding myself that strange times called for strange measures. As long as I’d worked here, the customer service staff had never had an unplanned meeting like this. Before today, our meetings were as predictable as the sunrise or the seasons.

Until now.

Close behind me was my bestie Elise. She and I had been hired by Essential Solutions Finance, LLC (we customer service folks had been trained to add the LLC when speaking officially about the company). After Elise and I had gone through onboarding together, we’d learned quickly to cling to each other through some rough times.

It turned out this was one of them.

When we entered the conference room, we had to push our chairs back against the wall. Customer service wasn’t the only department in this meeting, so the room was full of more people than usual. Jeffrey, our director, a nice enough guy who wore suits without ties except when he had meetings with the CEO and had finally given up trying to disguise the fact that he was losing hair, stood at the head of the room in front of the widescreen monitor on the wall.

He was wearing the royal blue tie that normally hung on the back of his office door.

More folks continued pouring into the room. Normally, this type of close contact wouldn’t bother me. Elise leaned close to me, her voice low, her almond-shaped green eyes shining brighter than usual. “So have you heard anything?”

The frown appeared too easily on my face, making me think I was going to develop a permanent scowl. Five years ago, I wouldn’t have even noticed my facial expressions, but my friend would be quick to point out how my face would age according to the emotions I displayed. You don’t want to look like an English bulldog when you’re sixty, do you, Bailey?

And I didn’t want to talk about my external job search in front of everyone who worked on my floor, so I whispered when I answered her. “No, and I don’t think I will. I guess I picked a bad time for a job search.”

Elise got ready to say something else, but Jeffrey’s deep voice interrupted her. “Thanks for assembling so quickly, everyone. In light of recent events, Mr. Steel has made the call that most of us will begin working remotely starting today.”

There were several gasps in the room and Elise looked at me, an eyebrow raised. She mouthed the words Dramatic much? I stifled a smile, but I knew she’d be able to read the amusement in my eyes.

“Wait a second,” said one of the men who worked in the investment department. “I get how my department can do that. All we really need is a computer and phone. But what about these guys?” Pointing toward me and my coworkers, he waved his hand with a flourish. Elise arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow as if to say See? Drama queen.

“IT has been working on a special project since yesterday. No, we don’t have enough laptops for everyone, but Mr. Steel knows it’ll be easier for everyone to practice social distancing if there are fewer people in the building. Since customer service reps, for example, spend all day on the phone, it should be easy for them to work from home. HR, on the other hand, may have to stick around until we can figure it out. For now, we’re responding to a situation that calls for extreme measures.”

Responding to a situation. Yeah, that was putting it mildly. Back in January when I’d first heard rumblings in the news about a deadly virus in China, I hadn’t worried too much about it. After all, MERS and Ebola hadn’t become widespread, had never threatened me personally, and the Coronavirus seemed to be the same. While I felt sympathy for the folks dealing with it on the other side of the planet, it didn’t capture my attention much.

But in late February…all that changed. I found myself obsessing over the news, wondering and worrying about what the hell was going on.

By March, it was here in the U.S., and it was spreading quickly. We as citizens weren’t having to restrict movements or anything yet, but the term social distancing had already become part of our vocabulary. At work, it was all but impossible, though. Even staying confined to our own cubicles, in customer service land, wasn’t helpful because the cube walls were low. If a coworker next to me coughed or sneezed, I would be close enough to breathe in their air particles. So, even though the idea of working at home seemed foreign, I appreciated our leader’s concern.

“We did a trial run yesterday with the accounting department and it seemed to work well with few glitches. Over the next week, we’ll begin testing of other departments. For now, we want to do our part to keep people safe, and that means having fewer people in the building.”

A woman on the other side of the room said, “And you thought the best way to tell us was to have us crammed like sardines in this conference room.” Oh, God. She stole my line.

Jeffrey’s pale face looked sheepish for just a moment. “It’s not ideal. I know. If you’ll recall, on Monday, we asked everyone to stay home if they displayed any signs of sickness in order to mitigate any problems. But I have to assume none of you have been living in a bubble, and you know things have escalated in just a few short days. Now, on that note, please report to your departments where your managers will give you further instructions.” People in the room started standing up, heading toward the door. “And you’ll be around fewer people there. Win-win.”

As Elise and I rolled our chairs down the hallway back to our department, she leaned in close. “Oh, my God. That means we’ll be able to talk to clients on the frigging phone in our pajamas, Bailey!”

“Oh, joy. Just what I always wanted from my job.”

“Aw, come on. If you have to stay here, isn’t it better this way, at least?”

Shrugging, I turned the corner side by side with my friend and entered our area—a sea of brown cubicles about four-feet high.

The place that had been my personal hell for about five years.

Well, maybe not five. I’d actually appreciated the job when I’d first started. It was a damn sight better than waiting tables.

We made our way to our cubicles, rolling our chairs back into their rightful places, and I wondered how our manager was going to handle things from here. We usually met in the conference room we’d just vacated, so I was curious how our department was going to meet. Dominque entered the room just then in her navy blue power suit, her curly dark mane pulled back in a loose style, the only thing about our manager that was allowed a little leverage. The rest of the woman was battened down as if anything fun was criminal.

In all fairness, we enjoyed ourselves on occasion—but it was either planned (like the Christmas party a few months ago) or when Dominique was out of the office. Maybe Elise had the right idea. We might enjoy our jobs more when our manager wasn’t breathing down our necks, asking why we’d only taken care of X customers in an hour when so-and-so had taken care of twice that amount.

Dominique had apparently decided this was as good as any place to meet. Fortunately, the woman had a powerful voice that would carry throughout the huge room.

“Okay, people, you heard Jeffrey. We’re going to do this in shifts. I see you over there, Steve. No packing up yet. IT is going to be assigning you all equipment but they’re going to teach you how to use it first. They should be here in the next ten minutes. I don’t know how long it will take, but they’ll be equipping team A first.”

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