“Not exactly. Our target anticipated us, but we managed to handle the situation. The German is dead,” she said. There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
“Good. There will be a jet waiting for you at the airport so you can come back to headquarters.” With that, the line went dead.
“Who was it?” Ronny asked, a grin on his face.
“Headquarters.”
“Ah, now they decide to call when you could have been blown to pieces.” He rolled his eyes and got up, handing Savanna her dress. She smiled and started to get dressed as he did the same. Soon, with a little stealth, they made it back to the airport and were soon on a jet together.
The flight to headquarters was quiet, as they remained silent, giving each other space to organize their thoughts. Before long, they were both fast asleep. Eventually, they landed and got off the jet together. Ronny made a bold move and grabbed her hand. To his surprise, she didn’t pull away, making him smile in satisfaction. Had he really managed to break through to her? Feeling proud, he brought her into the building as they continued to hold hands.
Inside, Gerald was waiting for them. He was about to congratulate them on a completed mission when he noticed them holding hands. “Hmm… did the mission cause more than just the death of the target?” He grinned, teasing the young couple. He chuckled when they both looked bashful. Here were two of his best Special Operatives and some gentle teasing was enough to render them mute.
“Anyway… I want to congratulate you both on accomplishing your task. All went well I hope?” he asked. Savanna and Ronny looked at each other for a moment, before nodding. No one else needed to know about what they had gone through. “Good… if that’s the case. I have a new mission for you both…”
After that, Ronny and Savanna turned into regular partners. They had a perfect dynamic. It seemed like nothing could stop them and no target was too big to stand in their way.
Two years after their initial mission, they both agreed to retire. They had made their contribution to the world and Ronny was satisfied, thinking he had avenged the death of his best friend.
“I have been waiting a very long time to do this…” Ronny whispered excitedly as he squeezed Savanna’s hand. She was blindfolded, sitting in the passenger seat of his red BMW.
“What the hell are you up to?” she snapped. She didn’t like all the anticipation. She knew that Ronny was up to no good. Now that their work as Special Operatives was over, she just wanted to settle into a normal life. She wanted to go home.
“Oh, come on don’t be so sour,” Ronny whined as he suddenly took a right and the car seemed to go up a slight incline.
“Where are we going?”
“So impatient. Jeez.” Suddenly he killed the engine. With that, he got out of the car and opened the door for her. She got out with his help, before he untied her blindfold, letting it fall to the ground. She gasped as her eyes fell upon a large, beautiful mansion, adorned with gardens, windows, and a stucco finish.
“Welcome to your new home…” Ronny leaned over, kissing her cheek gently. She blushed slightly, looking up at him. As their eyes locked together, he made one more comment. “I told you it was better than Kozlowski’s.”
*****
THE END
The Billionaire’s Secretary
Ginger settled in at her scrupulously clean desk, dressed in her perfectly tailored ebony crepe business suit. She had paired it with a white silk blouse that tied into a little bow in the front and finished her ensemble with Jimmy Choo Romy blacks. The heels, lower than her Christian Louboutin work shoes, were definitely more decorous. Unfortunately, they were also more appropriate than the colorful Tory Burch ‘Discodeporte’ pumps complete with a genuine python ankle strap in her closet. It didn’t matter a single bit to her that her boss Calvin “Crash” Abrams hardly spent thirty minutes a month here, the corporate offices of Abrams’ International. It was quarterly report day. She would dress the part of the administrative assistant for the Director of Internal Relations even if no one had a clue what Crash did for the company.
She checked her email for any communication from her boss, but as usual there weren't any. Ginger made sure, for the umpteenth time that the settings were activated to pop-up notification for new messages. She didn’t trust the IT guy’s assessment that there was nothing wrong with the setting, as she never received any messages from her boss.
Ginger liked thinking of her boss as Mr. Abrams even though he was the ne'er-do-well son of the CEO of her company. Abrams’ International (A.I.) was a conglomerate that acquired new businesses ferociously. The list of new companies under the umbrella of A.I. grew at the rate of one or two per month to the point where six different divisions handled new acquisitions. A.I. had its hands in everything, which was the reason Ginger took this job. She had hoped to make connections with some of the publishing firms that Abrams’ owned. Ginger had her own career aspirations. In her heart she was a writer, not some glorified typist, and she desperately wanted to publish her nearly completed novel. But she was no closer to making a connection with a publisher than the day she started here two years ago. Ginger found ironically that she was placed too high up in the structure of the corporation to have any meaningful contact with the publishing houses.
But her writing skills did come in handy. Every quarter she pulled together bits of data and constructed a report about the strength of “internal relations” in the corporation. Usually her efforts passed muster and right now her latest one sat on Crash’s desk waiting his approval.
If he showed up, that is. There were some quarters where she had to send it up the management line with a careful etched forgery of his signature. The guy got into enough trouble already by ignoring the company’s reporting schedule. This, according to company gossip, was akin to breaking all Ten Commandments at once.
As if on cue, the newest story of Crash's latest adventure flashed on her computer. She had set her browser to pick up new stories on Crash activities.
(CMN) Bad boy “Crash” Abrams, only son of billionaire Malloy Abrams, was involved an incident in the Hamptons last night. Allegedly, he drove a Porsche into the pool of movie star Rolfo Rolo. The star of “All Babes All The Time” blames the transmission of the Porsche, which lurched the car forward uncontrollably. Other guests, speaking on the condition of anonymity say that Crash appeared intoxicated prior to sinking his car in the pool. Since the incident happened on private property, the police were not called. However, Abrams’ latest girlfriend, society gal Elaine DuPointe, told CMN, “Who? Crash? He is so last year.”
The photograph with the story showed Crash with two very drenched girls hanging onto him. Their flimsy dresses clung wetly to their skin. Aside from that, it was a dark and fuzzy picture. It hardly displayed Crash’s blazing blue eyes, or the angled cut of his cheeks or jaw, or his broad chest and strong arms. In other words, he was a gorgeous man. If that statement from Elaine DuPointe was true, Crash was officially single again. She wondered if he knew.
She searched YouTube for a video of the incident. Surely someone posted one and Ginger found it. Crash was laughing as he pulled the two girls into the pool along with the 2016 Boxter that sunk in the chlorinated water. The lights at the bottom of the pool shimmered in the clear water displaying the sad, sodden state of the black convertible.
There’s no hope for that engine or the car, thought Ginger. She wondered what Malloy Abrams would say about the destruction of a fifty-five thousand plus dollar car. Did he take such a thing with a shrug of his shoulders and order up a new one? Did he file an insurance claim? Or did people as rich as the Abrams just not bother with such things? It was quite possible that a luxury vehicle wasn’t important enough to register on the radar of men like Crash or his father.
Ginger filed the story and the YouTube video with other ones in the “scrapbook” she kept on him in her computer. It might come in handy some time to know which indiscretion haunted him on a particular day.
&nb
sp; One of the pair of glass doors that hung at the entrance of the office swung open suddenly. Crash blazed in, dressed impeccably in a black close-cut Italian suit, red silk tie and cream dress shirt. The only evidences of the excesses of the previous night were the faint dark circles under his eyes. He held his iPhone to his ear.
“Now, Elaine, sweetheart. I was just having a little fun.” His face kept a neutral expression as if he were executing some military campaign. “Sure, darling, if that’s how you want it. No problems. I’ll see you at the Labor Day party as always. Have a great time on the Riviera. Au revoir.”
He clicked off the call, and without looking at Ginger said, “You can move Miss DuPointe from the personal email list to the social one.”
“Yes, Mr. Abrams.”
“And bring your pad and come into my office.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Ginger.
She gave him a minute to situate himself at his desk as she prepared a demitasse of espresso in the kitchenette hiding behind a door on the left hand wall. The espresso machine gave her nightmares in her first weeks of employment. She was an administrative assistant, not a barista, but after it became apparent that she would spend most of her hours alone, she spent considerable time mastering its complexities. She constructed nice creamy foam on the top on the syrupy black coffee. Ginger topped it off with a twist of nutmeg from the grinder sitting next to the behemoth of a coffee machine.
When she entered, with the coffee in hand for her boss, and her iPad tucked under her arm, he was sitting, his face hidden by the computer. His desk was a huge construction of ultra sleek lines in glossy obsidian wood. His fingers leafed through the report she carefully wrote.
“Tell me, Ms. Williams--”
“Wilmot, Sir. My last name is Wilmot.”
“Yes. Of course. Ms. Wilmot, who does these reports?”
“I do, Sir. With appropriate input from department heads.”
He took his eyes off the pages and looked into hers.
“They give you data?” he said cocking his eyebrow suggesting he did not believe her. And he was right not to. In the competitive culture, information was a valuable asset. Up-and-coming managers tended to guard this asset with the fierceness of bulldog guarding a bone.
“No, Sir. Not directly. I just get you copied on their memos, which then come to me. No one minds cc’ing top managers on their memos because if a boss doesn’t object to them, then they can claim that management knew about it all along. I file them under appropriate headings, and when the time to do the reports comes, I pull the information. There is also something in a memo about what a good job they do. I put that in and attribute the success to the cooperation of all team members and it's done”
Crash looked bemused. “In other words, it’s a pile of horse shit.”
Ginger’s eyes widened. She never heard Crash use a vulgar word. But admittedly they spent little time together, so what did she know about his vocabulary?
“Well. Yes, Sir. Somewhat”
“But it’s very nicely worded horse shit. And my father has never sent a note of reprimand on any part of it?”
“No, Sir. But then again I don’t think he reads it.”
“Oh no,” said Crash rotating his seat to the wall behind his desk where a portrait of his father hung. “He most definitely reads it. He sent me a text saying ‘I hope your report is ready today,’ as if it wouldn’t be.”
Ginger stood quietly not knowing what to do. He had not drunk his coffee so she couldn’t refresh it, and he told her to bring in her pad, implying he had something else for her to do. So she waited as he sat staring at his father’s portrait. Finally, he swung back to the desk and picked up each one of the three copies of the report laid carefully on his spotless desk. He then signed them from an ebony and silver pen he pulled out from his inner jacket pocket.
She stared at his writing hand holding an instrument that cost more than her weekly salary as he scribbled off a signature that looked like interlocking circles. His perfect hand appeared strong as it casually held the pen. His nails were clean and buffed to a dull shine. In a singular juxtaposition of thought, Ginger’s mind strayed to what that hand might have done to one or both of those women from the photo last night. What secret places did it touch? What flesh did it stroke? It made her shiver before she shut her inappropriate and overactive imagination behind the “do not go there” barrier.
No. It would not do to fantasize about Crash Abrams. She had done so, when she first starting working for him, captivated by his handsome body and gorgeous face. She suffered too many nights when she sat alone in her bed in her postage-stamp size apartment fantasizing about him. She'd concoct elaborate scenarios about what that man would do to her, as a flame would rage through her.
She would imagine her hand as his as she let it roam her body, pinching her nipples and dipping her fingers in the wetness below. Even now her mouth grew dry at the thought and she shut that away, too. Those nights proved ultimately far too frustrating when it became apparent to her that she had developed a crush on a selfish man. So she tamed her desires just as she tamed everything else, through the force of her will and solid self-lectures on the reality of her situation.
“You are an administrative assistant for one of the most spoiled, rotten, immature men you ever met,” Ginger would tell herself. “He’s shown no sign that he cares about any of the many women he has been with. You have no reason to believe he would treat you any different.”
Her iPad dinged, jolting her out of her reverie. At that time, Crash’s computer made the same type of noise. She glanced at the pad as he stared at the screen. His lips drew tight, and he drew long breath through his nose. And she understood why. Malloy Abrams had just called his son to his office.
Crash stood in his father’s office which was three times larger than his and the size of a respectable Manhattan living room. The mahogany desk was as sleek and modern. If there was anything Crash shared with his father, it was a love for the novel. Crash only had to look through family portraits displaying five different wives over the decades to know that. Only he and his father were the constants in the line of photographs. While Malloy Abrams aged over the years, the collective faces of the wives did not. When a spouse reached a certain point where plastic surgery would not hide that she was no longer in her twenties, the wife was sent to a nice vacation in the Bahamas. A divorce would follow.
The elder Malloy stared at the report his son handed him, and flipped through the pages as he speed-read through it.
His father sighed and looked at Crash who stood before him respectfully, and waited for word on whether to sit or not. Sitting was bad as it indicated a lengthy conversation including all of Crash’s flaws that, according to his father, were considerable. The elder Abrams pushed the report away from him and waved his hand indicating Crash should take the chair before the desk.
“You are never here,” said Abrams so quietly that Crash barely caught the words.
“Excuse me, Sir?”
“You are never here, yet you produce a report on par with every other manager. What consultant did you hire? Maybe I’ll bring him in to take your place.”
Crash kept his face neutral. He knew from the get go that his father was gearing up for the mother of all lectures.
“Sir, on my word, I did not hire anyone to write it.”
“Really?” said Abrams with sarcasm edging his voice. “You understand about, oh let’s see,” he pulled the report forward again and opened it to a page, “amplification of our human resources index. And I'm sure you are conversant on 'influence marketing’. Here apparently we were able 'to effect a fifty-seven percent increase on our return on relationship quotient’.”
A small smile threatened to play on Crash’s lips that he found difficult to restrain.
“No, Sir, I do not.”
Abrams’ eyes widened at his son’s admission.
“But I’d like to point out no one else does either.”
U
nexpectedly Malloy Abrams smashed his hand on the top of his desk causing Crash to wince.
“Games! All I get out of you is games! And nonsense like that bit at Rollo’s house last night! This is business, son! The economy is tough out there, in case you haven’t figured that out. And every little tick affects the price of our stock. Our board of directors expects our officers to act with a modicum of decorum."
Crash resisted the urge to sigh. When his father used words like ‘modicum’ and ‘decorum’, it meant that this was going to be a very long lecture. He tried to remember what corporate office Crash held and could not. All of this was damn inconvenient. He had his day planned out and now it was ruined. Crash had looked forward to hitting the casinos in Atlantic City. Before that he was intended to stop by one of the galleries in Soho to find a picture to replace the portrait of his father in his office.
“And you are getting past the age where your antics are considered cute.”
“Cute?” asked Crash incredulously. Now his father was going too far. You did not call a man in his late twenties “cute” unless you were one of those pretty but empty-headed women that Crash liked to spend time with.
“Yes. Cute,” said Malloy staring at his son with what Crash called the “death gaze”. Crash sat up straighter, realizing something serious was about to happen. His father reserved the “death gaze” for a recalcitrant about-to-be ex-wife who refused to sign the settlement papers or for people he fired.
Crash wouldn’t mind getting fired. It would affect him not in the least except to let go of the pretense that he actually did something for the company. He didn’t understand why his father didn’t do just that, but knew he wouldn’t. In Malloy Abrams’ mind, Abram’s International was named Abrams and Son International regardless of what the incorporation papers said.
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