Page 15 of Breaking Point
APPLICATION RESPONSE
I bite my lip to stop the squeal from escaping, but suck in a sharp breath as I pierce the skin instead, a metallic iron taste dancing along my tongue.
“What is it? Are you okay?”
“Hmm?” I hum half-heartedly as my mac conducts the spinning wheel of doom.
Stupid cafe internet connection.
“You made a noise. Bella, is everything all right? Jason isn’t giving you a hard time again, is he?”
I click on the email and lie again. “No more than usual but everything is fine. I just…I stubbed my toe.”
A throat clears behind me. Turning, I find the same barista from before looking down her nose at me while she clears a table.
It takes everything in me not to scream,I’m lying for a good reason!But I don’t think that will help my case at all.
“Okay, love. Well, I was just calling to check if you’ll be here for dinner. I’m going to go lie down.”
The exhaustion suddenly in her voice is evident, sending a pang through my chest.
“Okay, Mom, I love you. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Love you too, love.”
Once the line disconnects, I don’t give myself a reason to fret about the sudden dip in her energy levels. Not when the solution to so many of my worries sits in my inbox.
Please be something good, please be something good, please be something good.
My hopes crash and burn as I open the email to find that, in my drunken haze, I applied for an assistant job. Groaning, I drop my head into my hands and bite my lip once again to stop myself from screaming.
It’s one thing to be working for a corporation that has a dick for a manager, it’s another to feel like I’m being paid to be someone’s bitch. After my stint in college where I was a part-time assistant and the asshole made me feel like I was dirt beneath his feet, I would rather jab wooden skewers into my eyes than do it again.
With the salary, I would have to take a second job, work extremely long hours, and then how would I manage two schedules around my mom’s doctor appointments? She doesn’t have anyone else to take her and I can’t ask Layla’s parents for any more help, not when they’re fighting for their daughter’s health. It would be a paycheck, yes, but it wouldn’t?—
My thoughts come to a screeching halt. So suddenly, in fact, I swear I even hear tires squeal in my mind.
Now I know why either Layla or I applied for the position.
The salary mentioned is astronomical, so astronomical I have to triple-check not only the email but the original job listing.
This can’t be right. That much money is ludicrous for an assistant job. There is generosity, and then there is insanity. It’s practically throwing money away. No one is that good at being an assistant.
Perhaps it’s someone famous?
That would be just my luck. Find an amazing job that pays incredible amounts of money but work for an egomaniac.
Scrolling through the email thread, I read the bottom where a woman named Lucy says she wants to set up a meeting this afternoon. Checking the clock, I note it’s only half past noon. I send off a quick response to say I’m available whenever it suits her.
I hurry over to the counter and order another cinnamon vanilla latte, thankful the barista with eyes and ears that see all my wrongdoings is off somewhere else.
My phone pings in my hand as I raise my credit card.
RE: APPLICATION
Can you be here in thirty minutes?
Lucy.
