by D.C. Chagnon
“Bet he is regretting his actions now.”
The rest of the girls nodded sagely, as if they had any insight to Nicki’s failed relationship. Yet, Elizabeth’s words gave her hope, and she found herself opening the card, shielding it away from the prying eyes. Quickly she read it.
“Nice meeting you the other night. I hope we can speak again in the future. Please contact me. David.”
At the bottom was a phone number. Nicki stared at the note, trying to remember who in the world David was. The name was drawing a blank for her. Instead, all she could think of was how much she really had been hoping it would have been Noel sending the flowers. Now that it was someone else, the disappointment was so bitter she could practically taste it in her mouth.
“So, who is it from?” Nicole prodded.
Nicki closed over the note and shrugged, “Paz. Trying to cheer me up.”
The girl’s faces fell and they quickly floated back to their own tasks at hand, having lost interest as fast as they had grown it. Nicole turned back to the flowers, admiring their beauty. It was then that the name David flashed across her brain.
He had been the man from the party. The billionaire who she had told off in a huff when he was rude to her. Nicki read the note again, affirming what she already knew. David, of all people, had sent her these flowers. The only question was, why?
Chapter Three
Paz’s eyes almost popped out of her head. She snatched the card away from Nicki and read it aloud. Then she looked at her.
“When are you calling him?”
“What?” Nicki replied, “I’m not going to call him.”
“Why?” Paz cried out in alarm.
Nicki crossed her arms, leaning against the wall in the dining room. She had a headache from work. The data entry had been a dull affair. She also couldn’t help but sit and stew over the fact that a stranger had sent her flowers and Noel still hadn’t reached out for her.
“Why would I? He was a jerk.”
“Obviously, he knows he was a jerk. Hence the flowers.”
“And how did he find out where I worked anyway?”
“Well, I did give him your full name,” Paz pointed out, “Plus, he’s a billionaire. He probably can find anyone he wants. And out of everyone he could take the time to find, he went out of his way to find you.”
“Well, I’m not interested.” Nicki retorted, heading into the kitchen to find something to eat.
She could tell Paz wanted to push it, but she didn’t. Maybe if Nicki had been broken up with Noel longer, her friend would have told her to call David. But she didn’t have any interest in making a love connection with another jerk.
So Paz tried another approach, “I think you should call him. See what he wants, at the very least. Otherwise, six months down the line you’re going to regret not calling the billionaire who sent you flowers,” She held her hands up as if to ward off Nick’s reply, “I don’t mean date the guy. Seriously. Just call him to thank him for the flowers, at least. So you don’t look rude. This could be a connection that could help you later on in life.”
Nicki sighed. It was true that a billionaire had reached out for her. Even if he did ask her out on a date, it would be good to keep things simple so she had an important connection like this later in life.
As if sensing she was winning, Paz added, “Like networking. Think of it as networking.”
The word brought back a conversation from when the two of them had been in college. It had been late and both were slightly drunk from a party. Nicki had rambled for ten minutes about the importance of networking, which from that moment on had becoming a reoccurring joke for the two of them.
“Fine, fine,” Nicki relented, “But only as a networking connection.”
Paz clapped her hands together as Nicki went to her room to get her phone. As part of her post-Noel detox, she had been making an effort not to have her cellphone with her all the time. Results were still varied.
She glanced over her shoulder. Paz was in the doorway, looking at her like a dog watching its owner.
“You can go now, Paz.”
“Aw, I wanted to listen.” She replied, but turned around and left, shutting the bedroom door behind her.
Nicki dialed the number on the card. The phone rang twice and then a deep voice answered.
“David Ackerson speaking.”
“Hi, David. This is Nicki. From the party the other night,” she said stiffly, suddenly feeling like an idiot.
“Nicki, hello,” he replied, his voice smooth, “Glad you called.”
“I just wanted to say thank you for the flowers. They are very beautiful.”
“I’m glad you liked them. I’m also glad you called me. I was wondering if you’re available for a job interview.”
“What?” Nicki replied, dumbfounded.
“My assistant quit last night. Unfortunate, but she was getting married and didn’t want to work with me anymore. I need someone who can replace her.”
“And…you thought of me?”
“How could I not? It is rare for me to run into someone who is so willing to tell me exactly what they are thinking. I am oftentimes surrounded by yes-men when I really need honesty. My assistant wasn’t like that. She told me what I needed to hear. I need someone like that again.”
“I already have a job.” Nicki replied, still thrown off balance. She had been expecting a date invite, and instead was getting a job interview.
“Yes, but it is hardly lucrative, correct?” David replied, his tone casual, as if they were discussing the weather.
“Excuse me?”
“You’d make much more money here than as some dental assistant. Not to mention how it would look on a resume. It’d be almost stupid to turn it down.”
There it was. That irritating tone from the night of the party. It grinded over her nerves again. She was tempted to hang up on him. But what made it even worse this time was that David was right. Working for him would probably be more money than Nicki would ever make at her current job, and having it on her resume would make any place want to hire her.
She pushed down her annoyance at his tone and replied with a stiff, “Fine. I’ll come in for an interview.”
“Great. Tomorrow at 6 okay?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“Great. I’ll give you the address.” Nicki wrote it down as he recited it. “Got it? Good. See you tomorrow.”
The line went dead. Nicki stared at her phone. Today officially hadn’t gone the way she had been expecting it to.
*
David’s headquarters were located in the financial district of downtown. Now that Nicki was parked in front of the building, she realized she had always thought the forty story building was made up of many businesses, not just David’s. Now that she was here, she could see a smaller sign stating that this was their national headquarters. The parking lot was almost empty since it was close to six at night.
In spite of herself, she had spent the entire day thinking about this interview. Nicki wasn’t sure what to expect from it. A job of this caliber had always been so far out of her reach that she had never considered anything like it before. Now it had seemingly landed in her lap. She hadn’t told anyone at work about the interview, even on the down-low. It would just have gotten back to her boss.
Nicki got out of her car and walked to the front doors. A few people were milling around the entrance and some people were still leaving. She stepped inside the lobby. Everything looked to be state of the art. The décor was modern, yet somehow inviting at the same time. It made sense, Nicki supposed, to make sure the construction on your headquarters was state of the art, to attract people to use your company.
She gave her name to the man at the front desk, who said he would have to take her up to the top floor himself. Nicki followed him into the elevator, where he scanned a key card.
“You need a pass to get to Mr. Ackerson’s office,” he told her.
Then they were going
up. The ride was over in moments and, before she knew it, she was stepping out into a small waiting area. There was a TV on one side of the room, which was currently shut off, and a coffee maker. The floor was covered in plush carpets. They were nicer than the ones in her own apartment.
“Wait here, miss.” The man said, and he went through a door on the other side, also opening it with his key card.
Nicki was suddenly nervous. She had been fighting the nerves all day. But standing in the waiting room to talk to a billionaire she had told off at a party finally had gotten to her. She stopped herself from biting her nails. The man came back and told her to enter the office.
Nicki stepped inside. The first thing she noticed in the office was the windows. They were floor-to-ceiling and overlooked the city. The sun was setting, casting an orange glow over the city, which looked like a glittering gem. She felt transfixed by the view before slowly other things began to come into view.
The desk was large and looked to be made from oak. There was a living area off to one side, as if David entertained important clients there. Through a door on the right, she could see a meeting room. There was another door on the left, but it was closed with a lock on it.
David was at his desk. He looked up at her from his computer and, for the first time, Nicki got a good look at his face. Her chest tightened for a moment. He was wearing glasses, but removed them when he saw her and stood up. David had black hair that was neatly arranged on his head. She had a sudden desire to mess it up. His eyes were a bright green. How had she not noticed that at the party? His suit was perfectly tailored to him and she could almost see the muscles underneath. She thought back to how hard it had felt when she had run into him. Now she understood why.
His jawline was chiseled and he looked as imposing as he had at the party, even though he had been in shadow then. It was as if David had been cut from marble. He made his way around his desk and over to her. Nicki realized she had been holding her breath. She let it out slowly. He held his hand out to her and she shook it. His hand was warm, which contrasted to his look, which was pure ice.
The touch of his skin against hers jolted her. Nicki suddenly felt strange all over and quickly pulled her hand away.
“Nice to see you again.” David said to her.
“Yes, likewise.”
“Have a seat.” He motioned to a chair in front of his desk.
Nicki sat down, trying to calm down her nerves. She couldn’t pinpoint why she was nervous. Maybe it was because his office was so luxurious that she realized he truly was a billionaire. All of this was his.
“I want to run through what the job will be like if I decide to hire you.” David began, and then launched into what sounded like a speech he had given many times.
He detailed how she would be in charge of scheduling his meetings, setting up dinners, and booking any trips he would need to make internationally. He went over how Nicki would be in charge of going through e-mails first and tackling what she could so David was only given the most important things.
When he finished, he leaned back in his chair, “How does that sound?”
“I’ve handled that on a low-scale status,” Nicki answered honestly, thinking back to an assistant job she’d held for a few months back in college. “But nothing on this sort of scale. You want someone to start right away. I’d need training and to be shown the ropes. I couldn’t be thrown into this. If I get hired, I want things done properly.”
Nicki wasn’t sure if David would be open to training her. She wasn’t sure if he was expecting her to be good at everything right away. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him and tell him all of these things would be a cakewalk for her, and then get behind the desk and mess everything up.
But David merely waved his hand, “I’ll make sure you have training then.”
Nicki hesitated and then asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier just to hire someone who could slide right into this position? Surely, there would be tons of people wanting a spot like this.”
A shadow flickered over David’s face. It was quick, and Nicki wondered if she had imagined it because his face was still as stone when he replied.
“Like I said on the phone,” he began, sounding slightly annoyed at apparently having to repeat himself, “I don’t want someone who is just going to tell me what I am ready to hear. I get that all day from everyone else in my company. I need my assistant to tell me when I’m overbooking my schedule, and to deal with things I don’t want to deal with. That includes the yes-men that float around me all the time. You have to be blunt to get them to go away. If you can tell me off at a party, then this should be easy for you.”
“I didn’t exactly know who you were then, sir.” Nicki said, fidgeting with the hem of her skirt.
“Even better. You don’t care who it is. You tell them what you’re thinking.”
Nicki wanted to protest. For some reason, she wanted to tell David that it had only been because she had just ended things with Noel and had been feeling raw and exposed. She felt the urge to tell him that she wasn’t normally like that. She was used to locking up her feelings and leaving them rotting inside of her.
But when Nicki thought of the money she would make here, and what it would look like on her resume, the words died in her mouth. Saying anything to convince David not to hire her was nothing but self-sabotage. The truth was that she was afraid of working here because she was afraid that she would fail.
“Sounds good.” She finally said.
“Great. I’ll get you the paperwork to fill out.”
Nicki blinked, “What, just like that?”
David didn’t answer her. He had gotten up and was by a file cabinet near the wall, going through it. She watched him as his eyes flicked over the paperwork. It faintly reminded her of a computer going through data. David didn’t look robotic, but he didn’t look like the sort of man who would hang out and watch movies all night either. So why was her heart beating so quickly? Nicki chalked it up to her getting the job.
“I have to give my job two weeks’ notice,” Nicki said, “I can’t just quit.”
David looked over at her, “Are you serious? Does it really matter? The job won’t matter on a resume, surely, after you work here.”
This rubbed Nicki the wrong way. It was the same feeling she had felt at the party when he had been rude to her for no reason. She crossed her arms.
“Yes, I am serious. It matters to me. I put in time there and they deserve two weeks.”
She stared him down. His own eyes were impassive. Nicki couldn’t read what he was thinking at all. After a few seconds, he walked back over and handed her a folder with paperwork in it.
“Fine,” David replied curtly, “But I want the paperwork by this Friday so I can get you in the system.”
Nicki stood up and took the folder. Their fingers brushed against each other lightly and she was hit with the same feeling as before. His skin was warm and it seemed to spread out across her own fingertips. Quickly, she took the folder and took a step back away from the desk. David sat back down and looked at his computer screen. For a moment, Nicki hesitated. Should she thank him? He didn’t seem the type to care about anyone thanking him for anything.
David looked up at her, “You’re still here? You can go.”
Nicki felt embarrassed, and merely nodded her head. She mumbled goodbye to him and was out of the office, the door shutting behind her. Now she was back in the waiting area. For the first time, she saw the desk in the corner of the room. Nicki wandered over to it, realizing this would be where she was sitting and working from now on. There was a window behind her that offered a nice view of the river nearby.
Her chest tightened. Somehow, Nicki had landed a job people would kill for. Yet, she couldn’t help but feel as if she was falling down a rabbit hole.
Chapter Four
The next two weeks seemingly flew by. Nicki put in her notice and spent the time training the other women as much as she could. For some r
eason, she couldn’t bring herself to tell them where she was going to be working. She didn’t want anyone to think that she was bragging.
Paz had been overly excited about the job. It was as if the excitement Nicki should have been feeling had gone to her friend instead. Nicki didn’t bother to tell her how nervous she was. Paz was convinced this was a fresh start for Nicki, who needed one after her break-up.
If there was one plus side to all of this, it was the fact Nicki was too busy to dwell on Noel. She was busy all day training at the office, and then worrying about what working for David would be like. The last thing she had been able to do was think about Noel.
The first day of work, she expected to see David. When the woman who was going to spend time training her, named Gwen, told her that David was out of town for the next two weeks, Nicki felt a bitter disappointment. She wasn’t sure why she cared so much that he wasn’t going to be there. In fact, she should have been feeling relieved. This meant she could learn the ropes without David breathing down her neck.
“Where has he gone?”
“He had business over in London. He has a second house there, as well.” Gwen replied as she pulled out a thick training manual and got right to business.
Nicki decided she’d throw herself into the training here, as well, so when David got back, he would be impressed with her.
*
Finally, it was the morning of David’s return to work. Nicki knew it had been almost a month since the last time she had seen him at the interview. The past two weeks of training had gone well enough. Once she was showed something, she could usually pick up on it quickly. She had always been good with computers, as well.
It was with bated breath that Nicki waited for David that morning. She had dressed to impress, taking care with her appearance so she looked the best she could. When the elevator doors opened, she turned to see him entering the room.
David looked unchanged from the last time she had seen him. He was wearing another dark suit, with his hair slicked back and his green eyes piercing the room.
“Good morning, sir.” Nicki said to him.
David barely glanced in her direction, “I have a conference call this morning, so block all calls.”