The Billion Dollar Contract: The Executive Collection

by Cynthia Dane

After that, she had no choice but to go back to fretting about this interview.

  The hour until it was her turn dragged on. In that time, she saw people come and go out of an interview room as if they were parts of an assembly line. Most went in clutching their papers and making the sign of the cross upon their chest. The economy’s really tough, huh? The unemployment rate in the city was the worst on the coast. Some financial sources said that it was as high as 12% some months. No wonder so many people turned up for this crappy position. Not that Jasmine could make fun of them. She was there too, and just as eager to get a minimum wage job taking phone calls in a mail room.

  The people coming out of the interviews did not look much better than when they went in. Some were relieved, heaving huge sighs and wiping the sweat off their brows. Some, however, disappeared into a bathroom and came out with puffy red eyes. Jasmine had been to a lot of interviews in her day. At last count she was at thirty for the previous year, which had run over into January. People were out trying to make a difference with their New Year’s resolutions. Now they left the Jackson-Cole Building utterly defeated.

  And it was Jasmine’s turn.

  The man who called her into the room was old, and ragged, yet wore a sophisticated suit that was good enough for a department store mannequin. Mid-management. Important enough to control my life but not enough to have any sway in the company. Jasmine kept this in mind as she shook hands with the man and walked into a small, gray room with one table and two people looking like they already needed a Tylenol and a hard shot of something. If they were the only people doing interviews that day, then they had every ounce of Jasmine’s pity.

  “Hello…” The woman with a tight hair-bun and thin lips looked down at a file before her. “…Miss Jasmine Bliss, is it?”

  Jasmine sat in the chair before them, reminding herself to sit up straight and never stop giving off a pleasant aura. “Yes. Bliss. Just like the word.”

  The interviewers exchanged glances that suggested they hardly believed her. Jasmine was used to that. Growing up with such an odd last name rarely had its perks. Kids made fun of her, and adults weren’t much better. Worst of all, it wasn’t even her parents’ “real” last name – they changed it when they got married. Warren and Smith were their original names. Jasmine’s mother told her they decided on Bliss because they were too high to consider anything else. Hippie parents. No wonder I’m poor.

  The interview was nothing special. In fact, Jasmine would put it on par with every interview she had the year before. And since that year yielded no jobs outside of the temp variety, she had no faith that it was going to make a difference in her life by the time she walked out of that room later. Oh, the interviewers were polite enough. They asked the right questions and Jasmine offered the right answers. But she didn’t doubt that over half the applicants she saw that day made sure to give the right answers as well. She didn’t stand a chance, and they all knew it.

  At least I know where I stand with the universe. Jasmine sulked her way to an empty table in the main atrium. By now most of the applicants had been interviewed, leaving behind a cavernous maw to consider her thoughts in. If she had the extra change she would buy something from the vending machine by the restrooms. She had long given up on being able to use her bus ticket to go back home. It was expired, and she would have to gather the strength to walk before it got too dark in the afternoon. Her stomach growled to inform her that it was lunch.

  “Excuse me, Miss?” Jasmine looked up from her useless résumé to see a young man dressed in his Monday-morning-at-the-office best. Clean shaven. Shaky. Surely he was somebody’s pawn in the larger scheme of things. I’ll kill him for his job. By the way people salivated around there, anyone would. “I’m sorry for interrupting you.”

  He better not be hitting on me. Anywhere else in the city and she would say that out loud. But she had no idea if this man was tied up with the interviewers and didn’t want to make an ass of herself. “It’s nothing. You didn’t interrupt me at all. What is it?”

  “I’ve been asked to escort you up to the executive offices. It has to do with a job.”

  Jasmine perked up at that. “Job? Well, why didn’t you say so?” Before she could run off with this fellow, however, she looked around the atrium and wondered if there were enough witnesses around in case this guy tried something funny. For all she knew he was lying about escorting her somewhere. Escorting me to my death. Wasn’t there a serial killer on the loose a couple of years ago? Was that guy ever caught? Jasmine looked this guy over again and decided she and her spray mace could take him on if he tried something funny in the elevator.

  “Does this have to do with the administrative assistant position I interviewed for today?” she asked as they waited for the elevator. “Because I didn’t see anyone else be escorted somewhere.” Did they already make a decision? Did Jasmine win by some luck of the cosmos? Hooray minimum wage and no benefits!

  The man glanced at her repeatedly until the elevator dinged and opened. They stepped inside, and with a brisk push of the button the doors closed again. “It does have to do with a similar position, yes. But I don’t think it’s exactly that one.”

  “Huh.” Jasmine turned to the mirrored walls and preened. Hair in place? Check. Makeup flawless? Check. Dress falling in the right places and making sure she was ready to talk business? Oh, check.

  Even though this young man said something about the executive suites, Jasmine still did not anticipate what she saw when the elevator doors opened.

  Such an office was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Her eyes went straight to a flowing fountain spurting out of the wall opposite the elevator, its marble tiles reflecting the pure water as it pooled behind a bench of granite. An elegant sign read “Do Not Toss Coins Into Fountain” but a few pennies glistened at the bottom anyway.

  But any office could have a fountain. When Jasmine stepped into the hall and turned around, she discovered something more.

  Chandeliers made of gold and crystal. Mahogany desks with secretaries wearing department store designers and dresses off the high-end boutique racks. Exotic oil paintings decorating the walls. Silk and sheer curtains cordoning off alcoves of espresso machines and complimentary sandwiches from the café downstairs. The pleasant chirp of poised workers answering phone calls and fielding questions from visitors. Jasmine had worked in many offices before thanks to her temp jobs. She was used to grime, overflowing wastebaskets, sour moods, and water cooler gossip that could destroy careers if people weren’t careful. Is this another planet? When the woman behind the foremost desk hung up her phone and flashed Jasmine a pair of perfectly white teeth, she nearly gagged. She’s a princess. Yes, princesses wore sleeveless silk tops, tight pencil skirts, and had their hair done by Paul Mitchell himself. This woman in particular had luscious red locks caressing her smooth skin as she said hello with an equally silky and smooth voice. It wasn’t fair. Jasmine would cut off her right arm if being asymmetrical made her half as beautiful as this woman.

  “Afternoon.” She didn’t have any cleavage, but Jasmine wouldn’t pretend that this woman didn’t have the perkiest breasts in the universe. Maybe that’s my problem. She glanced down at her own. A fair size, but nothing she liked showing off in the locker room back in high school. “What can I do for you?”

  “This is the woman I was sent to fetch,” Jasmine’s escort said. “You know. The one the boss wants to talk to.”

  The way he said it sounded so official. The boss wants to talk to me? Jasmine stood up straight and tried not to look smug. Especially after the secretary picked up a phone and asked the person on the other line if they were ready to see the young woman they asked for.

  An affirmative came through.

  “You may go in to see Mr. Cole.”

  Jasmine nodded before doing a double take. “Wait… did you say Mr. Cole?”

  The secretary looked at her as if she were deaf. “Of course. Where do you think you are?�
��

  Hell. Anxiety had long since seized up Jasmine, and she was unable to divulge what she thought about going in to see one of the most powerful men in the country.

  2

  I have an interview with the Ethan Cole.

  It was all Jasmine could think as she was escorted to a back office, its doors gilded in gold. Oh my God. This wasn’t happening. There was no way someone like Jasmine could be singled out for an interview with one of the richest men in America. Unless, of course, she was not singled out. She was probably one of many… but would he personally interview so many people in one day? Something bubbled in Jasmine’s throat.

  The door opened. Before Jasmine knew it, she entered the private world of Ethan Cole.

  He sat behind a desk. Not just any desk, since that wouldn’t do. This desk was the king of desks, stretching from one end of the room to the other, trimmed in the same gold as the door, blocking the bottom view of the window behind Ethan. The sunlight streaming through the top portion illuminated the man as if he stood before a stained glass window in the Church of Damn He Looks Good. Sophisticated. That clean cut suit sat perfectly on his body, drawing attention to every line of his form as he wrote something with a slim black pen in his hand. It wasn’t until the doors closed behind Jasmine that Ethan finally looked up.

  His demeanor was stern, unchanging. This was a man who dealt with shit every day of his life and had learned how to quash it beneath his shoes. Not like how Jasmine tripped into it on her way out her front door. Does he smell it? Oh no. Jasmine scraped her heel on the carpet before looking down and realizing that this was probably Persian. Oh no no no! She stood up straight, hands behind her back and chest out. I didn’t do anything.

  In that moment, Ethan’s visage softened. Suddenly he was no longer a hardass billionaire getting ready to tear out the throat of an incompetent idiot. Instead he seemed almost wistful in the way he gazed at Jasmine, a charming smile blooming on his face before he fastened his top suit button and stood up, hand extending.

  “Greetings. Thank you for taking the time to see me.” His voice was silkier than his suit – or his hair, which was freshly cut, cleaned, and styled to fall right above his ears. Jasmine raised her arm to shake his hand. Ethan took it, softly at first, like a true gentleman. Then he crushed it with a handshake meant to impress old men in the business world.

  “Ah…” Jasmine shook her hand out. “Pleasure…”

  It was the only word she could eke out as she gazed upon Ethan so close to her. Why wouldn’t a billionaire look so good? Better still that he was so young. How young, Jasmine had no idea. She had heard that he was one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the world, but didn’t know any specific numbers. Thirty, maybe. Definitely younger than thirty-five, unless he had access to a fountain of youth.

  “Pleasure indeed.” Ethan sat back in his leather office chair and hooked one leg over the other. Nice crotch. Of course that’s where Jasmine’s eyes went. She had to avert them before she manifested a bulge there. “I’m sorry that I haven’t caught your name yet, Miss…”

  “Jasmine,” she croaked. After clearing her throat she continued, “Bliss. Jasmine Bliss.”

  The smile almost fell off Mr. Cole’s face. “Bliss?”

  “Yeah.” Jasmine shifted in her seat not two seconds after sitting in it. “Blame my parents.”

  “It’s a lovely name. Happen to have a résumé?”

  Jasmine pulled it out of her folder and placed it on Ethan’s desk. Shouldn’t he have one of my résumés if he called me up here for an interview? Who was Jasmine to judge how things went on in Billionaire Town?

  Ethan spent a minute looking over Jasmine’s résumé. In that time he didn’t bother to look at her, aside from the occasional glance here and there. Jasmine attempted to maintain a happy demeanor – but not so happy that he would think she was crazy. No big deal. Just hanging out with a billionaire thinking about giving me a job doing something. After that minute he started asking her questions. What did she think of her major? How was her thesis defense? What was her favorite temp job so far? She answered these with ardor, not because she was desperate to show him how well-trained she was in answering such questions, but because she was afraid that if she didn’t speak, her voice would completely crap out on her. The longer she stayed in this office, in the silence of Ethan Cole mulling over her answers while looking like an underwear model in an Armani suit, the quicker Jasmine realized the absurdity of this situation and that she wanted nothing more than to get up and run away before anxiety consumed her for breakfast.

  “Do you have a significant other, Miss Bliss?”

  “Excuse me?” Jasmine held either arm of the chair in her hands. That’s not a legal question. Did the laws apply to a billionaire? “N… no.” Why did she answer? She should have stood her ground! Jasmine hadn’t attended all of those interview classes at the unemployment agency for nothing. “I do not.”

  “What about children?”

  “No.” Something wasn’t right about this.

  Ethan went back to looking at the résumé as if it were a literary masterpiece. Then he smiled, chuckling under his breath as if something greatly amused him. Don’t make fun of me for going to community college. She doubted this rich ass could relate to doing such a thing. “I ask because the job I have in mind for you requires a lot of time. A lot of hours. I wouldn’t want to put you out of your family, if you had one.”

  Another shift in her seat. Jasmine wasn’t sure she liked the sound of a lot of hours. How many is a lot? “I see. Well, I’m ready to work. I’ll do whatever it takes. But… what position am I interviewing for, exactly? I wasn’t given much information when I came up here.”

  “I have need for a new personal assistant. My last one, ah, she didn’t work out, unfortunately.”

  A million questions burned in Jasmine, but she didn’t dare ask.

  “Looking at your résumé, it seems that you have quite a bit of administrative experience. Tell me, have you ever been someone’s personal assistant before?”

  No. Not like that, and definitely not on this scale. The closest Jasmine ever got to that was when she worked in a one-man office. She was the secretary, personal assistant, driver, hairdresser… “Not really, no.” I should be selling myself. But a part of Jasmine realized that it was futile. There was no way she was going to get a job as Ethan Cole’s personal assistant. Might as well be honest about it so she didn’t waste any more time. “I have a lot of office experience all over the city, though. Name a neighborhood and I’ve probably temped there.”

  “Yes, temping. I saw that on here.” Ethan flipped the résumé over and smiled once again. He had the kind of James Bond smile that could stab a woman in the heart. Too bad Jasmine had been jaded so thoroughly by the job search to care. “Good way to get experience. You don’t have any issues with talking on the phone, do you?”

  “No issues. I can call anyone and I can answer the phone at any time. It’s no big deal.”

  “Excellent. By all accounts, Miss Bliss,” Ethan almost lost it saying her name like that, “you may be what I’m looking for.”

  Although he looked at her as if this were already settled, Jasmine couldn’t help but lean forward with her head cocked to the side. “Really?” she asked. “You’ve got to be kidding. No offense, but I’m not sure you looked at the other people filing in for a job. One of them has to be more qualified than me for a job as important as the personal assistant to someone like you.”

  “To be sure, that’s so.” Ethan shrugged. He was like a boy being told he should pick sportier people to be on his dodgeball team instead of his friends. “But like I implied, I’m not interested in any of those people. You’re the one who intrigues me, Miss Bliss.”

  “Why in the world?” Jasmine needed to stop before this potential gravy train pulled out of the station without her on board. “Look, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, Mr. Cole, but I’ve been confused ever s
ince one of your lackeys came downstairs and dragged me up here. I don’t know you. And you clearly didn’t know me since you had to ask my name. There’s no way I’m qualified for such a job. I’m really confused right now and would love an explanation as to why you want me of all people running your errands and being paid to do so. By the way, what kind of pay are we talking here?”

  “Ah, yes, money.” Ethan folded his hands on his desk but remained upbeat when faced with such questions. He must hear scarier in the boardroom. Let alone coming from someone like me. “You would receive the base starting salary of thirty dollars per hour. I’m afraid that’s all there is in the budget for someone starting out in the company. Oh, and you would also receive the full Jackson-Cole insurance plan and various stock options.”

  “Thirty… thirty dollars an hour?” Did she hear that right? That was more than she made at her past three jobs combined. Plus insurance! And stock options, whatever those were!

  “But you are right when you say that something else is afoot. There’s another… aspect to this job that you would have to perform.