by Alexa Davis
"Hello?" the man on the other end said.
"Hello, I'm Lexi," I replied. "Peter Baxter sent me over to meet with you about the job?"
"Oh, right," he said and then went silent.
"Are you in the store?" I asked wondering if the guy was senile or something. He didn't sound that old, and I wondered if he was busy with something else.
"No, unfortunately I'm not there at the present time," he said and again, silence.
"What would you like me to do, then?" I asked.
"Can you wait for me?" he asked. "I'm in a cab on my way back and should be there in a few minutes."
"Yes, of course. I'll wait here."
"Very well," he said and then abruptly disconnected.
"Great," I muttered as I stepped away from the storefront and walked over to the planter near the store and perched on the edge. "He's a geriatric space cadet who can't remember that he asked to have an employee sent over. This is not good, Wallace. Not good at all."
As I sat on the planter waiting for my new boss to show up, I thought about all of the things that this job would make possible. I could pay my rent out of one paycheck and bank the rest as insurance for a few more months. Two paychecks and I'd have rent covered for a while. I could use the other two to pay off my credit card and buy a new laptop. If I was careful, I could invest in some new clothes for the job and buy Anna a cute little kitty condo so that she could entertain herself while I was working. I was so intent on ringing up all the benefits this job would bring that I didn't notice the man who got out of the cab and approached me.
"Ms. Wallace?" he said. Startled, I fell backwards into the planter. As I lay there wondering what had just happened, a handsome man leaned down and offered me his hand. I took it and as he pulled me up, I gasped. He was so handsome I had to look away for a moment. When I looked back, I inhaled deeply as I studied his face. He had messy, medium-length, dirty blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and an aristocratic nose. As my eyes trailed down his face, I couldn't help but notice his lips – there was a tough sensuality about them, making it almost impossible for me to stop staring. It was an absolutely irrational thought, but I desperately wanted to chew on his bottom lip.
"Ms. Wallace, are you okay?" he asked as I stood looking up at him, mesmerized by his sensual good looks. Not even Josh, the aspiring Hollywood star, was this handsome. What made this man even more handsome was the fact that he seemed absolutely unaware of his intoxicatingly good looks. "Ms. Wallace?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, fine," I stammered as I tried to breathe evenly and focus on what he was saying. "I'm fine, thank you, Mr…" I trailed of as I realized that Peter had only given me his first name and I didn't feel comfortable calling him by it when he was addressing me by my surname.
"Malin," he said as he held out his hand for a handshake. "Max Malin, but you can call me Max."
"Hi, Max," I said as I shook his hand and looked up into his eyes. "I'm, um, Wallace, Lexi Wallace."
I could have kicked myself for my awkwardness, but he just smiled and said, "Would you like to come in and see where you'll be working?"
"Um, sure," I said with a confused look on my face. "I thought this was an audition, Mr., um, Max."
"Oh, you got the job," he said as he unlocked the front door and led me into the front of the store. The cases gleamed in the afternoon sunlight and looked ready to be filled with merchandise.
"I did?" I was stunned that he'd hired me after my back flip into the planter outside. "Why?"
"You're just who I need to help me get this place off the ground and running smoothly," he replied.
"But you don't know anything about me."
"I know everything I need to know." He smiled again and my breath caught in my throat. I berated myself for already having a crush on my new boss.
"What will I be doing?" I asked as I strolled around the small showroom and looked at the cases.
"You'll be out here on the sales floor showing the merchandise to potential clients and selling the jewelry," he said. " Basically, Ms. Wallace, you'll be the face of M. Malin. Do you think you can handle that?"
"Yes," I said swallowing hard and looking back at him. His face was impassive and I couldn't tell if he was happy or not. "But you can call me Lexi."
"Very well then, Lexi, you will be the sales force at M. Malin," he said as he walked to the back and pulled out a small box and handed it to me. "I want you to wear this."
I took the box and carefully opened the lid. Inside I found a solitaire necklace on a thin chain. I gasped and looked up at him. "I can't accept this!"
"You have to," he said grinning. "I need you to wear the merchandise and make it look good."
"So, you're going to pay me an outrageous weekly salary and you're going to make me wear gorgeous jewels in order to better sell them?" I asked.
"That sounds like something I would do," he agreed as he turned and walked to his office. He returned with a laptop and set it on one of the cases. "I'm going to need to get some information from you for tax purposes, so could you fill out these forms and then just hit enter?"
"Of course," I mumbled, still in shock over the unexpected opportunity that had fallen in my lap. I filled out the paperwork, then turned and said, "What's next, boss?"
"Now, I'm going to need you to help me check in the inventory that we'll be putting out tomorrow and the next day," he said as he headed for the back stock room. "Follow me, please."
The jewelry room was a space smaller than Max's office and with the two of us in it, there was no room for me to look away. He began handing me boxes one after the other and I took them and placed them on the counters out in the showroom. Once he'd unloaded all of the merchandise, he led me back out to the showroom and said, "Now, I want you to open each box and check the SKU numbers against the inventory sheet. Once you've checked off every piece of jewelry, come let me know and I'll give you another task. Okay?"
"Okay," I said staring up into his eyes. They were so blue that it was like looking up at the sky on a cloudless day.
"Ms. Wallace? I mean, Lexi?" he said.
"Mmm hmm," I nodded. "I mean, yes? What do you need?"
"Nothing," he replied. "I was just checking to make sure you're okay."
"Oh yeah," I said. "I'm fine. I'm so much more than fine."
"Excellent, then when you're done, come get me from the office and we'll start on the next project," he said as he turned and headed back to his office.
Watching him walk away was an event in and of itself, and I had to tear my eyes away in order to begin counting the boxes. I'd only looked for a moment, but the image stayed with me all afternoon. Working for Max Malin was going to be an interesting experience, indeed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Max
As I gave Lexi instructions about what she was to do, I tried very hard not to stare at the strategically draped fabric of her bright green blouse. She was a sensual woman, and I could feel myself responding to her beauty in a way that confused me. I had always appreciated beautiful women, but unlike my brother, I'd never looked at them as solely for my pleasure. I had been attracted to many women, but although I'd never tell my brother the truth, I'd had sex with very few of them.
One of the reasons was that I'd watched my brother and vowed never to be like him. Kristov had a new woman every night of the week. He would woo them and make them think they were the most important thing in his life just to get what he wanted, and once he did, he discarded them quickly and moved on. He liked the thrill of the hunt, but once it was over, he was on to the next challenge.
I, on the other hand, liked the challenge, but preferred to actually like the women I had sex with and that took time to figure out. Kristov would mock me for being a wimp or a softie, so I'd learned to brag about my many conquests just to throw him off my scent. The reality was that I liked strong, smart women and they weren't easily fooled by a slick talking, good-looking guy with money. They wanted something more, and I was willing to give that to
the right one. And so far, Natalia was the only one who'd managed to hold my interest. I knew she wasn't in love with me, or I with her, but we had a solid friendship and a mutual understanding about how things worked; so far, it had worked perfectly.
So as I sat down at my desk and started going through my email, I reminded myself that Lexi was my employee and that having a crush on her would be highly inappropriate and bad for business. I tucked the memory of the way her skirt curved around and hugged her body away in the back of my brain and tried very hard to focus on the work at hand.
An hour later, Lexi entered my office and said, "I'm done with the check-in, boss! What's next?"
"We need to put everything in its proper tray for display," I said. "Do you have any experience with displays?"
"Nope, not a bit, but if you give me the stuff, I'm sure I could figure it out," she said confidently.
"I'm sure you could, too, but let's cut down on the learning curve," I laughed as I got up and followed her out to the showroom. I swallowed hard as I watched her hips gently swinging from side to side as she walked and I tried not to picture her doing the same thing without any clothes on. It proved impossible and I felt a surge in my groin that I knew I had to tame before she noticed. I conjured up images of dirty dishes in Babi's sink and the smell of the back room in my father's bar. It worked, for the moment, and I was able to stand near her as I showed her how each piece had to be displayed. She nodded as she listened and I felt another rush of desire rip through my veins as a stray lock of hair slipped out of its place and gently floated down to frame her face.
"Do you understand?" I asked as I cleared my throat and tried to ignore the shapely curves of the woman standing a little to close to me.
"I think so," she said looking up at me with her intense brown eyes. "I put the necklaces on these, the earrings on these, and then the rings on these?"
"That's right," I said. "But don't forget the bracelets. They go on these." I held up a small t-stand that had room on it to hang several bracelets.
"Oh, right, sorry, I forgot," she said as she took it from me. Her fingers lightly brushed mine and I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through my body. I jumped back and looked at her with surprise. She stared back and asked, "Did I do that?"
"I think it was the carpeting," I told her, despite the fact that I had on leather soled shoes and the carpet was an anti-static brand designed to fight just the thing she thought had happened. "No worries."
I beat a hasty retreat to the back room and sat there wondering how in the world I was going to work with this woman. I'd already altered my last name on the advice of her agent and now realized just what a good idea it had been. The idea for the name of the company had come to me while I was on a buying trip. I thought about all the best jewelry stores and how they had short names that didn't involved the world jewelry. So, I chose the easiest thing I could think of: first initial, last name. And, it seemed to work. The electrician had hung the sign a week before, and now I needed a professional to come in and paint the store name on the front window. I wanted it to look classy, not trashy. I wanted M. Malin to stand out from the other stores on Wabash, and I knew that the sign and my new employee were going to give me the edge.
I also had a feeling that my new employee was going to keep me on edge.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lexi
After I finished my first day at the store, I walked to Michigan Avenue and met Viv for drinks at The Gage. By the time I arrived, she'd secured one of the booths near the bar, had ordered drinks and appetizers for both of us, and had attracted the attention of most of the men at the bar. That was Viv, though.
We'd met in homeroom the first day of our freshman year of high school and had become fast friends. Viv's status as a ginger hadn't made her very popular that year, but as we progressed through high school, she'd figured out how to capitalize on her difference and by the time we graduated, she'd taken to dying her strawberry colored hair bright red and had turned our Catholic school uniform into something that attracted both boys and men. The downside of her independent streak was that she spent an awful lot of time in detention for minor infractions of the skirt length policy, the blouse policy, and the solid color knee-sock policy. Teachers sighed as they handed her detention slips and Viv would give them a cheeky grin followed by a wink before she took the slip and skipped down the hallway to the room where the perpetually grumpy nun who was responsible for monitoring detention kept watch over the girls who had broken the rules.
"Heya, Wally!" Viv yelled as I walked through the door. "Over here!"
"Do you have to call me Wally in front of everyone in the bar?" I grumbled as I sat down across the table from my friend. She had obviously just been to the stylist because her hair was the brightest shade of cherry red I'd ever seen it. She was wearing her smart-girl glasses and a t-shirt that scooped low and exposed just enough of the tops of her large breasts that I involuntarily brought a hand to my own chest and pulled up my blouse.
"Let your hair down, Lex!" she laughed as she took a sip of the martini in front of her and then grabbed a fried pickle and popped a piece in her mouth. "Live a little! Now, tell me all about the new job."
"What's there to tell?" I shrugged as I sipped the martini Viv had ordered for me and bit into a pickle. I had thought about what I was going to tell her all afternoon as I'd unpacked the beautiful pieces of jewelry and put them in their proper places. "It's a job selling jewelry in a store over on Wabash."
"Yeah, but what's the boss like?" she asked. "Probably an old guy with a paunch and a bald spot, huh?"
"No, actually…" I trailed off. I wasn't sure I wanted to tell Viv about the attraction I'd felt to my new boss. Somehow, saying it out loud felt like it would make the tension more intense, and I was already concerned about how I was going to manage to maintain a professional distance with Max Malin standing just a few feet away from me. "He's young and kind of hot."
"A hot boss?" she said excitedly leaning across the table. "Do tell!"
"He's just hot," I shrugged, trying not to get caught up in her enthusiasm for details. "He's in his thirties, he's tall, and he has kind of rockstar length hair and these blue eyes that…"
"That what, Lex? His eyes are like what?" She was getting excited and I knew I was perilously close to spilling everything and telling her that I had a massive crush on my boss.
"They're just this shade of blue that reminds me of a cloudless summer sky," I said trying to sound casual.
"Uh oh, you're crushed out, aren't you?"
"No, I'm definitely not!" I protested. It was futile, Viv knew me better than anyone and she definitely knew when I was interested in a guy. "God, Viv, he's my boss, for crying out loud!"
"Someone's got a crush, someone's got a crush," she sang in a playground voice. I looked down at my drink and thought about it for a moment, then looked up.
"Okay, fine, I have a crush on my new boss! He's hot and he's smart and it's going to make a boring sales job so much more interesting and intriguing," I said, feeling more than a little defensive. "Are you happy now? Happy that I've spilled my guts and told you?"
"Lex, listen to me," she said quietly. "Josh was an ass. I know you're broken up about him dumping you, but seriously, it was for the absolute best. I don't think you should feel guilty about having a crush on your boss. Crush out! Forget that loser who ran off! You are young and beautiful, and you should be enjoying your life, not wallowing in sadness and misery over a guy who wasn't fit to spit on your shoes."
"Jeez, Viv, why don't you tell me how you really feel?" I said with a wry grin. She laughed loudly and signaled the server that we wanted two more drinks. "Hey, take it easy, girlfriend, I've got to work in the morning!"
"Oh please, you've earned a little bit of liquid relaxation," she laughed. "Now, tell me more about the job!"
For the next hour, we went back over every detail of my day and talked about how I should dress in order to shape my character and sell
more merchandise. Viv thought I should show some cleavage.
"Boobs, babe. Boobs sell things," she said and as if on cue, a handsome man from the bar walked over to the table.
"May I buy you ladies a drink and join you for a little conversation?" he asked.
"Why, thank you so much," Viv cooed as she dropped her eyes and then looked up at him and spoke in a soft voice. I'd seen this brush off technique too many times to be wowed by it, but I always enjoyed the way the men responded, so I turned slightly to watch the guy's face. "We appreciate the offer so very much and would love to invite you to join us, but we're celebrating our anniversary and would prefer to do it a deux rather than host a guest. I'm sure you understand, don't you?"
"Oh, uh, wow, oh yeah," he stammered. "I'm sorry to interrupt. Happy anniversary!" The guy turned and quickly walked back to the bar where his friends, who'd witnessed the exchange, pounded him on the back and bought him shots to try and soothe his bruised ego.
"Why do you do that to them, Viv?" I asked as I tried to contain my laughter.
"Because while I love men more than life itself, I think it's healthy for them to live in a world where not all women are theirs for the asking," she said with a prissy smile. "Besides, we are celebrating together and I didn't want us to have to spend the evening fending off advances from the bar."
"You," I grinned. "You would be fending off advances, not me."
"Oh, get over yourself, Wally," she waved at me. "You're a gorgeous woman with an incredible body and men trip over themselves to get to you. I, on the other hand, am a chubby girl with big boobs and an ass that goes on for days, so I have to use what I've got."
"You underrate yourself, Viv," I said as I sipped the fresh drink the server had placed in front of me.
"Takes on to know one," she grinned as she reached out and took the last pickle. "Now, should we order dinner?"
Viv and I hung out at The Gage talking and drinking until well after midnight. By the time we were done, I'd figured out my wardrobe for the next two weeks and she had not only given me pointers on how to sell more effectively without being overly aggressive, but also a new mascara and two tubes of lipstick.