by Claire Adams
“I know how you think,” he joked as he wrote down some notes.
Our meeting lasted several hours as Teddy and I went through the big details and finally signed the papers for the deal. I had started to take over more and more control of the joint deals between us, just because I really enjoyed learning the process. Teddy was still the main guy, and he was the one who knew the market and where to buy our properties.
“There was one more thing I wanted to discuss before everything is finalized here,” Teddy said with a serious tone.
“Uh oh, am I in trouble?” I laughed.
“I really think you should name the hotel after you, Declan. This is going to be a huge draw to your customer base. It’s all about the young, hip snowboarders. I want you to think of a name.”
“You don’t want it to be a Shield Hotel?”
“Nope, I want something new, hip, and more in tune with the current climate. People are staying at Airbnb rentals more and more. They want unique experiences, and I think we need to incorporate that into this property. I give you full control over the design and naming. I’ll be the money man, and of course answer any questions or offer help as needed.”
“So you think we should go young and hip and not have the chalet?”
“Keep the chalet, maybe, I don’t know. Go out there and see for yourself and see what kind of place you’d stay at. Maybe keep the chalet and make it into something cool and hip? I don’t know. I’m an old business man,” he laughed.
The truth was that Teddy was an old business man that really knew what he was doing. He was right that we needed something new and fresh. We needed a destination theme in each of the high-end suites, like the suites in Las Vegas where people booked them years in advance so they could stay in a room with a basketball court.
“Okay, everyone, enough with the mushiness. I think we can wrap up for the day. Thank you all for working through this, and I look forward to seeing how this project is going to turn out. Rosa, would you have time to come out to the site with me this week at all?”
“Sure, or next week; whatever works for you.”
“Can your team come up with ideas that are a little more innovative for the chalet? I’m thinking high-end destination suites with themes.”
“I’ll get them to work some ideas up for you.”
“Thanks, this is awesome. You are awesome. I can’t wait.”
“You need to hire an assistant before you go flying out to Colorado,” Margery said as she stood in the doorway.
“Hey, do you guys know where I put my wallet?” I asked I glanced around the meeting room. “I swear I had it in my back pocket.”
“You lost your wallet?” Teddy asked.
“No, I’m sure I just put it down somewhere.”
“You definitely need to hire an assistant,” Margery laughed.
“You know, my daughter is moving out here from New York. She couldn’t do the job for long, but she might be a good option while you interview others and make your decision. She has an MBA.”
“Okay, I’m going to head back home. Why don’t you take Mr. Shields up on his offer? I’m sure if she has an MBA she can manage you for a few months.”
I stretched out on the black leather of my office sofa as I tried to decide what I wanted to do about the assistant situation. Margery had presented quite a few options, but the one I picked hadn’t worked out. I didn’t really want to go back and ask the others, especially since the best already had jobs.
“Thank you, Margery, I really do appreciate you,” I said as she closed the door and hurried away before I could ask her to help with anything else. “We already mix a lot of business stuff; are you sure you want to have your daughter working here?” I asked Teddy.
“Oh, there will be contingencies if she comes to work here.”
“Like?”
“Like you can’t sleep with her!”
“Oh, Teddy, give me a little more credit than that. I’m not going to sleep with your daughter. Geez.”
“Declan, this is a non-negotiable. I mean it. No sleeping with my daughter. No dating my daughter. No having her fall in love with you. None of it.”
I had to laugh at how serious Teddy was taking all of this. The last picture I had seen of his daughter, she was in braces and had zits all over her face. Even if she had grown out of that awkward phase, I wasn’t an animal.
“Teddy, Emmi is your family, and you are my business partner. Trust me; I’ve got plenty of other women to choose from. Plus, do you really think she’s my type? I mean, MBA? You know I never land the girls with brains,” I joked.
“I’ve met some of your girlfriends, and some have been rather intelligent. I can’t account for why they agreed to go out with you, but still, they seemed to manage very well in other aspects of their lives.”
I leaned forward on the couch and looked Teddy in the eyes. He needed to see the serious nature of my expression. I wanted him to realize I wasn’t going to chase after his daughter. Teddy knew me. He knew I enjoyed women, plenty of women; there was no way to deny that.
“I could always hire someone else, but if your daughter needs the work, I think this situation might be perfect. I need an assistant for at least the next few weeks. She can get settled in out here and look for work in her field. I promise to treat her with the utmost of respect.”
“Shake on it,” Teddy said as he stretched out his hand and continued to look me in the eyes. “Shake my hand and promise nothing with happen between the two of you. She’s been through a lot over the years with male bosses not treating her with respect. I won’t put her in that sort of situation again.”
“Teddy, I promise,” I said truthfully as I shook his hand.
“Okay, then I’ll talk to her about starting on Monday, as long as she gets out here by this weekend.”
“Deal. How much should I pay her?”
“Whatever you’d pay any other assistant. No special treatment.”
“Except the whole part about not sleeping with her,” I winked, and he pretended to punch me.
“Yeah, except that part is special.”
Chapter Four
Emmi
“Where are you?” Jessica said over the phone.
“I’m by baggage claim; where are you?”
“Out front. Grab your things, and I’ll swing around again. I can’t stay parked here.”
“Okay, but I have a lot of bags,” I said as she hung up.
I needed a baggage cart to get all my bags out to Jessica’s car. Instead of paying for a bunch of movers, I had opted to sell off my furniture and larger items and only brought my personal belongings. There were a few items that I had shipped through the parcel service, but mostly my entire life was stuffed into four large suitcases, and it was rather pathetic.
“We are going out to The Woods tonight,” Jessica said, full of excitement as she wrapped her arms around me to greet me.
“I don’t know who you think I am, but I definitely don’t want to go out into the wilderness on my first night in Los Angeles.”
Jessica laughed and rolled her eyes at me as we loaded the bags into the car and took off before one of the airport security guards yelled at us. It was nice to be with Jessica, and even nicer to be in the warmth of California as I pulled off my jacket and settled into her car for the traffic-infested drive to her house.
“You do know it’s a club, right? The Woods is a dance club.”
“Oh, okay, that sounds better than hiking.” We laughed. “I don’t know what kind of clothes I have for going to the club, though. I’m pretty much a boring businesswoman right now.”
“No problem, I can get you some of mine. I’ve got tons of dresses.”
I laughed but didn’t say a word. Jessica had colorful, skin-tight dresses that showed off her dark complexion and voluptuous curves. I seriously doubted I would fit into any of her dresses.
“So tell me about this job and how you’re really liking it? It seems a little below your de
gree. Do you get to use your business knowledge at all?”
“I thought the same thing when I first took the job. Why on earth do they want to hire an MBA-educated woman for this position? But the truth is, I use my business skills every day. I’m meeting with venues, advertising executives, and celebrities. During the day I’m straight-laced and buttoned-up in boring businesswear, just like you.”
“Hmm, it sounds interesting. Will you be working tonight?”
We pulled onto the interstate that was jam-packed with traffic. It wasn’t even rush hour and the cars were hardly moving. I felt the anxiety building up inside of me. I wasn’t at all interested in driving every single day in this traffic.
“I’ll be talking with the celebrity appearance couple and a few other people, but nothing too major.”
“How much longer do we have to be on this interstate?” I asked as I put my window down. “I think I have claustrophobia already.”
“We are outside and moving; you can’t get claustrophobia here.”
“Well, whatever is going on, I’m not feeling good.”
My stomach was hurting, and I felt like the neck of my shirt was strangling me. My pulse quickened, and I even got a little dizzy as my breathing started to get faster also. I tried laying my seat back and then quickly put it forward again. I tried opening the window all the way and sticking my head out since we were barely moving, but then brought it back in. Nothing seemed to help the nausea, and soon I could hardly keep my eyes open as I tried to pull in breaths and just couldn’t seem to get enough air.
“Are you alright?” Jessica asked. “You don’t look so good.”
“Something is definitely wrong. I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“You look like you’re having a panic attack,” she said calmly. “I used to get those when I first moved out here. It’s because of the traffic and not having control of the situation. You’ll get used to it.”
“Are you sure? I feel like my heart is beating out of my chest.”
“Or you could be having a heart attack, but let’s go with panic attack for now.”
“What if it’s a heart attack? Do you know where a hospital is? How would we get there in this traffic? It really could be a heart attack; I feel my heart pounding really hard.”
“Emmi, you’re a control freak, we both know it. Remember how you’d get before tests? This is just a more extreme version. Close your eyes and take some deep breaths.”
I wanted to believe what Jessica was saying was true. Obviously, at 26, I wasn’t the typical heart attack victim. But I had never experienced a full-on panic attack before. If that was what was happening, I could see why people got so scared by them.
Slowly, I took in some deep breaths and tried to concentrate on the music that was playing. Jessica had turned it to soft jazz, and although it wasn’t my type of music normally, it was good in this situation. Finally, I felt my breathing slow down and my body return to my control. I kept my eyes closed and tried to take advantage of the adrenaline drain on my body by getting a little sleep. The last thing Jessica needed was me causing such a scene while she was trying to drive through the crazy Los Angeles traffic.
“How much longer?” I dared to ask when I started to feel better.
“An hour.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah, sorry, but once we get there, we can take a quick cab over to the night club.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you live in this.”
“You adjust. I live downtown to avoid driving most of the time. Instead, I just have the clients meet me at our offices or one of the clubs downtown. It’s basically like New York then,” she laughed, but I wasn’t in the greatest mood and could hardly muster a smile.
By the time we got unloaded and into her apartment building, it was time to head out to the club. Although I was exhausted, Jessica wanted to go so badly, I decided to suck it up and go for a little bit.
“This dress will be perfect,” Jessica said as we stood in her closet and she put the fuchsia dress up to my body.
“Sure.”
“That doesn’t seem like an excited voice.”
“Sure,” I said again with a huge fake smile. “I really don’t care. Just throw something on me, and we can go. It’s not like I’m planning on meeting the love of my life in a dance club.”
“You might be surprised by the caliber of men that are at these, but you’re right. Tonight is about us and not about them. Just throw this on and let’s go. I know you don’t want to be out too late.”
The spandex fabric actually didn’t look too bad on me as I admired myself in the mirror and waited for Jessica to finish her makeup. My short stature made the dress a normal length on me, and the top wasn’t cut low, and instead the back had a geometric cutout to grab attention. There was no need for me to fluff up my hair or makeup though, and when Jessica emerged, we went down to hail a cab.
“This will go much smoother,” she said as a cab pulled up without us even waiting a minute. “They like picking up the hot girls.”
“Hot girl,” I corrected her. “You look hot; I look like your homely best friend.”
“Wow, look at me,” Jessica said when we climbed into the cab. She grabbed my face and forced me to look at her. “You are one of the most beautiful women in the world. Don’t let the fake standards of Los Angeles get to you. Always keep your confidence and self-worth based on the person you know you are.”
“This is why I love you,” I smiled and hugged her. “You always know how to lift a girl's mood. I’m so happy I came out here.”
I felt my phone buzzing in my purse and knew I had to answer it. My father was protective, and if I didn’t answer him to let him know I had arrived safely, he would keep calling me all night long.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Are you going to come over?”
“Daddy, I just got downtown with Jessica, and I’m exhausted. Can I stop by tomorrow?”
“I could come into the city and pick you up if you’d like?”
My eyes widened, and I looked at Jessica as if she could hear what my father said. She just shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
“No, don’t come all the way down here. The traffic is crazy. I’m tired anyway,” I lied. Man, I hated lying to my father.
“So did you decide to take the assistant job at the McMillan Westbrook Group?”
I searched my memory for the conversation we had had while I was in New York. There was some guy he worked with who needed an assistant, and my father was trying to get me to work there. It hadn’t sounded all that appealing; I had an MBA and being someone’s assistant was a little below my pay grade.
“Dad, I’m looking for high-end business work, not secretarial—”
“It’s temporary, and he needs your help. It pays $80,000.”
“What? For an assistant?”
“Yes, you’ll need to travel with him sometimes and are basically on call all the time. He has a lot of business connections, and he’s located right downtown. You should probably stay with your friend instead of me though, since she’s living down there and you can avoid the traffic situation.”
My eyes widened with excitement. I had been trying to figure out a way of staying with Jessica without hurting my father’s feelings. My initial excuse to stay there for a few days so we could hang out wasn’t going to stretch out much past that weekend. This was the opportunity I needed. I could make my father happy by working with this guy he knew. I would get paid a decent amount so I could save up for my own place, and the icing on top was that I could keep living with Jessica.
“Yeah, Dad, I think I’ll take that job. Does he want me to come over for an interview or something?”
“No way. He’s my business partner. You don’t have to interview. I’ll just call him and let him know you’ll be there at 8 o’clock on Monday morning.”
“Sounds good. Thanks, Dad, and I promise we will catch up this week. How about dinner Monday night after my first
day of work?”
“Perfect. Now go have a fun night with your friend,” he said, and I could just picture the grin on his face. “I love you; make wise decisions.”
“Love you too, Dad,” I said, still in shock that he knew I was going out.
The surprised look on my face caught Jessica’s attention too. As the cab stopped and we climbed out, she stood there wide-eyed and waiting for me to tell her what was going on.
“So, how is your dad? What’s up?”
“He got me an awesome-paying job downtown and I’m going to stay living with you. Things are turning out just perfect for me,” I said, with a newfound level of energy for our night.
***
Waiting for Jessica to finish working was so boring. I stood at the bar sipping my martini and watching the handsome bartender move about with ease.
“Don’t you ladies look beautiful tonight?” I heard a man say as he strolled up and made his move on two women who were next to me.
“Hi,” the one in the black dress giggled.
She looked like she was barely 21, and might not have even been that old. Her schoolgirl laugh caught my attention though, and I couldn’t help eyeing her and her friend as the man hit on them.
He was rich, but trying to hide it. His tattered jeans and hip leather jacket were clearly being worn in an effort to look like a normal guy. But the jacket was Dusen Klein, a well-known international designer that sold jackets that cost more than $10,000. I also happened to see his Rolex glimmering off the club lights, so no matter how hard he tried to play down his wealth, I wasn’t fooled at all.
“Can I buy you ladies a drink?” he asked and motioned for the bartender all at the same time. “Another round please,” he said without waiting for them to reply.
The girls were smitten with him, and I found myself wondering if he was planning on picking just one of them or taking the pair home with him. He seemed like the sort of guy who would try for a threesome.
“I’m Kimber,” the girl in the black dress said.
“I’m Lindsay,” the red dress girl added.
The two women looked nearly identical with their big boobs and blonde hair; I wasn’t sure how he was going to tell them apart once he took their color-coded dresses off of them. I snickered at the group, and it caught his attention.