Page 57 of Assistant to the Billionaire CEO

“Doesn’t sound very hypothetical to me,” Winifred noted. “But I think you’re a smart girl, and I trust that you know what you’re doing. If you wanted to read through the company’s previous contracts, you’d need to visit the archive room—”

Oh, Jesus. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course.Duh. Duh. Duh.I wanted to kick myself. Agatha Christie would not only be ashamed of me, she’d also kick my butt out onto the street.

“Fantastic idea. I know exactly where that is,” I said, quickly getting up.

“Wait, wait. Hold on a moment.” She gestured for me to remain seated, and my breath hitched. “The old archive room is still in San Francisco. It didn’t move when the new offices did. The new archive room downstairs only has our current contracts.”

I slumped into my seat, discouraged. Ecclestone had his fingers everywhere, not just in New York. I still didn’t believe Ace was involved in any shady dealings with him, but to fully satisfy my brother, I had to dig into Windsor Architects’ past as well. “So, there’s no way to find out about those companies?”

“Nope. Not unless you want to drive or fly almost three thousand miles to do it.”

“Are those files eventually going to be shipped over?” I asked hopefully, biting at my lower lip.

“I can ask them to be couriered to me, but I can’t guarantee we’ll have files on those three companies. If we haven’t worked with them before, we won’t have any information on them of course. I’ll send a few emails. I hope we don’t run into shipment issues this time. We, well,” she paused, seemingly thinking of the right words, “ran into some issues recently, to put it mildly. Dearie, I’m sure you have already heard all about it, so let me be frank—it’s a huge mess. Twenty boxes are still missing. Unfortunately, during the move, the server broke, and we lost access to the digital files as well. And as if that wasn’t enough, some folders in our new archive room downstairs got shredded because they were labeled incorrectly. The former assistant, who had been in charge, well, her system was…let’s say,flawed. I’ve never seen Mr. Windsor so enraged.”

Oh! That explained the three huge bags of shredded paper I’d found. As far as the rest went, Ace had already mentioned the issue to me last week, but he had seemed confident that his team would solve the issue.

“Anyway, if you ask me, the boxes that got lost, I doubt we’ll ever see them again. And those were important boxes with paperwork we need for the acquisition.”

“Wait. How did they get lost?”

She shook her head, seemingly exasperated by the mishandling of company property. “They never arrived.”

“I mean, aren’t there usually tracking numbers?” My friend Bonnie, who was an operations agent at a transport firm, always mentioned tracking numbers when she talked about the crazy stories that happened at her job.

“I’m sure there are, but as far as I know, Mr. Windsor’s former assistant arranged the shipment with MKY Shipping using her private account, instead of creating one for the company. That’s why MKY can’t help us, even though she used the company’s billing information. Now she’s gone, and we don’t have access to her login. That’s all I know. I’m sorry I can’t be of more assistance.”

I could imagine that Windsor Architects wasn’t the only company that had lost shipment through such an unfortunate series of events. As soon as I possibly could, I had to ask Bonnie if she knew of a solution, or at least a shortcut, on how we could get the missing boxes back—pronto! “No, no need to apologize, you’ve been very helpful, thank you. I appreciate it.” Composing myself, I smiled at the kind woman. “I’m just grateful you took the time to talk to me.”

I made a mental note to check the archives. Maybe there was a more recent project that involved Ecclestone that Winifred didn’t know about. Highly unlikely, but not completely out of the question. My curiosity was killing me, and I itched to go to the archive room right away, but I couldn’t. First, I needed to report to Mr. Hardy. The conversation with Winifred had already taken up more time than I thought it would.

“It’s a pleasure, dear,” she said. “I’m going to let you know once something arrives. Now I’ve got a little favor I’d like to ask you, if that’s okay.”

“Of course.”

“This might seem like a silly request,” Winifred said, “but would you mind fetching me a few new black pens from the supply closet? It’s on the 3rd floor, next to Mrs. Hoffman’s office. I’ve got arthritis in my knees, and it makes the walk down the long hallways a horribly unpleasant experience. I’m having a terrible flare-up today, and I’d be in your debt forever if you could spare me the trip.”

Darn. I would be even later for the meeting with Mr. Hardy, but he’d understand. “Sure. I love exploring this place. A walk to the supply closet would be a treat,” I assured her, rising from my seat and straightening my pencil skirt.

“Thanks, dear,” Winifred said.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” With that, I grabbed my bag, slipped out of her office, and made it back to the elevator.Acquiring those pens for Winifred couldn’t possibly take more than three minutes, and that would tick another, less important item off my to-do list. Right after that, I would go up to Mr. Harvey and help him—without a thousand other things floating through my mind.

23

STELLA

The elevator was empty this time around. I rushed inside and pressed the button. When the doors opened on the 3rd floor, I found myself standing face to face with Terry.

“Oh! Hi there,” she squeaked as I stepped out of the elevator and onto the foyer’s elegant ceramic tiles. “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.” She hopped into the elevator.

“Neither did I,” I replied, nodding. “I’m on my way to the supply closet to get some new pens.”

“Well, you better hurry up then. Mr. Windsor hates when employees loiter around…that’s what his former assistant told me. I heard he caught one of the previous interns reading a comic book in there once and ended their internship right there and then.” She hit one of the silver buttons on the elevator’s panel. “Thanks again for yesterday!”

“I don’t think he’d do tha—” I was unable to complete my sentence before the elevator doors closed. Firing someone over a comic book?No way.But who knew? People had been fired for crazier things than reading. It wasn’t like I knew Ace all that well. For a second, I’d forgotten he could possibly be involved with Edmund Ecclestone and maybe shadier than we all thought.

Trying my best to not look like I was dawdling, I quickly marched along the wood flooring to the supply closet.

---