Page 107 of Assistant to the Billionaire CEO

Glancing over my shoulder, I faced him. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t find the words to express how I felt. Instead, I just nodded and left. His office door closed behind me as I walked down the hallway toward the elevator. No way could I just sit down in my office and go about my day. If only for a few moments, I needed to get away to take my mind off him, even though I didn’t quite know where to go.

I summoned the elevator, still pondering my next move. Its doors opened with a loudwhoosh, and I wanted to slip inside, but was stopped. A beautiful woman with blonde hair and a baby in her arms was trying to get out, but a toy dropped to the floor.

“Hang on, let me help.” With one foot against the door so it wouldn’t close, I picked up the soft toy.

“Thank you so much,” she said, smiling brightly, putting the toy into her bag.

“You’re welcome,” I said in return, trying to hide my dishevelment. The baby in her arms caught my eye. “What a cute little baby,” I added, waving goofily at the sleeping infant. “What’s their name?”

“Teddy,” she replied proudly. “He’s almost two months old.”

“He’s the most adorable thing ever,” I quietly cooed, careful not to disturb him. “Just look at that chubby little face.”

“I might be biased, but I think so too.” She laughed, her soft blue eyes shining. “Do you have any of your own?”

“Nuh-uh, no,” I said, shaking my head.

She must have noticed the sadness on my face and quickly replied, “I’m sure yours will be even cuter someday. Hopefully they’ll poop less too. This tiny dude is a poopmonster.” She smiled and walked past me toward the left hall, waving at me like an old friend saying goodbye.

“We can only hope.” I smiled, waving back and trying not to let my emotions overwhelm me. I got into the elevator and pressed the button for the 1st floor. For a moment I wondered who the pretty young mother was. Maybe Mr. Hardy’s young wife?

At the reception desk, Glenda was busy helping a rep with a query. I waited for him to leave in the direction she indicated before asking, “How’s your day been going?”

“Too hot and too busy.” She laughed. I hadn’t seen her laugh often, but there was something contagious about it. Her mood appeared to have improved since I’d arrived at the office that morning, even though it was still warm, if not warmer. Maybe the cool drink in front of her had lifted her spirits. She took a sip and asked, “Hey, you didn’t get a chance to make that maintenance schedule suggestion to Mr. Windsor, did you?”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t.” Shoot. I totally forgot. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m this close to getting heat stroke too.” I held my index finger parallel to my thumb with basically no room to demonstrate just how close I was.

“We should go on strike until the A/C is fixed,” she joked, piling some documents in front of her into an orderly tower. “Then we’ll see how much time they really need to fix it.”

“That’s a good idea.” I smiled. A part of me really did like the idea.

“You know, Stella, I think you’re pretty awesome. I know we’ve had our ups and downs—”

Oh. That was…unexpected. “No need to apologize.”

“No, I should say sorry,” she insisted. “I judged you too early. Mr. Windsor’s previous assistant thought she was better than everyone else around here, spread tons of lies and rumors about everyone, especially about the CEO, and let’s face it, nobody liked her—and when I heard you graduated from Princeton, I thought you’d be even worse. I think most of us did. You’re not, though. No one around here has ever had a single bad word to say about you. We’re all so glad you’re here.”

Oh. “Really?” It was welcome news after the morning I’d had.

“Really,” she said, smiling kindly. “Now, not to be rude, but I have some calls to make. But we can have lunch together today, if you’d like?”

“That’d be nice.” It was nice to know that I’d won over Glenda. It felt a bit like defeating Goliath—a female Goliath—and it seemed, unknown to me, my only pebble had been persistence. It made me happy to know why so many people had been reserved or had seemed cold in the beginning. I had thought they were reserved because of Ace’s grumpy leading skills, not because of me and thinking I would follow in his former assistant’s footsteps. Funny how it turned out to be so different from what I’d initially thought.

Glenda and I did end up having lunch that day. She told me about her three cats (Monkey, Saruman, and Fuzzy) and described each of them and their habits in detail. And it seemed,nomenreallyest omen. It was a pleasant distraction from the sad mess I felt my life had become.

Glenda must have enjoyed spending time with me, because we had lunch together again the next day. And the day after that, more and more ladies accompanied us, Mrs. Mills included.

* * *

The following days, most of my time was spent perfecting the paperwork with Mrs. Mills. We were finally on top of things.

I still caught myself staring longingly at him during meetings or presentations, and I often imagined that I noticed him doing the same. His appearance was somewhat changed. Apart from looking handsome and professional as always, he seemed distraught, weary, almost unhappy—and I never saw him smile.

The following Friday, I placed the cleanly prepared merger files on Ace’s desk for the information exchange. They contained information such as financials, company history, and client roster with the projects, neatly ordered by size and value, with color photos. Everything was perfectly prepared, ready for Ace to go over one last time before sending the big folder off to Damon.

Ace informed me that he had to leave for a short, unexpected business trip tonight to meet one of our clients, but he was planning to take a last look and hand the folder to Damon once he returned on Monday morning, meeting the deadline.

From there, the acquisition could go into the valuation and offer stage.

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