The Hearts Series

by L.H. Cosway

  “Morning, love, come sit. You’ll be shadowing me for the week, then next week we’ll see how you do going it alone. I’ll be here on and off for another month to make sure the transition runs smoothly.”

  There was something about Eleanor that put me at ease, and I began to wonder if she was the reason I got this job. When we’d spoken over the phone, she’d been really apologetic for what Mr King had said to me in the interview, and stated outright it was the kind of carry-on that set the feminist movement back fifty years. Needless to say, I liked her already.

  After I’d made myself comfortable, she ran through Mr King’s morning routine with me. I’d be responsible for ordering his breakfast and giving him a rundown of the headlines in each of the countries’ main newspapers, while Gillian took care of the morning and afternoon meeting schedule. Apparently, Mr King had a knack for absorbing the news and making predictions on which way the markets would turn. I was sceptical of that, but we’d see.

  The hours trickled by, and my new boss was in and out of his office several times. On instinct, I found myself observing how he interacted with people. He must have only been in his early thirties, yet he had this confidence that made people eager to do his bidding, to impress him. It was a little addicting to watch.

  It was almost lunch when Gillian appeared at my desk and told me that Mr King wanted to have a quick word. I swallowed and stood, hesitantly making my way into the office. It was pretty impressive. Two sides of the room were all windows, looking out onto the hustle and bustle of Canary Wharf. King’s attention was fixed on the screen of one of his computers (there were several set up around his desk) as his fingers typed rapidly. I wasn’t sure if he even realised I was there until he started to speak.

  “How’s your first day going, Alexis?”

  It was a little disconcerting that he wasn’t looking at me, but I answered anyway. “Very well. Eleanor’s giving me a good schooling.”

  A smile graced his lips. “She’s something, isn’t she? I’ll be sad to see her go, but she and her husband are retiring to the south of France, and no amount of money I’ve offered will convince her to stay.”

  “Well, if given the choice between soaking up the sun in St. Tropez or staying cooped up in an office all day, I know what most people would choose.”

  As soon as the statement was out, I regretted it. He paused typing and finally looked at me. A long moment elapsed, and I wondered if I’d been too free with my mouth again. This wasn’t a pub. This was an office. This man was my boss, and I really needed to learn that certain banter wasn’t appropriate.

  “Have you ever been?” he finally asked.

  “Huh?”

  “To St. Tropez.”

  “Oh, no, I haven’t,” I said, eyes glancing out the window and then back to him.

  “Then how can you know it’s the better option? We need evidence to prove a point, Miss Clark. Guesstimations are a waste of time.”

  “It wasn’t a guesstimation,” I replied, using his word, which definitely wasn’t in the dictionary. “I was simply using my imagination.” Plus, wasn’t his whole career based around guesswork and taking risks?

  Pondering me a moment, he asked, “Has anyone ever told you that you’re very direct?” He smiled and tapped a finger on his chin as he studied me. “I like it. I’m direct, too. That being said, sometimes my directness can come across the wrong way. Which brings me to the reason why I called you in here. I’ve been told it would be wise to apologise to you for my behaviour at your interview. I sometimes have a problem with tact, and it seems what I said to you could be considered offensive.”

  Wow, he was apologising? I didn’t want to show any weakness, so I simply stared at him head on and replied calmly, “You’ll have to get up a lot earlier in the morning to offend me, Mr King.”

  His lips pressed together. “Really? How early are we talking?”

  I suppressed a laugh and smiled. “The crack of dawn, pretty much.”

  He let out a playful sigh. “It’s a pity I treasure my beauty sleep.”

  I didn’t respond, only raised an eyebrow. In my opinion, his beauty didn’t need any enhancing.

  “Anyway, it’s a good thing you don’t offend easily, because teary-eyed assistants are a bother.” He paused, eyeing me closely, his voice turning serious. “I value honesty, Miss Clark. Too many people in this world hide behind lies and duplicity. Needless to say, the way you so outspokenly responded to me in your interview left me truly impressed.”

  His compliment surprised me. I was at a loss for words, and when I couldn’t think of anything to say, I normally made a joke. And that’s exactly what I did.

  “In that case, maybe I should have told you that I have a bod for business and a brain for sin,” I quipped, humorously fluffing the line from the movie Working Girl. After all, it was an appropriate theme. “Or is that the other way around?”

  King’s attention, which had momentarily wandered to his computer screen, snapped back to me, and for a second he looked halfway between amused and perplexed. Not the laughter I’d been aiming for, but not the worst possible reaction, either.

  I cleared my throat, suddenly needing to get out of there. “Well, if there’s nothing else?”

  “That’s all, Alexis. You can return to Eleanor,” he replied.

  It was only when I was halfway to the door that he muttered under his breath teasingly, “A bod for business sounds interesting.”

  I turned around, and he glanced up at me, flashing me a quick, heart-fluttering smile. I smiled back, and his attention returned to his computer screen. All at once, my uncertainty and embarrassment vanished. My chest felt fuller, and as I continued my way out of the room, I swore I felt his eyes return to me once more.

  Two

  I picked up some groceries for dinner on the way home, my thoughts centring on my new job, but, more importantly, my new boss. Yeah, he was appealing to look at, but there was something else about him. Something beneath the surface that got me curious. I had a feeling that there was far more to Oliver King than met the eye.

  Counting the flights of stairs as I climbed my way up to our flat, I tried to remember whether Karla was working days or nights this week. Being a constable with the Metropolitan Police meant she didn’t always work a simple nine-to-five.

  When I heard the shower running, I knew she’d been on the day shift. As I turned the TV on and made a start on dinner, I heard the shower turn off. A few minutes later, she came out wrapped in a towel and gave me a tired smile. Wet tendrils of her bright red hair fell across her forehead, and her clear blue eyes seemed weary.

  “Hey,” she said, voice soft. “How’d your first day go?”

  “It was good,” I replied. “Good but weird. I swear, it’s a whole other world over there.”

  She sighed and sat down on a stool by the counter, watching me chop carrots. “Tell me about it. Some days I just feel like chucking it all in and finding a rich man to marry. It’d make life a whole lot easier.”

  I snorted. “Yeah.”

  Despite her profession, Karla could actually be a very sensitive person. Some would even go so far as to say shy. She was hard-working, and tough as nails in her own way, but she was also quiet and kind. She fell into police work due to her dad being on the force, but I always wondered if that was what she really wanted to be doing.

  “Did something happen today?” I asked as I studied her. She seemed more tired than usual.

  Rubbing at the crease between her eyebrows, she answered, “I had to break up a really vicious fight between two kids today. One of them was hurt pretty badly and had to be hospitalised. He was only fourteen. I’m still kinda reeling.”

  “Oh, my God,” I exclaimed, putting down the knife and going to her. I threw my arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, accepting my hug. “It’s just so hard sometimes. You try your best to help people and keep them safe, but kids are still out there, killing each oth
er, stealing, doing all sorts. You end up feeling like there’s no way the system can ever work.”

  I didn’t say anything, just squeezed her tighter. Finally she let out a long breath and pulled away. “Don’t mind me. I’m just being morose. A good night’s sleep and I’ll feel better.”

  I gave her an understanding look and returned to the carrots. Trying to take her mind off it, I said, “I think we should go out this weekend. I know money is tight, but we need to let off some steam.”

  Her eyes lit up at my words. One thing that the both of us loved was dancing, and every couple of weeks we’d go out to a club.

  “The Silver Bullet is putting on a ska night on Friday,” she said. “I saw the poster on my way home from work.”

  I grinned at her. “A ska night it is then. We’ll paint the town beige, since red is reserved strictly for those age twenty-five and under.”

  That solicited a giggle from her, and I felt good that I’d made her laugh. She picked up a carrot and took a bite. “Well, of course.”

  The next morning I arrived at work bright and early. This time I didn’t see King in the elevator, which I found curiously disappointing. Okay, all right, shut up. So my peepers found it disappointing, because he was one hot slice of A. Plus, remembering that smile we’d shared yesterday made my belly feel all a-flutter.

  I was sitting at the computer, completing some data entry that Eleanor had tasked me with while she scanned the morning’s papers. Gillian’s lightning fingers danced over her keyboard like a percussionist portrayal of busy, busy, work to do. Her desk was on the other side of our atrium that led to King’s large office. When he arrived at around eight-thirty, he gave each of us a nod hello as Gillian hopped up from her seat, the same as yesterday.

  “Morning, Eleanor, morning, Gillian, morning, Alexis,” King chirped. He gave Eleanor a sparkly-eyed look. “Have you heard the news?”

  She glanced up at him, licking a finger before casually turning another page. “I don’t partake in salacious gossip, Mr King. You know that.”

  I nearly snorted at her dismissive response but managed to hold it in. Eleanor was quickly becoming my lady hero, because I knew for a fact she was the only person who got away with talking to King like that. I also had a hunch that she was the one who’d suggested he apologise for saying what he said to me in my interview. I was seriously looking forward to being her age and gaining that “Miss Trunchbull, I don’t suffer fools gladly” vibe.

  King let out an amused huff and turned to Gillian. “Have you?”

  Gillian seemed oblivious as she nervously cleared her throat and clenched the folders she was holding. “Oh, um, no, sorry, I haven’t.” She seemed disappointed in herself, like she considered letting down the Oliver King in any way was a failure on her part. I felt like telling her to buck up and be a woman, not a simpering girl desperate to please her boss.

  Finally, he looked at me. “Well, you obviously haven’t, either, newbie. God, is it so much to ask to have some ladies who like to gossip around here? I’m practically bursting at the seams.”

  Eleanor shook her head, but I saw her lips twitch with a hint of a smile. Mr King was obviously in an unseasonably personable mood this morning. While chatting with her yesterday, she’d told me that his moods could be somewhat unpredictable, so it was always best to err on the side of caution.

  “Well, tell us what you know, and I’ll be happy to oblige,” I said. “Gossiping is my forte.”

  “Oh, thank God.” King exhaled with false dramatics as he approached the desk and eyed me mischievously. “George Bacon, one of the top guys over at Citibank, died last night.”

  I let out a breath. “That’s terrible.”

  “A-ha! But you haven’t heard the worst of it. Poor Georgie boy popped his clogs during a rather intensive session with a lady of the night. His old ticker wasn’t up to the challenge.” He shook his head, but he clearly felt no sympathy for the man. Well, since we’d just been hit with a motherbutcher of a recession, very few people felt sorry for those working in the financial services industry these days. However, being a banker himself, I thought Mr King might be able to empathise.

  I stared at him, finding his choice of conversation topic surreal. Oliver King really didn’t have any tact, but oddly, I didn’t mind. In fact, I kind of liked it. When I’d taken this job, I thought I’d be stuck working with a bunch of stiffs.

  I wasn’t sure why I said what I did next. It was a mixture of being a smart-arse and having no filter. I grinned at King and deadpanned, “So, what you’re saying is, he came and went?”

  There was a beat of silence before King let out a loud guffaw of a laugh. Smiling widely, he leant in and rested his hands on the desk as he responded with a wink, “I prefer to say he arrived before departing.”

  I chuckled. “Well okay, then, if you want get all fancy about it.”

  We were still grinning at one another when Eleanor cut in, “Mr King, I do believe you have a meeting in twenty minutes that you need to prepare for.”

  King didn’t look away from me for a moment as his grin began to fade. Having his eyes on me made me feel a little goose-pimplish. Finally, he nodded and turned, striding inside his office with Gillian following behind. I returned to my data entry, and a minute or two of quiet passed before Eleanor said, “I think you two might be a little too alike.” She paused, and there was a smile in her voice. “After I’m gone, maybe let Gillian accompany Mr King on trips. I shudder to think what the two of you would be like unleashed on prospective clients.”

  I shot her a questioning look. “Trips?”

  “Sometimes he requires us to accompany him on business trips. It’s only really once or twice a year.”

  “Oh, right,” I said, frowning a little. I must have blanked over that part of the job description, too full of glee when I saw the size of my yearly salary. Oh, yes. This year was going to see quite a lot of cake buying once the money started to roll in.

  The morning passed quickly. When lunch time came, I declined accompanying Eleanor and Gillian to a sushi restaurant in favour of grabbing a sub from a nearby deli. I needed the carbs, and I never felt full after sushi. And okay, maybe I should have been eating more sushi than subs, because I was carrying a little extra weight, but I just couldn’t seem to summon up the urge to care. My body was what it was. I’d inherited it from my curvaceous Greek mother, and life was too short to go around eating packets of zero-calorie jelly from Japan.

  I brought my food back to the office and found the place relatively quiet, since most people were either dining out, or were in the cafeteria having lunch. I had planned on eating at my desk, then making a start on the remainder of the workload I had to complete, when my attention wandered to King’s office door.

  My nosiness was urging me to go inside and take a look around, and I knew from his schedule that he wasn’t due back from his afternoon meeting until three. Bringing my lunch with me, I stepped inside his office and marvelled at the view. His desk was big and imposing, and there were a number of picture frames on the wall. Two of them showed his university certificates. He had a first-class honours degree in finance and accounting from the London School of Economics, and a masters in finance from Cambridge. I whistled as I took them in. An education like that must have cost a pretty penny. But then I realised that King’s family probably wasn’t hurting for cash when I took in the next frame.

  It showed an old concert poster for Elaine King, a world-renowned concert pianist who had her heyday in the late eighties/early nineties. She was now a renowned shut-in, think Agnetha from ABBA but classier. It didn’t take much for me to put two and two together and figure out that she was related to King somehow, and taking in her blonde hair and familiarly refined features, I’d put my money on her being his mother. Wow.

  I saw a door leading to an in-office bathroom and took a step inside, letting out a few choice swearwords when I saw the size of the place. It was probably bigger than my and Karla’s entire flat. It
boasted a large walk-in shower, a closet, and floor-to-ceiling windows with that special glass that went either clear or frosted at the touch of a button. The pièce de resistance, however, was the fancy designer sofa that went along one side of the room. I mean, a sofa like that in a bathroom like this just screamed extravagance, and since I only had a crappy threadbare one at home that had definitely seen better days, I couldn’t help but to plop down on it and dig into my sub.

  Yes, I was eating lunch in my boss’s en suite bathroom while enjoying the view of the city beyond. Probably not the cleverest of moves. And yes, it was weird, but I couldn’t resist taking advantage of the luxury. Who knew when I’d next have the chance?

  Pulling out my phone, I browsed Facebook as I chowed down, intermittently chuckling at funny statuses or shaking my head cynically at the usual whack jobs. I came across a collection of photos from a distant cousin of mine, taken at her wedding vows renewal.

  Hmm, bitch never invited me. I swear to God, it was the height of excess to have 350 pics of the same event, but like the weirdo that I (and, let’s face it, all of us were) I couldn’t help but to keep on clicking, like I needed to see ten variations of the same scene more than a crackhead needed her next fix.

  I was lost deep in the Facebook vortex when the distinct clearing of a male throat caused me to jump and drop my phone in fright. Glancing up, I found King standing in the doorway, arms crossed and a curious look on his face. He was back early. Of course he’d come back early.

  “Enjoying your lunch?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  What was that sound, I hear you ask? Why, it was my heart plopping right out onto the floor and crawling away in mortification.

  “I, eh, uh….” I tried to think of an excuse, but drew a complete and total blank. Finally I went with, “You have a couch in your bathroom.” Yep, that gem was all mine.