by Score, Lucy
“Because my son owes you a job, and Russos always pay their debts.”
More mystery. The woman seemed like a vault of secrets.
“Okay,” I said, drawing out the word Linus-style.
Dalessandra leaned on her elbows. “And if by some chance you manage to take the temperature of our staff and find out if there’s something I can do to make our environment more stable…” She held up the palms of her hands. “Then I hope you’ll feel inclined to discuss it with me.”
And there was the ask.
A vague one.
I felt like we were communicating in code… and only one of us had the code… and the other one of us was me.
“I’ll do what I can?” It came out more like a question. But it was the answer my new boss was looking for.
“Good. If there’s anything you need, please tell me,” she said, picking up her reading glasses and sliding them on.
“I do have a few questions.”
She peered over the frames at me. “Yes?”
“Can Charm—your son fire me?” I asked.
Her smile was feline. “No. Dominic can’t fire you.”
“Okay, then. Do I have to be nice to him?”
She leaned back in her chair, considering. “I think you should have the relationship you feel most comfortable having with my son.”
7
Dominic
My mother’s assistants were glued to whatever was going on in her office and didn’t see me approach.
I muttered a greeting, startling the guy so badly he sloshed water down the front of his checkered shirt.
“Oh, Mr. Russo, your mother is in a meeting,” the less terrified assistant—Gina or Ginny—said, rising as I reached for the door handle.
My mother laughed at whoever was sitting across the desk from her.
I frowned. “Who’s in there?”
“Uh. Um. A new hire,” the damp assistant squeaked, patting himself dry with napkins.
I hadn’t heard Mom laugh like that in a long time.
They were standing now, and I decided it was as good a time as any to interrupt.
“Speak of the devil,” Mom said when I stepped into her office.
The other woman turned around. She was smiling.
She was… here?
“No,” I growled.
I heard a thud behind me and assumed the nervous assistant had fallen over trying to eavesdrop.
“Oh. Yeah,” FU pizza girl said smugly.
“No,” I said again, shaking my head.
“Dominic, meet Ally. Ally is joining our admin pool. Ally, Dominic is our creative director here at Label.”
“A word, Mother,” I said. She couldn’t just dole out jobs to people who were too rude to keep them. She’d already hit her quota with me.
“I’m sorry, darling. I don’t have time. Be a dear and show Ally to HR,” she said, picking up the phone. “Get me Naomi.”
We were dismissed. But I was going to have several words with my mother at her earliest convenience.
I stopped by the assistants’ desk and took a stab at her name. “Gina, schedule me an appointment with my mother at her earliest convenience. Tell her it’s a budgetary meeting so she doesn’t try to cancel it.”
She blinked at me. Her mouth opened and then closed. Shit. I should have gone with Ginny.
“Is there a problem?”
“You know my name.”
“Of course I know your name,” I snapped, secretly relieved.
“You’re a real man of the people, Charming,” Ally said dryly behind me.
I turned on her. “Don’t bother getting comfortable here,” I warned her.
“Or what? You’ll ruin another job for me?”
“You and I both know that you deserved to lose that job,” I insisted. “You can’t be that rude to customers and then be surprised when you’re called out on it.”
“And you can’t be that rude to people and not get called out on it,” she countered.
“You started it,” I snarled.
“And you thought you were above the rules.”
Okay. She may have had the thinnest, most microscopic point.
“It was an important call,” I lied.
“Was it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in theatrical disbelief. “Everyone else in that restaurant had no problem following the rules.”
“The rule is bullshit.”
“Of course it is!” she threw her hands in the air. “George also had rules like servers can only have half a slice of pizza per six-hour shift. Toppings were extra! And you could only take one pee break per shift!”
“If it was so miserable, why are you so upset he fired you?”
“You got me fired,” she yelled. “And I need the money, you buffoon!”
No one in my entire life had ever called me a buffoon. At least not to my face. I would guess it hadn’t been bandied about behind my back either. Asshole, yes. Motherfucking bastard, definitely.
“Buffoon?” I repeated, smirking.
“Shut up. I’m mad.”
Good.
“You should be thanking me,” I insisted, pushing the button I knew would set her off.
“Are you completely delusional, Charming?”
My mother’s easily startled assistant whose name I definitely did not know gasped behind me, reminding me that we had an audience.
I gripped her by the elbow and pulled her away from the office and our audience into a small conference room. It was the same feeling as when I’d held her wrist in the restaurant. An awakening, a hum in my blood.
“Are you dragging me in here to dismember me?” she demanded, swatting at my hand.
Reluctantly, I let go.
We were toe-to-toe just like we’d been in the restaurant. I could smell lemons again. And as angry as I was, I realized it felt pretty damn good to have someone looking me in the eye even while they hurled insults my way.
If I had to have one more conversation with a woman in this office while she spent the entire time looking at her shoes or at some distant spot over my shoulder, I was going to freak the fuck out.
“Because of me,” I explained, “you landed a full-time job with benefits that doesn’t make you smell like garlic and allows you as many restroom breaks as you require.”
“Gee. Thanks, Charming.” Her sarcasm was so thick I was surprised it didn’t drip onto the floor.
“You’re welcome,” I shot back.
She leaned in. “I really don’t like you.”
“I’m not a fan of yours either.”
We were too close. Much too close for boss and employee. And I wouldn’t put it past her to produce a knife and stab me with it.
I took two self-preserving steps back.
“Good,” she said.
“Great,” I agreed. It looked like Ally, the disrespectful pain in my ass, was the only woman in the building besides my mother who was brave enough to make eye contact with me.
Lucky me. And what in the hell was my mother thinking?
“Listen, Charming. How about you try acting like a grown-up? It’s a big company. We’ll probably never see each other.”
I tapped out a staccato rhythm with my thumb against my leg. “You’re fired.”
She smiled evilly at me, and I was taken aback by how attractive I found that. “That’s something you’re going to have to discuss with your mother. I don’t believe you have the authority to fire me.” She tapped a finger to her chin.
“That’s something I will be remedying, Maleficent,” I promised her.
“See how well we’re getting along already?” she said. “We already have cute nicknames for each other. We’re practically mani-pedi buds. Now, if you can point me in the direction of human resources, I’ll get out of your hair, and if we’re both very, very lucky, we’ll never see each other again.”
I would have liked to point her in the direction of an open window.
At least, that’s what I thought that
urge was. I was confused by the fact that my dick seemed to be waking up.
“You stick to your ring of hell, and I’ll stick to mine,” I agreed.
“Perfect solution.” She yanked the conference room door open.
“HR?” she said, in a much friendlier tone to my mother’s assistants who just happened to be lurking outside.
“I can show you,” Gina volunteered. She ushered Ally away but not before the woman shot me a look of pure contempt over her shoulder.
8
Ally
“You need an emergency contact.” The same woman who had glared her way through an introduction with my bus stop buddy was tapping an impatient fingernail on my screen as I scrolled through onboarding paperwork.
Label’s HR department was made up of five very stylish women sitting behind neatly decorated desks arranged in what I assumed was an approved feng shui flow. None of the other reps looked nearly as pissed off as the short straw I’d drawn.
“Uh,” I hesitated.
“No family in the city?” She sounded like it might actually kill her to care.
“None, that I can count on in an emergency,” I said flatly.
“Then pick a friend,” she said in exasperation. “You do have one of those, don’t you?”
I guessed she was projecting.
I entered my best friend Faith’s contact information and hoped to the gods of workplace emergencies that if HR ever needed to call her at work, this lovely flower would have the honor of hearing “Club Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve got tits and dicks.” Faith was part-owner of one of the most over-the-top strip clubs on the island.
I completed the paperwork to the background music of Lady HR’s annoyed sighs and fingernail tapping on her watch. The salary listed with the job description had me doing a little shimmy in my chair. It wasn’t “I can afford a one-bedroom in Manhattan money,” but it was “I only need three part-time gigs on the side to almost make ends meet.”
“Almost make ends meet” was way better than where I’d been when I woke up this morning.
I’d keep the dance class, the highest paying bar shifts, and take one or two catering jobs a week, I decided, running through the calculations in my head. I still wouldn’t have much time for doing the actual renovations, but this was a medium-sized step in the right direction.
If I could just hang in there until the renovations were done and the house was on the market…
“Look here.”
I looked up in time to wince at the flash of a camera.
The picture loaded onto the computer screen next to her. It looked like I was mid-sneeze. I suddenly had a good idea of who had shot Gola’s company ID.
“You’re seriously going to put that on my ID?” I asked, actually impressed with the woman’s “I don’t give a fuck” attitude.
“I don’t have all day to orchestrate a photo shoot to please new admins,” she snapped.
“Well, all right then. Let’s go with the mid-sneeze. It’ll be a nice ice breaker.” It was rather freeing to know that this was all temporary and I didn’t have to worry about fitting in or making a good impression or staying on track for a promotion.
Finish the renovations. Sell the house. Mango margarita.
The printer spat out my badge which doubled as a key card. HR lady smugly handed it over. It was even worse offscreen.
“Admin pool is on the forty-second floor. Ask for the supervisor.”
And with that, I was unceremoniously dismissed.
I found my way to the stairs and went down a flight, using my spiffy new key card to enter the suite of offices. The mood here was similar to the forty-third floor. A lot frantic, a little distrustful.
On the blindingly bright side, I didn’t have to deal with Grumpy HR Lady or Charming on this floor.
I asked the first beautiful, six-foot-tall woman I saw where to find the admin pool. It turned out that I was standing in the middle of it. Label’s second floor of offices opened into a sea of low-walled cubicles taking up some serious acreage surrounded on two sides by glassed-in offices.
Everyone was, if not breathtakingly beautiful, perfectly coiffed and tastefully accessorized.
I asked a stunning brunette who was frantically trying to fold some kind of silky chartreuse fabric into a white gift box to point me in the direction of the supervisor and caught the woman at her desk between rapid-fire phone calls.
The nameplate said Zara. Her long, black hair was tamed in a sleek braid. There were sticky notes of every color organized in neat little rows on her desk.
She eyed my outfit. “New hire? Grab an empty desk, dial the IT extension, and have them set you up with a login and an email.”
“Thanks,” I said, wondering what I’d do then.
But her phone was ringing, and her computer dinged six times in rapid succession with chat and email notifications. “For shit’s sake,” she muttered, grabbing one of two iPhones on her desk as they both started vibrating.
I ducked out of the office, leaving her to the beeping and vibrating, and did a quick lap searching for a clear flat surface. I found one in the back on the outer ring of cubicles and about as far away from the windows as you could get. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. I wove my way through the desks and busy people and claimed my new territory with my purse, coat, and container of the last helping of Mrs. Grosu’s Korean barbecue chicken.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself.
I tried out the chair and found it reasonably comfortable. To be fair, every other job I’d had in the past six months didn’t involve chairs or me sitting in them. So having any chair was a big step up.
The computer monitor was a sexy, state-of-the-art flatscreen, and the only other items on the desk were a thin, white keyboard and a phone.
I picked up the receiver and skimmed the buttons looking for IT.
“You new?”
I peered around the Jumbotron flashing the Label logo and found a woman looking back at me.
She had glossy hair the color of a wheat field with subtle silver-toned highlights. It was pulled back in a low ponytail that no strand dared escape. Her face was generic perfection with high cheekbones, expertly applied contouring, and a petite nose that other women probably took pictures of and presented to their plastic surgeons. She would have been downright beautiful if not for the pinched line of her overfilled lips and the mean girl vibe.
“Hi,” I said. “Yes. I’m Ally. Just started today.”
She gave a derisive snort that still somehow managed to sound ladylike. “Don’t get in my way.”
“You must be the welcoming committee,” I said, cocking my head. I couldn’t tell if she was twenty-eight or thirty-eight.
“Any assignments that come in for Dominic Russo are mine. Got it?”
I laughed. It was a perfect match as far as I was concerned. “You can keep him. I prefer my men with hearts.”
Her lips got impossibly flatter, and I worried they might pop.
“Are you making new friends, Malina?” Gola strolled up and perched on the edge of my desk.
The woman in danger of a lip filler explosion turned her icy glare to my newest friend. “I’m filling her in on the ground rules.”
“Her name is Ally, and no one is getting in the way of your delusions,” Gola said.
Heads snapped up over cubicle walls around us like prairie dogs scenting danger.
Gola turned back to me. “Malina here has career aspirations of forcing at least one Russo into a prenup. It didn’t quite work out the first time around. Did it?” she said, wrinkling her nose in fake sympathy.
Interesting.
“You’d be smart to watch your step, Gola,” Malina hissed. “And your fat ass.”
“Don’t make me twerk up on you again, Mal.” Gola’s grin was wicked.
Without another word, Malina threw her ponytail over her shoulder and stormed off.
“So, you already met the mean girl,” Gola teased.
“She se
ems lovely.”
“A total charmer. People are always saying, ‘that Malina is the nicest human being in the entire department.’”
“I’m so happy I picked the desk behind hers,” I sighed.
“Lunch in thirty?” Gola moved to tap the folder she was holding on my desk and ended up dumping its contents on the floor.
“Sounds good,” I said, helping her pick up papers and fabric swatches.
* * *
It was the fanciest cafeteria I’d ever stepped foot in. Unlike my high school cafeteria with its vinyl stools and burnt, canned marinara smell, here the floors were some kind of white marble and huge urns filled with real greenery created a Zen, urban jungle feel.
There was definitely no canned marinara smell.
It was more of an atrium or a conservatory than a cafeteria. Even the food was fancy. I couldn’t afford it, but that didn’t stop me from glancing at the sushi chef’s display and the Keto Korner.
Gola and I grabbed an empty table between a potted palm and another table full of tall, thin women picking at lettuce and animatedly discussing a fight between a photographer and a make-up artist.
Gola placed a glass of green juice and a bowl of clear broth on the table in front of her. “I’m doing a cleanse,” she said, catching me eyeing her questionable “lunch.” “You’ve got to try it. It makes your skin radiant.”
“I’m more of an accidental fasting person,” I joked.
“Intermittent fasting is so the rage,” she nodded sagely.
“My situation is kind of ‘ran out of food’ and have to wait for my next paycheck fasting.”
“You’re broke?” Gola said with more interest than pity.
“More like newly and temporarily poor.”
Gola spotted Ruth in the crowd and waved her over. The redhead plopped her kale salad down and planted herself in the chair across from me. “Did I miss the beginning of the inquisition?” she asked breathlessly.
“Nope. Inquisition starts now,” Gola said.