Page 14 of Assistant to the Billionaire CEO

“I know,” he teased.

“Love you.” I made kissy sounds into the phone. “Bye, Muffin. Love you.Mwah.”

“Bye, Pancake. Love you too.”

I abandoned my dreams of crafting the perfect éclair the minute the call ended. Flying around my kitchen like Cinderella before the ball, I haphazardly stashed all of my baking supplies back into my small pantry and almost threw the almond milk back into the fridge.

After flying into the corner of my living room that I’d turned into my cute “dedicated home office,” I opened my laptop. My sunflower screensaver lit up the otherwise poorly lit room.

I searched through my laptop’s files.Where is it?

So far, I’d applied online by filling out application forms. I hadn’t updated my résumé in ages, but this was Windsor. The lady who was facilitating my internship was one of my professors’ friends and hadn’t even asked to see it. After what felt like an eternity of panicked searching, I found the correct file. I had labeled it “My resume_final_final_real_final.”

Gotta remember to rename that before I send it over to Damon. Imagine if I’d sent it off like that.

After some quiet contemplation, I started typing.

More specifically, I started listing my achievements during college that would interest a CEO in an architectural firm: how I’d been on the dean’s list, how I’d acted as the dean’s personal assistant, and how I’d attended every lecture and aced every test (jeez, such a geek). It didn’t feel like a sufficient ode to the dedication I had shown toward my education, but it was honest—and likely a better choice than mentioning that I’d obsessed over Miss Marple so much that I’d even taken up knitting, gotten into bird watching, and became Captain of the Agatha Christie Book Club. It was embarrassing stuff, definitely not the kind of thing you’d want your future boss to see. Delete. Delete. Delete. I didn’t want to risk him laughing his ass off at me. Once was more than enough.

Instead, I pointed out my love for detail, my organizational talent and appreciation of to-do lists and notes (I loved getting notes), as well as excellent communication skills. Communication was one of my strengths. I was quick on my feet, and typically, I had a witty line ready in most any situation, especially awkward ones. It was sort of my superpower.One that I could really use, because somehow, I kept getting into tricky situations.

When I was finally satisfied, I wrapped it all up with a longer section dedicated to what I’d learned during my internship as “strategic assistant to the CEO’s Chief of Staff” at my current engineering company. This was the part that would be most interesting to Ace, so I made sure to make things sound extra fancy by highlighting my tasks as a “collaborative partner with high-level administrative support experience”: organizing presentations for sales pitches, coordinating, and managing schedules, writing up analyses and research that would be helpful in preparations for upcoming mergers. Ha! If anything, he would love this part. Last but not least, I mentioned that I had experience at the front desk to show that I was a flexible team player who loved social interactions with customers and clients.

Okay. Yes. I knew I lacked the experience in years, but the truth was, I had learned atonduring my internship, especially after the CEO’s assistant became pregnant and started to have severe morning sickness.

That’ll have to do. I observed my handiwork, and despite everything, felt quite proud of it. I inserted a professionally taken photo of myself and saved it as a PDF.

Very good! Turning to the cover letter, I took a deep breath.

Dear future boss, I started. Then I gushed on and on about how much a job at Windsor Architects would mean to me, dedicating nearly two pages to what could only be described as being only an inch short of outright begging. I didn’t want to seem desperate, but the truth of the matter was: Your girl was freakin’ desperate.

It was almost noon by the time I started drafting my email to Damon. It said only what was necessary: “Here is my résumé and cover letter.” I attached both documents after giving them professional names—I had many flaws, but luckily, being forgetful wasn’t one of them—crossed my fingers and hit “Send.”

Then waited.

And waited.

6

STELLA

After one hour, I checked again.

This was silly. It would be a while before Damon forwarded my résumé to Ace, and who knew how long it would take him to review it? It could take several days, if not weeks. I should do something useful to keep myself busy.

If I had been less distracted, I may have decided to resume baking the éclairs I’d originally planned to make. But I was distracted. Very distracted. Ace, or rather the job opportunity at Ace’s firm, had completely derailed my day.

So, I decided to occupy myself by choosing my potential interview outfit instead. Was I being overly optimistic? Yes. But I didn’t see optimism as a character flaw. After gathering my thoughts—somewhat (and a few necessities)—I made my way back into my bedroom.

My favorite piece of furniture was a large antique wardrobe that stood against the wall opposite my bed. I’d inherited it from my dad and stored all of my clothes in it. My love for old furniture and anything that was a period piece I’d inherited from Dad. There was just something romantic about antiques. My huge collection of old books that were left to me by Mom sat on several wooden corner shelves right next to it. The wardrobe’s double doors gave a loud squeak as I opened them. I peeked inside. The wooden shelves and hangers were filled with a heap of gray leggings, three pairs of blue jeans, a collection of cute summer dresses, some T-shirts and pullovers, and exactly three formal outfits. So far, I never needed more than that—the engineers I worked with weren’t too concerned about the office’s dress code.

I suspected I’d need more business attire, if Windsor Architects ended up hiring me.

The old wardrobe creaked as I leaned into it to reach my formal outfits. I laid them out on my bed and stared at them. They consisted of an emerald-green dress with mid-length sleeves, an elegant pantsuit, and a cream dress with black piping. I wondered what a potential boss would think of me in each of them, and then decided on the cream dress.

While pulling the wrinkled oversized white T-shirt I’d slept in over my head and almost bringing my glasses along while doing so, I kicked off my sweatpants and scooped the dress up into my arms. Quickly, I sashayed over to the full-length mirror that stood next to my wardrobe and started squeezing into it.

After a bit of a struggle, I managed to pull up its rigid zipper. It was very snug, but not uncomfortably so. My only hope was that it would look as good on me now as it had when I’d bought it. Slowly, almost hesitantly, I lifted my head to examine myself in the mirror.

---