If Linda was a cat, she would have raised her fur and would be getting ready to attack by now. Her claws, with that out-of-this-world manicure, are out and ready to shred me to pieces. And she would have done so if I didn't catch a glimpse of Deacon's eyes staring at me.
He's watching me.
"I have a college degree in marketing and administration. I speak two languages fluently and entered at my college of choice with an academic scholarship. I'm adaptive, communicative, and I think that I would be imperative to Mr. Stamford's company because of my extended skill set."
A confident reply coming from me is like a meteorite passing around the Earth every twenty years. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's beautiful. I can tell that Ms. Linda can’t find anything to smear my reply.
But she's more experienced than I, and way more fierce. "Interesting. So this means that with all your skills set, you couldn't find a job until now. Do you care to explain why is that, Ms. Chloe?"
"I'd guess it has to do with the global economic recession and the increased competition of the department, but--"
"There no buts, Ms. Chloe. Would you care to guess my age? Go on, I will even give some help. I landed this job on Deacon's company way after the recession had started. I climbed to the secretarial assistant's position after two years of hard work and determination. But I've said too much already. It's really easy now to tell my real age."
That skinny bitch. I don't understand what her fucking problem is. It's like I'm here interviewing to snatch her position from her claws. I just want one damned job to rise up away from this hellhole called life. Really, what's her problem?
I’m searching for something to counter her, but I can’t. I’m barely holding myself from bursting into tears. That’s when that bitch turns and looks at Deacon and smiles at him with that filthy smile of hers.
“In my opinion, Deacon, Ms. Chloe here is not suitable to undertake the job of a PA at this company. From her poor resume to the simple thing of her choice of clothes, this woman is vastly under-qualified. Maybe if she lost that hideous red shirt she would have a chance, but even then, I don’t know.”
That's it. I can't take this anymore. This has gotten too far. "What do my clothes have to do with my work performance? I'm not here to apply for a modeling job. And I don't understand what's wrong with you and your aggressive stance. I'm here because Mr. Deacon asked me to be, but I won't stay to be ridiculed even more. Mr. Deacon, thank you very much for the opportunity, but I think I'll pass. Good day."
And then I storm out of the office stomping all the way to the elevator. I push the button and wait for the elevator to arrive. I don't know why, but I look behind. Probably, I'm expecting Deacon to rush behind me and save me, a prince on his white horse.
But nothing happens.
I'm really cutting off on those romantic comedies. From now on, I'll only watch gory horror movies, especially the ones where the blond bitch dies first.
When I enter the elevator, I can’t hold back my tears anymore. I really hoped that I’d get this job. It was my fairytale turn, my hunk, fairy godfather granting me a wish and giving me a chance at this world. But it seems that like Cinderella, the magic lasted only until midnight.
I guess that fairytales don’t exist after all.
By the moment the elevator arrives at the ground floor, I have wiped my tears and decided to walk out of the building with those few shambles of dignity I have left intact. I walk to the reception desk to leave my guest card. There, the man manning the desk examines my face with a particular interest. Is my make-up a mess? God, I'm sure it's a mess. And he's trying to guess why I was crying.
I want to yell at him, but the man is just being considerate. At least, that's what I thought. But then, he stopped me.
“Are you Ms. Chloe?” he says.
"Yes. That's me. Is something wrong?" I can hear the distress in my voice. I don't know what's going to follow.
"Mr. Deacon called and said to inform you that you're expected to be here tomorrow morning at 9 am. And that he doesn't mind you wearing whatever you want." That last part comes off as strange to him as it does to me.
But, this doesn't matter. I feel confused, conflicted. "Excuse me, are you sure he's talking about me? And that he said those exact words?"
The man nods.
Honest to God, I would have cheered if I wasn't so tired after this roller coaster of shitty feelings. I give my information to the man on the reception desk and walk out of the building with a feeling of content inside me.
I know that I'm supposed to be glad that I got this job and that I should be happy that I'll be working for Deacon Stamford, but honestly, only one thing comes to my mind.
Get that, you skinny bitch!
Chapter 3
Working for Deacon would have been a lot more fun if Linda wasn't my superior. It seems that by somehow managing to change Deacon's opinion about my suitability for undertaking the work of his personal assistant I waged a war at Linda.
Only that I couldn't care less about what that skinny bitch does.
From my first day at work and throughout my first month of trying to adjust to this new position, Linda was a relentless and vicious bitch that didn't know when to give up.
Everything started when she didn't give me a proper tour of the office that I was supposed to work in, making me spend most of my first week searching for everyone's desk. Then, during my second week at Deacon's company, she made sure I had double the workload of every other PA by neglecting her own deadlines and then assigning them to me to finish in half the time.
The same thing continued until the third week. When she realized that I could deal with everything she tossed at me, she changed her tactic altogether. She started finding ways to make me look bad in Deacon's eyes.
The other day, she didn't inform me that the time of one of our meetings changed. Next morning, I arrive at work only to find out about the said meeting five minutes before it started. I rushed to the upper floor and barged into the room to find them all there, assembled and waiting for me after Deacon's strict orders. But the worst part was me standing there unable to speak, not participating in fear that I would do a mistake and lose my job.
Linda was giggling from her seat the whole time, shining in my lack of preparation. I swear, if it wasn't for Deacon and that devilish smile of his, I would have left. I'd rather work at a cafeteria my whole life than have Linda humiliate me every other day. That woman is borderline crazy.
The first days at work, I didn't know why she acted that way. Okay, maybe it's because Deacon overruled her decision and hired me even though she did a pretty thorough job of making me seem like the least suitable person for the position. But there's no way in hell I can prove to her that it wasn't my fault that this happened. I just answered her questions the only way I knew: smartly and sincerely.
But Linda doesn't seem to understand; in her eyes, I'm the villain and she's the hero that will save Deacon from the disaster named Chloe. And to be honest, if it wasn't for Rachel, the kind lady working next to me, she would have achieved her goal.
Rachel is the first, and maybe the only one, of my co-workers who isn't afraid of Linda's influence on Deacon. She has that old-people wisdom and the spark of a woman half my age in her eyes. Being friends with her has made me understand what it feels like having someone watch my back. Rachel is the only reason I'm walking on equal terms with Linda.
That has been the story of my life during the last three weeks.
Today, as I arrive at the building, I see Rachel in the reception hall. She's heading towards the elevator. She smiles at the receptionist and uses her card to get inside. I rush to her side; when Rachel spots me, her face lightens.
“I thought you’d never come,” it’s the first thing she says to me.
I smile at her. “You’re pretty sleek for your age, Rachel. I did my best.”
She's pretty open about her age, especially
the part where she loves making fun of it.
Rachel isn’t, in any way, old. However, she has been working in the Stamford Corporation since the time Deacon’s father was running the place. It’s like a distant aunt to him and Deacon seems to value her opinion in many matters.
When we enter the elevator, Rachel squeezes her purse close to her chest and opens it. She fishes out a red lipstick and passes it to me. I'm surprised by her move.
“What’s this?” I say.
“It’s a gift, honey. Put it on now, before we arrive.”
“But...but I don’t know if it suits me, and Linda...”
"Chloe dear, screw Linda. Trust me. Put it on and act like every other day."
I follow her command, even though I don't fully understand what's going on. To this day, every time Rachel said something cryptic like that, she always saved me in the nick of time from humiliating myself or falling into one of Linda's traps.
After I put it on using my phone as a mirror, I look at her. "Thank you. You shouldn't have gotten to the trouble." She twirls her writer and grabs the lipstick and tosses it inside my purse. Then, she looks at me. Suddenly, her eyes open wide from the surprise. "What? It's a mess, right? I fucked it up. God, I'm such a fool," I say, panicking.
She grabs me by the shoulders and stops me. "What did I say before? Act like it's nothing. That's the trick. Act like wearing this lipstick is the most natural thing in the world, like the red of your lips was the same all this time."
The elevator bell stops her from saying more to me. I know her for a month now, but Rachel is already a really special friend to me.
We walk into the office together. Linda is talking to Deacon, acting all cute and kind. Someone has to say to that harpy that a sweet smile doesn't suit her sour face. I walk towards them with the confidence brimming from my body. I have to brief up Deacon about yesterday's project and about the results of the research he assigned to me.
As I get closer to them, Linda raises her head and stares at me. If Rachel seemed surprised before, then Linda is astonished. Her jaw drops and she ignores Deacon while he's talking to her. I make sure I don't seem terrified even though I'm ready to collapse like a house made of cards.
“Linda? Linda, what’s wrong? What happened?” he says.
When she doesn't reply to him for the third time, he turns his head to see what's going on himself. That's when I finally understand what Rachel meant when she gave me that advice before.
The first thing that happens is that Deacon smiles at me, not entirely understanding what's going on. It seems he's one of those men that don't look a woman in the eyes, but actually at her face. However, it takes him a second to figure out why Linda seems so shaken.
His jaw doesn’t drop. I wish it was his jaw that dropped in that moment. It would have made the moment less humiliating.
On the edge of the desk where Deacon and Linda were working, he had set up his laptop on an unsteady pack of papers. After seeing me approaching them, his hand unwittingly pulls the laptop over the edge, crashing it into a thousand pieces on the floor, spreading the papers everywhere around him.
"Fuck," I hear him mutter. It's the first time he swears in front of me.
I don't know why, but instead of making him seem vulgar, it elevates his status to an even sexier man than he already is.
I have a strong urge to apologize to him, but it's not like I tossed the laptop on the ground. This time, it was Deacon himself, the man with those striking blue eyes, my boss who caused the accident.
Linda still can't pull her eyes away from me but it doesn't matter. I hurry to Deacon's side and get on my fours to help him. At once, he tries to stop me.
“Be careful! You’ll get hurt,” he says and grabs my hand in mid-air.
That's when everything changes inside me...I think.
Okay, it's no use trying to fool myself. Throughout my first month working for him, I had plenty of time to get to know Deacon. Instead of being a superficial millionaire like I thought he'd be, the man is a charismatic businessman. He does the job of three executive members all by himself and does it well enough that even the executives he has hired don't get mad at him.
The way he talks, the way he moves, the way that everything always has to do with him...the real MVP of this company...it's a pure drug. When Deacon notices you, he really puts you in the spotlight. And I'm starting to feel that I'm addicted to him.
Every morning, I can't wait to arrive at the office and greet him. During my break, I hope he visits me and talks to me about work, and when the time to leave arrives, a sudden clench invades my stomach. Even my body doesn't want me to leave away from him.
I think I have a crush on him.
Nevertheless, when he draws his hand away from mine, he continues collecting the broken pieces of his laptop. He lets me help him without complaining anymore, but I can feel him throwing all those supposedly hidden glances at me. They burn my skin like iron and make my hair prickle.
When we've gathered everything we could with our bare hands, Deacon turns and rushes away from me without saying anything. I stand there, staring around, confused. Linda is still standing above; she squeezes her tablet a bit too tight and her hands seem sweaty and tense. She doesn't look that stunning anymore.
I turn my back to head towards my cubicle when Linda stops me. "What are you trying to pull? Do you think you can win him by guessing his favorite shade of lipstick? Is that it? Someone must have told you. Who was it?"
That's it. That's the thing Rachel didn't want to say to me. I guess, after everything that Linda puts me through every day, Rachel wanted me to fight back for once, even without agreeing to anything. And what better way but to throw my boss off course.
Oh my God, I'm going to kill Rachel later.
However, a new question arises to the surface. “If you have to know, this is a gift. I didn’t try anything nor wanted to make Deacon feel awkward. But you don’t get to point fingers at anyone when you’re guilty yourself. How do you know that this is his favorite shade?”
And she scores! The crowd cheers loudly and the whole arena pulsates with the released energy. When I see the dread spreading on her face, I feel like heaven on Earth. Like Deacon before her, Linda turns and leaves for her office, leaving me behind to stare at the pile of pieces originating from the broken laptop.
For that, I'll have to thank Rachel afterward.
Gosh, I feel so awesome right now.
I head to my desk and sit. I have a strong feeling that everyone is looking at me wearing that lipstick, and after everything that happened this morning, they might actually do. Frankly, I don't care. There's only one thing in my mind right now, and it's the kind of thing that fills your whole existence not leaving any room for other thoughts.
Deacon touched me; he touched me and dropped a laptop on the ground when seeing me.
Can this day get any better than it already is?
Right then, I realize that I have to sincerely thank Rachel for giving me this lipstick as a gift. I make a note to buy her a nice present when I get paid later this week.
After that, I turn on my office PC and start checking the e-mails.
At that moment, a message arrives. I check the sender's name; it's from Deacon.
My hands start shaking. I got him mad at me and now he's going to fire me. Yeah, that's it. He surely thinks that I'm one of those girls that hit their bosses to get a promotion or even marry them for their money. Now, the inquisitive eyes of my coworkers feel like guns aiming at me. If I make one wrong move, I'm looking at a public execution.
Even so, I have to check his message. He's my boss; I can't give the man the cold shoulder.
I move the pointer on the flashing text and click on it. The message doesn't have a subject (which is weird, even for Deacon's standards) and is only one sentence long. Would it be that short if he was asking for my resignation? Probably not.
Well, it's all or nothing.<
br />
I start reading the message. "Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Edgar Allan Poe."
That's it. A simple quote, not saying anything else. Should I get excited or worried? Is that a warning or a hint?
I think I need a break.
Chapter 4
Things went on for some time. Two months passed since the day of the red lipstick incident. Deacon seems changed. He still makes sure he talks to me often, but his glances are longer and I've noticed he works late a couple of times every week, the same days I have to stay until late.
I never put on that lipstick again, not before being absolutely sure about Deacon's feelings towards me. I can't lose this job. Falling in love or having a crush on my boss is not a reason good enough to make me destroy my chances of finally making a career and starting a proper life. Even though I enjoyed the attention the red lipstick gave to me that day, it was a one-time thing, something that I don't dare repeat.
Bad Boys Rule Page 29