Page 73 of Assistant to the Billionaire CEO

“Hey, Terry.” I smiled at her. I hoped she wouldn’t notice my less-than-cheerful composure. She was exactly the kind of person who’d ask me about it, and I wasn’t in the position to provide any acceptable or believable answers. “How’s your daughter doing?” I quickly asked before she had a chance to catch on. “Has she made a full recovery?”

“Yeah, she’s back to her old self. It wasn’t anything a round of antibiotics couldn’t fix. I’m just sorry it deprived me of the opportunity to prove to Glenda that her job isn’t as hard as she thinks it is. But then again, I doubt anyone could prove that to Glenda.”

“She’s a trip, that’s for sure.”

Terry pressed the button for the 5th floor. “As far as she’s concerned, not even Mr. Windsor works as hard as she does. ‘This place would crumble without me!’” She mimicked Glenda’s strict tone of voice.

I smiled, amused by how well Terry hit the tone. “And maybe it would. Who knows? I hope we’ll never have to find out.”

She looked at me, smiled, and finally said, “You’re the exact opposite of Mr. Windsor’s last assistant, you know that?”

The elevator doors opened on the 4th floor with a loudping.

“I’ll take that as a compliment? This is me,” I said. “See you around, Terry.”

“Have a good one,” she exclaimed as the doors started closing. With one last wave, I headed down the hallway to my left.

Without too much effort, I found the door labeled “Copy Room.”

Anxiously, I opened the door that led inside. A part of me almost expected—let’s face it,hoped—to collide with hard pecs, but I didn’t. The room was entirely empty except for two high-tech copy machines—one black and white, the other color—and a small stationary cabinet containing reams of paper and ink cartridges. I walked straight toward the color machine and stuck the papers I’d brought with me in the top of it.

The copy machine’s user interface was an overengineered touch screen. For a second, I struggled to input the correct commands, but eventually got it to work. Loudly, it whirred to life and sucked the contract of sale with floor plans into it like a hungry beast devouring its struggling prey. Its inkjets hissed as it started creating the copies. I leaned against it and felt its pleasantly warm surface vibrating against my skin. My eyes fell closed. The back of my eyelids almost instantly turned into some kind of movie screen onto which my tormented mind projected every memory I had of Ace’s touch.

Distracted by my thoughts, I almost didn’t hear the copy room’s doorknob turn. The door creaked open, and I heard the steps of men’s dress shoes crossing the floor. Probably one of the interns sent to make copies for one of the top dogs.

I turned and looked up.

“Ace,” I practically exclaimed. I had not expected him. For a moment I struggled to find words, but then an innocuous question popped into my mind. “How was the country club?” I felt light-headed as he drew nearer. He looked at me, not breaking his gaze for even a moment.

“Fine,” he replied. “Actually, pretty good. The investors I met with play a mean round of golf.”

Mr. Hardy sauntered in through the door and headed toward the unoccupied copy machine. “Don’t listen to Ace. He’s just being modest,” the engineer said in passing. “I played golf with him once and swore never to do it again. There’s no way those investors even came close to winning.”

“No, we should play again, Harvey,” Ace said seriously.

“Nope. Not gonna happen.” Mr. Hardy was probably the only man who could get away with a no. The engineer made his copy and exited the room while my machine was spitting out the last pages.

Ace stepped closer until he was practically towering over me. “Do you mind if I use the copy machine you’re using? I need to color print something off a flash drive.”

“Of course,” I said, grabbing the copies I’d made. “I’m done, I just need to check everything. It’s all yours. Do you want me to do it and bring it into your office?”

“No thanks,” he replied. “I’ll manage.” He stuck his hand into one of his slacks’ pockets and retrieved a small black flash drive. Inserting it into the copy machine caused the layout of its user interface to change. Ace wasnota seasoned professional at the copy machine. But eventually, he navigated through it and started printing the document.

It came to me then that it was odd he hadn’t sent Mrs. Mills or me to do it for him. But then again, we were all busy, and maybe he just thought it would be quicker this way. Also, I had no idea flash drives were still a thing. That was, unless you wanted to ensure that a specific document had minimal connection to the internet, because you wanted to keep this specific document extremely secure…

“Are you having a good day?” Ace asked as he waited for his prints to finish.Too bad I couldn’t see what he was printing.

“Great! I’m having an awesome day,” I said, smiling at him as Idiligentlycounted through my copies andreligiouslyorganized them, making sure I had perfect sets, hoping to stick around long enough to get a glimpse at his printouts.

“How’s the paperwork going?” he asked.

“Well, not to try to get in your good books or anything, but I’m almost done with the paperwork you left me.”

“Good,” he replied. “You’re a fast worker.” His documents finished printing, so he retrieved the papers from the tray and removed his flash drive. He turned over the pieces of paper and briefly scanned them. Whatever one of them contained made him scowl. He crumpled it up into a little ball and tossed it into a silver knee-high trashcan in the corner behind him. “Come up to my office when you’re done with whatever you’re busy with, and I’ll give you something else to do.”

“Sure thing,” I replied, nodding enthusiastically. “I love being kept busy.” My eyes darted to the trashcan in the corner. What was that all about? Ecclestone, maybe? A spark of curiosity ignited in the pit of my stomach, erupting into a roaring flame that demanded action. But I couldn’t act, not yet.

“All right,” Ace said, turning to leave.

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