by Lara Hunter
“Tom still honeymooning with—”
“We don’t talk about he-who-shall-not-be-named. Not anymore,” Lindsey said through gritted teeth. “I’m serious, spare no details!”
“Okay, okay… We kissed,” Emily gushed, feeling as foolish as a 16-year-old. “Oh Lindsey, it was amazing. He actually owns The Lambeth! Have you been there?”
“Amazing food, exclusive club life, way overpriced,” Lindsey said quickly, gesturing for Emily to continue with a twirl of her fingers. “Get to the goods.”
“He flew us to the top in his helicopter, we had a couple drinks, exchanged numbers, and then we kissed! Like, a movie kiss. Tingles, butterflies, romance, the whole package.”
Lindsey raised a suggestive brow and offered her co-worker a naughty wink as she asked, “Anything more than a kiss?”
“No!” Emily batted her friend away. “Of course not, I barely know him.”
“But you want to get to know him,” Lindsey sang out and did a triumphant dance. “When you guys get married I want a VIP invitation to the wedding, I’m serious!”
The girls laughed for a moment longer before Mike stormed out of his office, making his way to the lobby in a huff. They watched him carefully before turning back to one another. Lindsey’s forehead creased and she pointed a thumb Mike’s way, asking, “What’s that all about?”
“I don’t know,” Emily murmured. “I think he’s just mad he didn’t win a date at the auction.”
“Subtle,” Lindsey chuckled. “He giving you a hard time?”
“Yeah, actually,” Emily sighed. She opened her mail tab on her computer and started scrolling down her list of tasks for the day. “He took me off one of my only sales accounts this morning and wants me to do his bidding for the day.”
“That’s mature of him,” her co-worker scoffed.
“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this,” Emily gasped under her breath and directed Lindsey’s attention to the spreadsheet of menial tasks that only seemed to grow the longer they stared at it. “This is ridiculous. He’s having me go through files that are at least two years old and check them for accuracy.”
“Don’t we have accountants that are way below your paygrade who do this stuff?”
“Yes,” she huffed.
“Well, the idiot has been not-so-subtly pursuing you for like, months now. This was bound to happen.”
Emily frowned. “Thanks for your support.”
“What can I say, the guy’s a creep. I’m not surprised in the least.”
“That’s your advice?” Emily groaned, now resting her chin in her hand.
“Didn’t know you were asking for any.” Lindsey’s expression dulled as she leaned in and read the rest of Emily’s to-do list for the day. “At least you got a great date out of the ordeal?”
“Silver linings,” Emily mumbled. “Thanks.”
Lindsey set an empathetic hand on Emily’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze before heading back to her office.
Emily decided to be settled about the matter, but as more and more e-mails piled in over the course of the day, she could feel the anger rising in her stomach. She wanted to be furious, to run into Mike’s office and kick up a fuss; tell him he was being immature, irresponsible, inappropriate, and degrading to her skillset. But then she thought about the embezzlement investigation and an eerie calm set over her once more.
***
Hours had gone by with Emily performing menial accounting tasks, double-checks, and running Mike’s personal errands for him. It was demeaning, and he was purposely overloading her with tasks. When she had been late with just one of the inconsequential additions, Mike quickly inboxed her, telling her there would be consequences if she couldn’t keep up the pace.
Bringing in her boss’ coffee—something she hadn’t done at a job since she was a temp just out of college—Emily finally worked up the nerve to say something.
“Is there any particular reason why I’m doing busywork instead of working on some of our biggest clients?” she began sternly as she set the coffee in front of Mike.
Mike didn’t look up from his desk. Instead, his mouth curled with a familiar ego that suggested he felt he was winning their little game of back-and-forth. “Emily, I told you I didn’t have time for your tone. You’re doing what you refer to as ‘busywork’ because I want some of the new girls to cover the big accounts today.”
“Admit it, you’re trying to replace me!” she griped. “Or because you’re mad about last night and you’re making it your mission to torture me as punishment.”
With that, Mike wheeled back in his office chair and stared at Emily incredulously. “Emily,” he said in the firmest voice he could muster. “What did or did not happen between the two of us last night has no bearing on how I run my office. You are doing tasks I assign you because I’m your boss. That’s how it works. The girls are covering your accounts today because someone has been stealing from us, and I believe it could be one of them. They’re new and I need to know if they’ve truly been stealing, or if they’re just incompetent with numbers.”
“Oh…” Emily gulped. Maybe she’d been reading this whole day wrong from the start. Her stomach turned.
“Those girls are currently being supervised by investigators who will report their findings back to me. I didn’t include you because frankly, you’re not under my suspicion.”
“Oh,” she said, defeated. “I understand. My apologies.”
Emily tried to make her way out of Mike’s office but was stopped short as he called her name. She spun on her heel and gave the man a pained face; he looked furious.
“The next time you want to mouth off to me, Emily Michaels, you can do so while packing up your desk. No reference, no two-weeks. Is that clear?”
“Crystal. I’m sorry, Mike.”
With that, Emily huffed out of the room and back to her desk.
The next two hours dragged by. Every time she thought about the events from earlier she felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t care what Mike said, he was just being jealous. Now she would have to spend the next few weeks paying for one stupid date that she had no control over.
If she still had a job, that is.
***
The drive home felt longer than usual in the traffic jam that seemed to hit Seventh Street every day around six. Emily’s stomach was growling from hunger and her mind was racing, replaying the events of the day over and over. She tapped her steering wheel along to the beat of the song on the radio before turning the music off in frustration.
Her phone began to ring, lighting up her car’s front panel screen. Seeing that it was Tariq calling, Emily hastily hit the speakerphone option.
“Hey, Emily speaking.”
“Emily!” Tariq said cheerily. She could practically hear his smile from over the intercom. “Is it forward to say I’ve been thinking about you all day?”
She felt her chest go hot, and was thankful that this was only a phone call. If he could see what a mess she turned into just hearing his voice, their little game of hard-to-get would be over in an instant.
“No, you can say that.”
“Good, because I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he affirmed. “It’s not often I set out to impress a woman and end up being the one who gets starstruck.”
“Starstruck?” she teased. “Let’s not get crazy. I couldn’t possibly have dazzled you that much in a couple hours, could I?”
“Never, ever doubt your powers to dazzle, my dear.”
“All right,” Emily’s voice was rife with flirtation. “I’m fairly certain I’ve taken enough orders for the day, but at least this is a nice one.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” the Sheikh responded. “Bad day?”
“You could say that,” she sighed. “Remember I was telling you about my boss—kind of pervy, tried to outbid you for an evening of my fantastic company? Well I think he was a little peeved that he didn’t end up getting the date with me and I definitely felt that an
ger this morning.”
“Oh no. Did he yell at you?”
“No, no, not really. I was just demoted for the day, basically. Instead of being the accounts assistant, I was the coffee runner.”
Emily had to remind herself to pay attention to the road as she detailed her story to the man she had only met once. To her surprise, Tariq was equally as attentive and supportive over the phone as he was in person. He seemed to listen eagerly to every word she said.
“What can I do to make you feel better? I want to help,” he said, his smooth voice coming through clear over the Bluetooth. Emily had been parked in her driveway for five minutes now, not wanting to end the call by telling him she was going inside. “I know!” he said, and Emily heard the sound of his fingers snapping in the background. “Let me take you to dinner tomorrow. I promise: if I don’t take your mind off it, you’ll never have to endure my company again.”
“Yes please!” she laughed. “That sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”
FIVE
All throughout college Emily had worked her hardest to try and minimize her student loans. She always worked, and even in her teenage years never bought into the fad of hating her job or not showing up to work in the morning after a late night. After graduating from college, she had finally worked herself into accounting positions, her dream job. And now here she was, dreading going to work in the morning.
She’d worked cashier jobs at fast-food restaurants and never felt such disdain about heading into work. This whole Mike situation had her sick. She hated the thought of working so hard for so long just to be treated like dirt—and all over a rejected date night.
Emily sighed into her bathroom mirror as she finished buttoning up her blouse. Time for work.
Walking into the office was even more unsettling than she’d thought it would be. There was no chatter at the cubicles, no one in the break room grabbing coffee and no Lindsey to be found. Emily’s heart raced, wondering if the first set of investigative interviews were taking place.
Emily sat at her desk and swallowed hard. She opened up her inbox to see what non-tasks Mike had assigned for her today and saw only one assignment on the list: accounting for the Bulgaris’ bookings.
She blinked in surprise and reread the e-mail before closing the program. She thought to go ask Mike why the change of heart, but then thought better of it. Better to do good work on her assignments than complain about them.
Before Emily had a chance to get started for the morning, however, she spotted Mike walking up to her desk.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” he said cheerfully, leaning against her cubicle.
She nodded slowly, confused. “Sure is.”
“Ah, I love when mornings are like this. Sunny, but not too hot. I can drive with my sunroof open, you know what I mean?”
She blinked, looking back and forth from her computer desktop to Mike. Finally, she exhaled and said, “So, I saw that my tasks from yesterday have been removed from my in-tray.”
“Right, right, that old thing. You were right, way below your pay grade,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hands. “I just wanted to test those girls, you know what I’m saying? Anyhow, I got rid of some of your workload and assigned the more menial tasks to a different department. This will give you more time to focus on your bigger accounts, some sales duties too. I know how you’re always going on about working your way out of accounting.”
“Oh.” She was flabbergasted. “All right. Um, yeah. Thanks!”
“Hey, just taking care of one of our best,” he said, giving a cheesy salute before heading into the break room. He returned a few moments later with Emily’s favorite mug and set it on her desk. “Two cream, one sugar, am I right?”
“Wow, thanks!” she said, not sure if she sounded genuine or just plain shocked. The truth was she felt a little of both and a lot of suspicions. She was internally warning herself she was about to be double-crossed somehow. Surely a camera crew would emerge any minute and tell her that Mike had something even worse planned for her at the end of the day.
But then, it never happened. In fact, work went by smoothly with only pleasantries from Mike all day long. Not only was he being sweet as pie, he wasn’t even hitting on her. Both Lindsey and Emily’s coworker David came to her cubicle to comment on the boss’ unusually good mood.
Emily spent her entire lunchbreak trying to figure out where the change of heart came from and eventually decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe her speech to Mike had hit a nerve the previous day, or maybe he was just feeling especially generous. Either way, she would take his good mood and run with it. She had bigger things to worry about than Mike; after all, she had a date tonight.
***
Emily’s big accounts quickly turned into overtime, leaving her only thirty minutes to get home and change for her date. The Sheikh had told her to dress up, so she picked out a red cocktail dress. Once she tried it on, however, she knew it wasn’t right. It was too much with her large, untamed curls always taking center stage over whatever she wore.
She ditched the red and chose a small navy blue dress that always reminded her of Arizona’s winter night skies. She paired it with subtle silver jewelry and wrestled with her hair for the remaining ten minutes before Tariq was there, ringing her buzzer. She heard the buzzer go off once more before she finally gave up on her hair, relenting to it having a mind of its own.
When she reached the entrance of her apartment, Tariq was waiting there with a single yellow rose.
“For me?” she said, taking the flower. “That’s sweet.”
“Just something small to say I was thinking of you. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had picking it out.”
“Oh?”
Tariq led her to his car and helped her into the backseat. The shining black limousine had its own driver, who seemed more interested in the radio than making chit-chat with them. Tariq gave the restaurant address to the driver and then closed the panel separating the two compartments, looking back to Emily excitedly.
“So,” she continued. “Tell me again how a flower could give a man so much trouble?”
“Let me tell you,” Tariq took an exaggerated breath for effect and shook his head. “Do I give you a dozen roses? That seems a bit much, considering we just met.”
“Coming from the man who paid ten thousand dollars just to go on a date with me, I don’t know…”
“If I got you the full dozen, what would you do with them while we’re at dinner? That’s problem number two. Then there’s the color. Don’t get me started on the color choices!”
She grinned. “Do go on.”
“I pick up a yellow rose. Yellow is cute, friendly, and made for cheering people up. Or, at least that’s what I thought. The woman helping me at the shop said pink is for romance, red is for passion, and yellow represented friendship.”
“Ah,” she said simply.
“Ah,” he repeated in a more playful tone. “So she told me I’d better be careful if I was giving the flowers to a lover.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s quite the adventure over some flowers.”
“I am a very particular person when it comes to choosing things. Don’t get me started on how long it took me to pick out my tie tonight.”
She looked him up and down. “Well it’s perfect, so great job.” She exhaled and twirled the flower in her fingers. She couldn’t believe how comfortable she felt with the Sheikh.
The driver carried them through the early evening traffic as Tariq continued to be genuinely attentive, asking her questions about what she liked to do in her free time and listening intently as she responded. Emily looked around the fancy car and the plush leather seats and straddled the line between feeling spoiled and utterly jealous of someone having this kind of money to spare.
Around fifteen minutes later, the car pulled up outside the Persimmon, a restaurant so exclusive that Emily never would have dreamed of getting a reservation there. The décor
was luxuriously elegant, and Emily was sure Lindsey would have gone green with envy. Crisp white linens covered a dozen or so square tables and gave the perfect ambiance to the chic dining room. Modern chairs and clean lines gave the room a high-class air, while a stone fireplace filled the restaurant with warmth and romance.
Tariq pulled out Emily’s chair for her and ordered champagne for the pair of them. He watched her from across the table with a look in his eyes that said he was intent on spoiling her, on making her feel better after the day she’d endured. She couldn’t help but feel smitten.