What you make me do
Page 18
The inside of the building was just as intimidating as its exterior. Everything was bright and fancy and borderline is-the-janitor-secretly-a-serial-killer-because-damn-this-place-is-clean clean. The people around me moved about with purpose, either avoiding eye contact by looking down at the ground with headphones in or focusing on their phones. They were all dressed in fancy suits and expensive dresses, accessorized to the nines with jewelry and flashy watches whose brand name’s I couldn’t even begin to pronounce. I anxiously tugged at my ill-fitted blazer and wondered if the old faded ketchup stain its previous owner left on the lapel was as obvious as I felt it was.
I walked up to the receptionist and smiled. “Hi, I’m–”
“Rachel Ellis?” she asked flatly.
“Yes, that’s me.”
She slapped an ID badge down onto the counter and stood up from her chair. “Follow me. Mr. Alance doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Just like that, I was whisked past the massive security doors and led deeper into the building. I couldn’t quite describe everything I saw. There were rows and rows of offices, each filled with busy teams of workers scurrying about and frantically typing things into computers. The receptionist herself moved like someone had lit a fire under her ass, speed walking all the way down the long hall to guide me to the elevators. We immediately got in and she pressed the top floor’s button with a long, neatly manicured finger.
“Mr. Alance is always up by five in the morning,” the receptionist rattled off. “He expects breakfast to be ready for him every morning without fail. He doesn’t eat carbohydrates, so don’t bother to cut corners and grab him some horrible bagel or something. Be sure to leave it on his desk so that he can eat after his workout. Be sure to memorize his cell number. Miss a call from him and I guarantee you won’t see the end of the business day.”
Our elevator car stopped at the tenth floor. A huge flood of businessmen stepped inside, trapping me against the back wall. We stopped two floors later, and they all stepped out.
“This is the legal floor,” the receptionist explained. “You’ll need to file all Mr. Alance’s paperwork here. You’ll find accounting in the basement. Be sure to submit your payroll information before the end of the week if you want to get paid on time. Also, don’t you even dare ask for time off. As Mr. Alance’s personal assistant, you need to be available around the clock. If he asks you to jump, you have to ask ‘how high?’ Do I make myself clear?”
“Um, yes, but I–”
The elevator stopped at the twentieth floor, the highest the elevator went. Both the receptionist and I stepped off. Before I could even catch my breath, she was already power walking down the hall.
“Mr. Alance prefers private car services to drive him around to his various meetings. Call him a yellow cab and you’re dead. If he asks for coffee, he expects it black. If you add so much as a grain of sugar, you’re dead. Mr. Alance also stays late after regular business hours to conduct phone calls to partners overseas. If you think about leaving the building before he does, you’re–”
“Let me guess,” I said dryly. “I’m dead?”
The receptionist scoffed and rolled her eyes, but said nothing. She knocked three times on the large office doors at the end of the hall. They were made of glass, so I could see the gorgeous set up inside. It looked almost like a mini apartment, with its sitting area full of leather furniture and the pretty decorations that hung from the walls. Sitting at the desk that was lined up to face the city’s breathtaking skyline was a man. His back was to me, so I was unable to get a good look at his face. But I didn’t need to. Peter Alance was pretty much a celebrity, one of the most renowned entrepreneurs and innovators in the world.
I’d seen his face plastered in magazines, in news journals, in television ads for Alance Tech product commercials. He was always friendly-looking in his pictures. But when he swiveled around in his armchair, I couldn’t help but swallow uncomfortably. Now that I’d seen him in person, there was a different air about him. The sharp line of his jaw and the steep frown he wore, coupled with his pursed lips and broad shoulders, made him appear more intimidating than anything.
The receptionist and I stepped into the office. “Good morning, sir,” she practically cooed, switching to a more amicable tone in an instant. “This is Rachel Ellis.”
“Thank you, Denise. That’ll be all.”
Denis nodded curtly, turning on her pricy Louboutin heels. I wasn’t sure if she was glaring at me, or if that was just what her face looked like when she wasn’t sucking up to the boss. She left down the hall as quickly as she came, the clicks of her shoes against the tile floor fading as she went.
Peter Alance stood from his chair and looked me over. There was something hypnotizing about his dark, black eyes. I felt like I was staring into the void, like a black hole that absorbed everything –even light. Maybe my promise to David before, the one about not selling my soul to the devil, was going to turn out to be an impossibility. Standing before me, Peter Alance gave off an aura that only Lucifer himself seemed capable of.
I swallowed at the dry, yet stick lump that had lodged itself in my throat. I stuck my hand out to shake and smiled as politely as I could. In all honesty, something about the man scared me. But since he was my boss and I desperately needed to keep this job, I told myself to strap on a pair. I just had to make nice, to fulfill my role perfectly. I wasn’t here to be his friend, just his personal assistant.
“Hello,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice even. “I’m Rachel Ellis.”
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