Page 13 of His to Keep
None of which concerns you at all,I remind myself.It was one night. He won you in a lottery, for God’s sake. Hardly the beginnings of a romantic fairy tale.
My heart is pounding when I finally make it up to the office. VistaTech occupies the entire building. This is the biggest, most successful company I’ve ever worked for, and the HR woman who hired me promised there’s a lot of room for growth for dedicated employees. I want to be one of those dedicated employees. Instead I’m the one sliding into the office nearly ten minutes late, red faced and panting, my hair already falling out of the haphazard bun I’d attempted before rushing from the house.
Unfortunately, my day is about to get even worse.
“Rebecca,” Helen says, looking up at me in surprise. Helen is the executive secretary to one of the company’s financial officers, and she spent most of my first week training me to be her office assistant. She’s a sweet, motherly type so it makes my stomach sink to see the obvious confusion on her face at my appearance. “I thought you were already upstairs, dear.”
“I’m so sorry I’m late.” I’d held out half a hope that maybe she’d be running late on a Monday as well, or at least in the break room getting a coffee so I could sneak in. Fat chance. She’s peering at me over her horn-rimmed glasses, looking concerned.
“Are you alright, dear? You look flushed.”
“Just in a bit of a rush.” I try to smooth back the fly away tendrils of hair escaping the bun. “Again, I’m so sorry.”
“A few minutes won’t hurt anyone,” she says, glancing down at a delicate gold watch on her wrist. “But shouldn’t you have gone straight upstairs?”
“Upstairs?” I ask, realizing belatedly that this is the second time she’s said that word. I’m missing something. “What’s upstairs?”
Her concern turns to alarm. “Someone was supposed to catch you on your way in,” she says. “They need you on the executive floor. Something about a PA getting fired. They’re shuffling some things around for the next few days, now that the owner is back.”
I’d heard something about the big boss being away last week, but I’d been so overwhelmed with getting settled here in the finance department, I hadn’t given him much thought. The chances of me interacting with him had seemed pretty slim. “Apparently,” Helen goes on, “he came back to quite a mess this morning. His PA seemed to treat his business trip as an opportunity for a personal vacation. He fired her first thing this morning.”
I swallow, a bad feeling growing in my belly. She gives me a sympathetic smile. “He really needs someone up there,” she says, confirming my fears.
“But…I’ve never been a PA before.” I was hired for data entry, not getting coffee and picking up dry cleaning, or whatever the heck a PA does.
“Mr. Davis’s executive secretary will bring you up to speed,” she assures me. “I expect it will only be for a few days, until they can find someone permanent. But you really better get moving, hon.”
I kind of want to cry. I’m not the type of person who adapts well to change, at least not immediately. This curveball has thrown me off-kilter. But Helen is looking at her watch again, and I know I don’t have time to stand here trying to get myself together.
“I guess I better go up and see what’s going on,” I say hesitantly. “What’s the office number?”
“Just report to the front desk on the top floor,” she says, already turning back to her work. “Good luck, dear.”
Luck. Yeah. That’s something that’s been in short supply for me lately.
The woman behind the reception desk on the top floor looks nothing like Helen. Instead of greying hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and a fuzzy cardigan, this woman looks like she just stepped off the pages of a magazine. Her sleek jade green suit is perfectly tailored to her waif-thin body, her jet-black hair pulled up into a severe bun. No escaping tendrils for her. And is her make-up professionally applied? I’ve never been able to get my eyeshadow blended like that.
I guess things are a bit different on the executive floor.
“Can I help you?” she asks in a clipped voice, barely sparing me a glance.
I clear my throat, nerves doubling. I hope this isn’t the woman that’s going to be getting me “up to speed,” as Helen promised. She’s said one sentence to me and I’m already intimidated. “My name is Rebecca Fields,” I say, managing to keep my voice steady in spite of my discomfort. “I was asked to come upstairs to help out?”
She finally gives me her full attention, eyes traveling up and down my body. From her pursed lips, I get the feeling she isn’t impressed.
“Wait here.”
I hover between the desk and a row of chairs along the wall, unsure of what I’m supposed to do. Is someone coming to get me? Should I get comfortable? The supermodel/receptionist murmurs softly into her phone. She hangs up, not saying a word to me, while my awkwardness grows.
“Miss Fields?” a crisp voice calls, and I look up to see another supermodel type—this one with blonde hair—standing in front of the set of glass doors behind the reception desk. I nod at her. “Please come with me.”
I follow her behind the glass doors, expecting to see a mass of cubicles like we have downstairs. Instead she leads me past several large offices to another set of glass doors. “This is Mr. Davis’s office suite,” she explains. “His secretary, Wesley, will get you set up.” She glances at the sleek watch on her wrist. “I believe they’ve been waiting on you.”
Before I can mumble an excuse, she opens the door and nudges me inside. She doesn’t follow me, and when the door shuts behind me I’m not sure if I should be relieved to be rid of her or nervous about what gorgeous, gazelle-like creature I’ll be dealing with next.
Instead I find a dark haired man wearing a sweater vest and glasses sitting at an expansive glass desk. He smiles at me, the sight so welcome after the craziness of this morning that I could cry. “You must be Miss Fields,” he says, rising.
“I am. And I’m so sorry for being late—”
