Page 17 of Quarantined with the Billionaire

Chapter Six

Walking through the doorway, I felt my stomach clench. I wouldn’t have panicked if not for the tone in his voice—and I decided right then and there that I never wanted Maddox Steel to be full-on angry with me.

He was kind of scary.

In fact, I hadn’t felt this terrified since my first week in college when I was a clueless eighteen-year-old in what felt like a foreign land. That was no comparison, though. The sound of his voice took me back further, to some of the darkest spots of my teenage days. Since growing up, I’d conquered fears one by one, learning as I went, never looking back.

Fear is an illusion.

I’d be okay, no matter what happened, and I repeated that little mantra over and over in my head as I crossed the room.

At his bidding, I sat in the chair that was now at a diagonal from his desk. Turning his monitor, he pointed at it as if I wasn’t already staring at it. Obviously, I’d done something wrong, but I had no clue what that was.

“I appreciate that you’re clearing my calendar, but I explicitly asked that you give clients a choice between rescheduling an in-person appointment or scheduling one in Zoom.”

Swallowing, I tried to stifle the nerves that were nearly causing my hands to shake. I didn’t want my voice to reveal just how intimidated I felt—which was silly. Maddox was just a man, albeit a powerful one, and I was an adult. This was nothing to freak out about. So I pursed my lips, drawing in another breath before answering. “Yes, you did. And that’s what I’ve been doing.”

He clicked on his screen to shift the view of the calendar from that of a week to instead that of a month. “Most of those appointments are gone.” Once more, he clicked, this time shifting the view from March to April. “And they’ve just been moved over here. It looks to me like you’re simply rescheduling them all as in-person appointments.”

Now my body prepared to fight. Righteous anger threatened to overwhelm all other emotions, but I wrestled against those just as I had the fear. Being defensive wouldn’t win any points with this man.

Although the shine had already worn off and I was beginning not to care. As difficult as Dominique had been as a boss over the years, at least she appreciated when I did what she asked.

“Mr. Steel, most of your clients want to meet with you in person. I’ve offered them virtual meetings, telling them that would be the quickest way to meet with you, but most of them prefer being able to sit down with you, even if it means having to wait. If you’ll go back to your March calendar, you’ll see I scheduled Portia Daughtery for a Zoom meeting tomorrow morning.”

As he clicked back, I resisted the urge to say something smug. Told you so. Because even if I was ultimately right, maybe I’d misunderstood his directives—and that wouldn’t be good, either.

The urge to say something sarcastic was even stronger, but I managed to speak like a professional. “I apologize if I made a mistake. I thought you’d asked me to offer both alternatives—but if you want me to try to persuade your clients into taking a virtual meeting, I can do that. I just didn’t understand that’s what you wanted.”

Boy, I couldn’t read his expression. Was he still angry?

“No, I don’t want you forcing people to do something they don’t want to do. I expected more people to be panicking, wanting to meet with me right away.”

When he was being suave and charismatic, I could understand why his clients wanted to meet with him personally, breathing in his air, drinking in his charm. If only they could see him now…

“Ms. Daughtery was. She was freaking out about her stocks and wanted me to transfer her to you immediately when I called her.”

He didn’t smile, but his tone lightened. “Sounds like Portia. Maybe I should call her now.”

I sat there, wondering if he had other issues, grateful that his brow had relaxed somewhat.

“I misunderstood, Bailey. It sounds like you’re doing exactly what I asked you to.” He stood, and I followed. “How many more calls do you have to make to finish out next week?”

“Just a couple.”

“Okay. Go ahead and do those and then we’ll reconvene. In the meantime, I think I’d better call Portia.”

Simon tapped lightly on the open door before peeking his head in, and I wondered if he’d heard Mr. Steel chewing my butt moments earlier. I couldn’t bring myself to call him by his first name in my head, even more so after the incident I’d just survived. And why did I even care if Simon had heard any of it? If Mr. Steel was that big an ass, he’d probably torn through this poor man a time or two.

“I’m leaving now, Mr. Steel. Is there anything else you need today?”

“No. Thank you, Simon. Have a good night.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Bernard.” With a nod of his head, he left the room.

But he was my ride. I refrained from saying a word about it. My expression, however, must have given me away.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you back to your apartment. I gotta take the Ferrari out for a spin today anyway.”

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