by C. L. Donley
He was filthy rich after all. And beautiful.
Which made it all that more strange that he would be so attentive to one lowly employee who admitted to dreams of quitting. It had to have been some sort of… show.
But he hadn’t asked the usual minority fodder. She’d had to volunteer it. And if the conference room was for show, then what was this?
Maybe a PR stunt? Shaking hands with the third-floor minority mascot?
Now you’re just paranoid, she thought.
Or was she? Did he somehow know she was obsessed with him? How did he know her name anyway?
Oh Lord. Oh my Lord.
Amara’s stomach lurched, and her knees weakened.
What the hell was this?
When she walked into the cafeteria, she wanted desperately to spot him before he spotted her, so she wasn’t looking around like a freak and drawing the office awkwardness ghost into her space.
As she might’ve suspected, several of the tables had been moved to form one large, rather distracting table in the middle of the eating area. There was Grayson, wearing large black-rimmed glasses, making geekiness look the sexiest it’s ever looked. He was surrounded on either side by employees, the COO Dale Abernathy sitting right next to him, whom she never found particularly sexy but the company he kept was doing wonders for him. No one even looked in her direction, and she certainly wasn’t about to saunter over there like the most popular girl in school when she was just the assistant to the assistant of the project manager.
“Amara!” she suddenly heard on her way to the salad bar.
It was him.
She smiled and tried to study the look on Dale’s face next to him, but she couldn’t read him.
This was feeling very high school, and she didn’t like it. The charity routine had gone on far enough.
He seemed to be summoning her to sit at the table, which didn’t make sense since she was there to eat first and foremost, the possibility of actually holding a conversation with him today slowly dwindling. She wasn’t there to sit and fawn over him in the company of his underlings.
Inwardly she sighed. She shook it off. He’s been rich awhile now. He’s allowed to be out of touch a bit.
She decided to ignore him as she piled up her salad plate. Should she just find an empty table? She was in no mood to compete for his attention for the next 50 minutes. The day had been magical enough, why tempt fate and risk ending on a sour note?
She found an empty booth, out of sight so that they could each eat in peace without the pressure of expectation. She checked her phone for messages. Still no sign of Mya or Kim.
After 20 minutes or so, she got a Webster notification.
“Did you just ditch me??”
Amara’s heart skipped a beat. She bit her lip, as if to keep her smile from completely tearing the muscles in her face.
Was that going to happen every time?
Would there be that many more times??
She continued to chew as she deliberated on her answer.
“Yes and no. I’m near the patio.”
Webster indicated he was writing something. Probably something like, “aw, what a shame catch ya later.”
The answer instead sent her pulse to the stratosphere.
“Wanted me all to yourself?”
She let out a gust of air and grazed the back of her shaking fingers across her mouth, gaped open from shock.
That one got her straight in the nether regions. No fantasizing needed.
She thought for a moment of what to say back.
Should she flirt? Because he was flirting with her.
He was flirting with her!
What the hell was he thinking!!
He may be a multi-billionaire with a penchant for models, but he was still a dude. She could swear she did feel a connection. But don’t we all, Amara thought? This connection, however, she assumed was intellectual. He sorta seemed like the type who would be into brains.
But headquarters was full of MENSA members so why her?
Yeah, but are any of them built like you, though, said the black angel on her other shoulder.
Amara grinned at her wicked thought. She knew she was hot, she just wasn’t used to anyone else knowing.
Grayson Davis though??
Her mind replayed all the high-quality candids of him in magazines, wearing blazers, expensive watches, and elegant shades. Arm in arm with tall, leggy blonde twigs with crystal blue eyes. Genetic lottery winners. And never the same one twice.
It just didn’t add up.
She tried to picture him again in the conference room. An elegant sex magnet, but a calm one. Professional. A fountain of wisdom. He seemed to respect her as an equal.
No. She couldn’t flirt. Anything remotely flirty would ruin this, whatever it was. He seemed to be flirting that’s true, but no way would she make a fool of herself in case that was a delusion.
The app indicated he was writing something else and she tried to beat him to it.
“I was under the impression I was meeting you here to discuss my future? Was I wrong?”
“I want some of the other team leaders to have a chance to talk to you,” he wrote back.
Do what now??
“Why?”
“Just trust me,” was all he wrote.
Her heart was in her throat. Surely he must know the effect he was having on her.
Trust him? For what?
Darn you, trust issues, she thought. She was about to do the exact opposite.
Amara gathered her things and made her way to the center of the cafeteria where the Frankentable had formed.
There were about 20 minutes left of lunch, and the herd had been significantly thinned.
“Pull up a chair,” he said when she was in view. “Everyone, this is Amara.”
She recognized her third-floor supervisor and gave her a sort of stupefied look. She mouthed her a “you’re doing great,” and Amara nearly teared up.
“Amara has a degree in Literature and… Pedagogy, is that right?”
“Writing and Pedagogy, yes.”
“Writing and pedagogy and Amara has expressed to me this morning that she is bored and thinking of quitting.”
Oh my God oh my God oh my God.
“But Amara strikes me as very bright and capable, and I would rather not lose her to another company.”
OH. MY. GOD.
Without any prompting, the team leaders started asking her questions.
“What is it that you’re wanting to do, Amaya,” one said, already mispronouncing her name.
“You can call me Amy. Um…I honestly don’t know, I’m so sorry.”
A few of them looked on with sympathy.
“What were you looking to do when you graduated?”
“Teaching, of course, but at college level. Difficult with only a Master’s, but I didn’t want to continue with a Ph.D. unless I knew I could commit to the job. I had lots of trouble getting adjunct positions.”
“Do you write?” asked another.
“Yes.”
“What do you write?”
“Whatever needs writing,” Amara answered without hesitation.
Grayson exchanged sexy, CEO-esque glances with some at the table.
Was he really about to part the Red Sea for her? They all seemed so composed and she wasn’t really sure if she wanted the chance to disappoint him. Amara backtracked.
“But I don’t know that I’d call it my passion or anything, I’m just good at it. And I don’t know how I’d feel about being forced to do it daily.”
“You really don’t wanna work here, do you,” Grayson quipped. Everyone chuckled.
“Oh my gosh, I’m just…this is excruciating.” Amara lowered her head with a hand at the bridge of her nose.
The tears were about to start flowing, and she knew it.
Like they did when she came in fifth runner-up in the statewide spelling bee. Like they did when she was forced to do puppetry under duress for h
er 7th-grade group project. Like they did during her graduate poetry prize ceremony, when she found out that none of her six submissions made final publication, and she was just invited for participating.
If she was actually good at something rather than just “meh” at everything, maybe then she would know what she wanted, and she wouldn’t be hoisted into a spotlight, so that everyone could watch her squander an opportunity.
“Breathe, Amara,” Grayson eventually said in that deliciously calming voice to which she was slowly becoming addicted. Surprisingly it did calm her nerves, and she raised her head to the ceiling, wiping tears with the corner of her fingertips. The awkwardness was becoming painful, so she just said what she was thinking.
“I’m really sorry that I have no fucking clue what I want to do, and I don’t want to take a position I’m not qualified for, only to realize I hate it like everything else, and I definitely don’t want to risk disappointing you, so…”
Grayson sat back in his chair, shrinking a little. The team was quiet and finding interesting things to look at on their phones.
He had triggered a quarter-life crisis in the poor girl instead of helping her, and he felt rather terrible.
He realized that what had started as a casual, private invitation somehow had become a very formal, very intimidating interview.
The team had, of course, assumed he was here to work non-stop as if he doesn’t already. He couldn’t very well tell Dale, “can’t work now, got a lunch date with the girl from the conference room.”
Amara checked her own phone. “Sorry, I’m five minutes late. I have to get back. Sorry.”
“Are you aware how much you apologize, Amara?” Grayson said.
Dale gave him a sideways glance.
Sorry, Amara mouthed, eyes tightly shut.
Grayson exhaled a laugh and extended his hand for her to shake. “It was a pleasure to meet you today, Amara.”
Amara put a slender hand in his, trying in vain not to be awestruck by his touch.
“I’m never washing this hand,” she said dramatically. Only a few at the table snickered. They didn’t think much of that one.
Amara slowly gathered her things, and as she turned to hightail it out of there, she heard Grayson behind her.
“Do not quit your job, Amara.”
Her back was to them, but he could see she was hiding her face again as she had outside the conference room.
But it was too late.
Grayson Davis had seen her.
* * *
Grayson took his private plane the long distance from Silicon Valley to his penthouse in the Hollywood Hills. It was a 90-minute flight that would take eight hours if one traveled by car. He was eager to get home, take a long shower and relax. It’d been a long day, but an interesting one, thanks to Amara “Amy” Riley.
He knew his staff probably thought he was losing his grip but he could care less about that.
He anticipated an earful from Dale, but there was no need because he knew his old friend well enough to know what he was going to say. Something along the lines of “Dude, what the hell. The company the company blah blah blah.”
Grayson couldn’t help but see a bit of himself in Amara. He’d always known what he wanted to do, but he knew what it was like trying to survive in an environment where you weren’t being challenged.
Before the bipolar misdiagnosis, it had been one of dyslexia, in 2nd grade, when he’d still been unable, or unwilling, to read or write. They put him in special education classes, where he met his first bully. He could fight when pushed far enough, but he preferred carefully crafted insults because they seemed to be more effective. They stuck in people’s minds much longer than a fight and often won the war no matter who won the physical battle. He would construct them while at home, commit them to memory and recite them at school whenever the moment struck. Everyone eventually learned to stay out of the crosshairs of the unapologetic weirdo that was Grayson Davis. His schoolmates collectively breathed a sigh of relief when he dropped out of high school. Columbine had happened the year before, and he struck all of them as school shooter material.
Amara probably wasn’t secretly a genius, but she was clearly lost and being pigeon-holed by imbeciles. There had to be a place for her in his company that would allow her to flourish.
He knew he was obsessing about her career choices to keep himself from obsessing about her. The chemistry was there and wildly mutual. Yet somehow, he felt, she still seemed to have the upper hand in their exchange.
The fact that she had ditched him at lunch as if she’d had better to do. The fact that she’d admitted to the CEO that she was going to quit and had no “fucking” idea what she was doing in life.
She wasn’t out to impress him, he realized. She really just wanted to talk to him. Connect with him. Even if just for a second. And that, for him, was rare.
Even more rare, she wasn’t desperate. She’d just as soon have taken nothing, rather than to have less than what she was after.
He was sort of developing a crush on her now. It was quaint and unexpected and he liked the feeling, he had to admit. She was completely open yet entirely mysterious. Young and naive but mature and poised. Her name, her smile, her sense of humor. Her walk. Her talk. Maybe he was reading too much into her, but even that was a welcome change. Not since college was he able to be un-jaded about a woman. A black woman! The notion left him feeling very cosmopolitan. It’d been a few months since his last “relationship” if you want to call it that, and for him, that was a long, long time.
Laura Rooney from Melbourne, who was excessively blonde and complained about being bored. A lot. He got the impression she was trying to implicate herself as intelligent. She was. Too bad she wasn’t very self-aware to boot.
Not that he was really considering dating Amara.
But he was, unfortunately, starting to fantasize about her. Because the way she’d reacted to his instant messages in the cafeteria pretty much made that inevitable.
Yes, he had watched her.
It was an entirely unhealthy, creepy stalker habit that he liked to watch people undetected.
He guessed it gave him a sense of power that he felt he didn’t otherwise possess. The same compulsion got him left back in kindergarten, and his brief stint at the NSA had sent it spiraling out of control.
He’d drifted out into deep water with Amara, however. Because the way she’d devoured her own lip at his words had sent his head reeling.
And then when he’d taken it too far out of greed and was rewarded with her wide-eyed sensuality, it was like taking his first hit of a designer drug.
It was a good thing she’d interrupted his next message with a level-headed response, because had she sent something along the lines of what he saw in her eyes, well. The day would’ve ended very differently.
Needless to say, he was torn.
He wanted her in ways that conflicted. He certainly didn’t want her to quit. He envisioned her leading in some capacity. Capable, generous, bringing out the best in other employees. Smart ideas. He’d mentor her personally but he knew himself well enough to know that could only end one way. Amara on his private plane, working late hours. Amara unbuttoning her boring white blouse, mumbling fatuous apologies. Little Amara, so worried about disappointing him.
Had she really cried in front of the team like that? He relived the moment in the shower. And was it the result of passion or just anxiety? Either way, she seemed just a little too intense, which was definitely contrary to his libido’s agenda. She seemed kind of… virginal. If that’s the case, then she would definitely cling. He hated the sound of that. He welcomed the revolting thought, letting it sway him back toward reason.
But if he ever touched her she’d come apart at the seams, he was sure.
Damn.
He could make her turn to mush. Or would she turn to lioness under his tutelage? He unconsciously let out a groan at the thought. He’d let her dominate.
He snickered to h
imself and beat his forehead against the travertine tile.
“You need to get laid, dude,” he counseled himself.
Next week would be the Malibu party.
He’d always had luck at one of Gino’s events. Not a woman less than an 8 in a mile radius.
After his shower, he laid in bed trying to convince himself not to check Amara’s profile before turning in, but it was no use, he couldn’t help himself. It’s not like he’d be at headquarters again anytime soon. He was safe.
When he opened his app, he found that she’d already sent him a message four hours ago. He broke unconsciously into a grin as he read.
“How did you know my name?”
Busted. He thought for a moment.
“I’m like the Wizard of Oz in that way…” he wrote.
She was online too, and when his response finally came, she replied immediately.
“I’ve been thinking…”
His grin widened. He was riveted.
“Are you or have you ever been Travis from Quality Control?”
Double busted.
What could he do, deny it?
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Smooth. She replied.
“Aha!”
What time was it? What was she wearing? No, he couldn’t ask that.
“What gave it away?”
She was typing.
“Your voice sounded… familiar.”
He couldn’t help imagining her saying that in person. Did she have any idea what she was doing to him? He responded back to her.
“I knew I should’ve gone with my British villain accent. Good memory, btw”
“It was very unusual. Unusual things don’t happen around there often,” she added.
Perhaps she was beyond help. The working world had only begun to eat her soul. He felt lucky there was only ever one thing he cared about, one thing he was good at.
“I feel bad that you hate working at my company.”
“Lol I don’t hate it.”
Grayson continued.
“And I regret that I ambushed you today. Twice. I feel responsible.”
“Best day of my life. Truly.”