by Penny Ward
I’m sure he would have been good looking in his day.
I step inside the meeting room and get a closer look at everyone.
I smile nicely to everyone but then my laser vision focuses on the man sitting at the head of the table and I freeze.
What?
It can’t be…
Chapter 8
It’s Christopher.
My man.
My amazingly, passionate, sensual man.
What in the hell is he doing here?
“Good morning Mr. Walsh. I apologize for being late. I would like to introduce you to Rebecca Green, she’s the replacement for Sarah.”
Miranda looks at me and explains, “I didn’t have time to tell you. This is Christopher Walsh. He is Martin’s eldest son. He is replacing his father as the head of the company. The announcement takes place on Friday.”
My heart pounds as he stands to give me a handshake. “Welcome to the team…”
“Rebecca,” I finish for him.
My heart is racing.
I can barely breathe.
And I can barely think.
Christopher looks at me like he’s never seen me before in his life.
I return his handshake.
Does he not recognize me?
Does he not remember the most incredible night that we just had on Saturday?
Further than that, he’s my fucking boss!
He’s a billionaire!
He’s my billionaire boss, and I screwed him already.
“It’s… umm...nice to meet you too,” I manage to stutter.
“Take a seat, Rebecca, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team after the meeting.”
Honoring her request wasn’t difficult, as I was too stunned to do anything else.
After the meeting is over, we all have our assignments, and Christopher leaves with Herbert by his side.
That’s the personal assistant that stays with him at all times during the work day.
Herbert is a stupid name for a man in his mid-twenties, by the way.
What was his mother thinking? ‘Oooh, I’m going to name my son Herbert, that way he can build character as the kids pummel him to the ground because of this old stupid name.’
I know I’m being a bit of a douchebag but Christopher didn’t even give me a second glance before he walked out the conference room.
He spent the entire meeting treating me like his face wasn’t buried between my thighs over the weekend!
Sure, it was a one-night stand, and it was dark, but if the two of you cross paths, isn’t it customary to at least acknowledge the other person?
Chelsea, one of other female personal assistants, looks at me and rolls her eyes.
“Were you listening to anything? Go grab one of the laptops from Miranda’s office and get moving. Mr. Walsh’s meeting starts in 5 minutes and he’s going to bite all our heads off if you aren’t there to dictate the meeting. Chop chop girl! There is a huge learning curve here. Either you get the hang of it now or you’re fired tomorrow. Got it?”
“Umm yeah,” I say absentmindedly, “Where am I supposed to go?”
“Really, Rebecca? Where has your head been during the meeting?” Miranda scolds.
The pressure is starting to build.
I already feel like crying.
“I’m sorry, there was just an information overload,” I lie, “I know that I’m going to get the hang of things very quickly. I thought that I was going to be introduced to everyone after the meeting.”
“We don’t have time for those kinds of things,” Miranda says dismissively.
So much for people keeping their word.
That woman clearly said that she could introduce me to everyone after the meeting.
Now she’s gone back on her word and made me feel like an idiot while doing it. I would complain, but my salary is far too large for any complaints.
“So where is the meeting?” I ask.
“It’s in conference room one. Go grab the computer and the recorder. Make sure you take the pen and paper as well.”
“Yes Ma’am. I mean yes, Miranda,” I say quickly.
“Good, after the meeting is over, report back to me and I will look over the notes. We have a few things to go over today. You will learn of all of your responsibilities.”
I nod quickly.
This too much.
The stress is already getting to me.
“Please make yourself as scarce as possible in the meeting. As far as everyone else is concerned, you don’t exist. There is a separate table in the corner of the room. That is where you sit.”
“Got it.”
Miranda looks at me with disgust, “Why are still standing here? Move your ass!”
“Oh! Yes,” I say before I quickly rush out of the room.
I don’t know why I thought my first day would be easy.
It’s complete hell and I want to go home.
Why couldn’t they assign me to picking up his dry cleaning or some mundane task like that? Now I have to sit and listen to Christopher for the next hour.
That truly sucks.
I need some space!
How am I supposed to get through the day?
Chapter 9
Running on a combination of coffee, adrenalin and confusion, I made it through the day.
But now I just feel numb.
During the meeting that beautiful bastard didn’t even give me a second glance!
He looked at me the way that anyone looks at their help.
Does he honestly not remember me?
I don’t think that he does.
Granted, today I’m not dressed like a woman of the night and my heels aren’t high enough to break an ankle, but I would like to think that I still look similar to myself.
Ugh… sitting at my kitchen table and eating strawberry cheesecake ice cream is so damned cliché but I don’t care!
Ice cream is one of the only things that can make me feel better right now, nothing like getting a big chunk of the swirl, that’s my favorite part.
The only thing that can trump the deliciousness that’s going on in my mouth right now is if Angela would come home.
I hate that she’s staying out late tonight.
I need my friend.
I need to tell her that the man she made me hook up with is now treating me like I don’t exist.
I feel small.
A beautiful experience has just been diminished to something terrible. I look at my phone and twirl it around.
Maybe I should call Jason?
No, that will only make me feel worse.
What he did to me on Friday is unforgivable, and I can’t keep going back to old habits.
He’s out of my life.
Inviting him back in would be a major mistake.
Jason is a complete asshole, but he was mine.
Now I’m single again and I don’t know how to navigate this world anymore.
Had Christopher had so many one-night stands that he no longer bothered to remember faces or names?
He probably left my house and went to sleep with someone else. I sigh as I dive back into the pint of ice cream. I make sure to get a huge spoon of it and I hope that my salty tears won’t fall onto it.
I’m missing home.
I’m not from New York, my parents moved us here during my senior year of high school and I stayed here for college as well. I’m from Ford City, Arkansas but my Dad scored a job at NYU.
Everything is so fast paced here, not just when it comes to work but when it comes to relationships. I’m from the south, where relationships mean something.
People take their time out there.
At least three of my childhood friends are married with children already.
I’m behind.
That sounds so stupid because I’m young and it’s okay not to have babies and husband at my age but I can’t help thinking that I’m focusing on the wrong things.
That’s why I stuck with Ja
son for long - I kept hoping that he would change.
Waiting for a man to change has never been proven to work but still, I did it anyway.
But I know better now and when I told my mother what happened, she did her best not to say I told you so.
It was burning her alive, I could feel her disdain through the phone.
Maybe that’s what I need to do.
I should spend the next weekend with my mother. She can baby me, make me her delicious chicken tortilla soup and we can watch movies all weekend.
That’s more than likely what I would do.
No one can throw a pity party quite like my mother can. She’ll probably buy black balloons and streamers because inside she’s secretly celebrating my freedom from Jason.
It’s hard to be mad at her for being happy about him being gone.
The more time that I spend without him, the dumber I feel for staying with him for so long.
That’s two years of my life that I can never get back.
It hasn’t even been a full week since my breakup and what am I doing? I’m sitting here stuffing my face with ice cream over a different asshole.
It’s not even this asshole’s fault that I’m so upset.
I can’t expect him to remember me - we had a one-night stand.
An amazingly hot one night stand.
But my days of casual sex are over!
Karma came back and bit me on the ass far too quickly. What are the odds that I would end up sleeping with my boss?
I shake my head and the tears start to flow again.
I put the rest of my ice cream into the fridge and make my way to the bedroom. A cry fest is about to happen and my stomach hurts.
Eating sugary dairy isn’t a good idea on an empty stomach. I should have had dinner first. It doesn’t matter, my stomach feels how the rest of me feels.
My life is a mess.
I’m an idiot.
I did this to myself.
It’s all my fault.
I have nobody else to blame but myself.
Everything was finally supposed to be perfect at this new job and now it’s a nightmare. I plop down face first on my bed and release all of the frustration and hurt that I’ve felt for the day.
He didn’t notice me.
I apparently didn’t make as big of an impression on him as he made on me.
How do I always manage to get myself in shitty situations?
Tomorrow I will have to face him again.
Life just isn’t fair sometimes.
“Rebecca?” I hear Angela call through the house.
I look at the clock and notice that she’s home early. I’m overjoyed that she’s back, now I have someone to cry on.
“In my room,” I sniffle.
“Oh no, what’s wrong?” she quickly rushes to the bed and hugs me.
Chapter 10
Today feels like a repeat of yesterday, except I know the horror that’s coming my way.
I feel so stupid for being embarrassed about Christopher not recognizing me.
I mean, he doesn’t notice me so that should make my life easier, right?
Wrong!
It’s humiliating.
Now I have to take him his morning croissant and coffee, ugh - stuff my life.
“Rebecca,” Miranda snaps.
“Yes?”
“Move your ass. You were supposed to have his breakfast to him 2 minutes ago. You’re lucky that he’s not in the office yet. Hurry and maybe you can still make it. After that, finish tidying up the dictation that you took yesterday, I made some notes on them. In an hour, you will be dictating another meeting.”
“Yes Miranda.”
I shakily carry his breakfast in a bag to his personal office.
On my way, I find it amusing that Miranda’s name is Miranda.
She doesn’t wear Prada but sometimes she sure feels like a devil. I ended up calling her a bitch to Angela this morning. Some people take their jobs way too seriously and she’s one of them.
She doesn’t have to keep snapping at me as if I’m some child. When I first walked in the door this morning, she accused me of being late.
But I was five minutes early!
She claimed that was late because I still had to put my things away. This whole personal assistant thing kind of sucks ass.
If I have to walk around like I have a stick up my ass all the time, maybe it isn’t for me.
Who the heck am I kidding?
All of my reservations are going to go out of the window from the moment that my first check is deposited.
They pay me the big bucks because they need a high level of work. So either I’m going to rise to the challenge or I’m going to wither.
I straighten my spine and walk towards his office. Sitting at a desk directly outside of it is a beautiful and striking blonde.
She looks at me with sharp eyes, “Are you delivering?”
“Umm, I guess.”
“Okay, you can take it back that way,” she says point back to where I just came from, “His personal assistant will tip you as well.”
“But I am his personal assistant,” I explain, “I’m new, my name is Rebecca.”
“Oh,” she says slowly as she gives me a once over.
She’s sizing me up - I just know it.
This is exactly why I don’t have that many women friends.
Why do we have to treat one another this way?
She’s gorgeous with beautiful green eyes and I don’t feel like I’m a threat at all.
“Go inside and set it up. He’s on his way up so you’ll want to hurry, Becky.”
I cringe. Did she just call me Becky?
I hate it when people call me that!
Furthermore, we are in a professional setting, when did it become okay to call others by a nickname?
“My name is Rebecca,” I say with a bite, “I didn’t catch your name.”
“I’m Sasha,” she smiles. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Of course it is,” I reply, “It’s nice to meet you. I’m sure that we’ll see a lot more of one another.”
“If you make it,” she laughs, “Good luck. Personal assistants don’t last long around here.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
Of course, her name is Sasha!
She looks like she could be on the cover of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit magazine. No one’s hair is supposed to look that messy and perfect at the same time.
Judging from her rudeness, I have the suspicion that she knew I was the new personal assistant the entire time.
Ugh, women.
When I step inside his office, I’m immediately impressed.
It’s not over the top or juvenile the way that I expect it to be.
He’s young and the CEO of a billion dollar company, I don’t know what I expected. I don’t know, a part of me thought there would be an enormous flat screen TV covering an entire wall with an X-Box One connected.
Isn’t that what most young CEO’s did?
Hell, I don’t know. I’m middle-class America.
I put all of his food on his glass desk and do my best to arrange it in an appealing way. My heart stops when the door opens.
He walks through and gives me a casual once-over.
“Good morning,” he says as he places his items down on his desk.
“Good morning.” I blush. “I’m so sorry, I should have done this sooner. It won’t happen again.”
“It’s okay, you’re new. Also, I don’t mind seeing my personal assistants or any of my employees for that matter. So many people expect me to be the same man that my father is, we’re nothing alike. I only match him in ambition and business savvy. I’m not an asshole, no matter what everyone else says.”
He looks just as delicious as the night that I saw him.
Today he is wearing a blue three-piece suit. Once again, it’s tailored to perfection. His face looks young, but there is nothing young about his demeanor.
“I have no doubt that you will. Miranda wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t excellent, she saw something in you and I trust her judgment.”
“That means a lot.”
I stare at him blatantly, willing him to remember me.
The spark of recognition never flares in his eyes.
Not once.
Feeling defeated, I prepare to slink away so that I can lick my wounds privately in the bathroom.
“Enjoy your breakfast, I’ll see you in an hour.”
“Thanks, I’m guessing that you’ll be dictating most of my meetings from now on. I know Miranda says to sit in the corner alone, but you can sit across from Herbert. Tell her that I said so. You need to hear everything that’s going on, so sitting in an obscure corner doesn’t help you do your job.”
I smile nervously. “Thank you, I guess I’ll let her know.”
“Don’t be afraid. She pretends to be a hard ass, but she’s actually very sweet.”
I nod. “See you soon.”
“Oh, make sure that you speak to Sasha. I want to take you to lunch.”
I raise an eyebrow.
Was he coming on to me?
My heart beat faster, yes!
Maybe he didn’t remember me but he was still attracted to me.
“Lunch?” I question.
“Yes, I take all of my personal assistants out at least once. You should get to know the man that you’re working for. It will make it easier for us to work together. You can take that time to ask me any questions that come to mind. It will help you do your job more efficiently and have confidence in making decisions on my behalf.”
“Oh,” I say, deflated again, “I’ll make the appointment today.”
“Great.”
He sits down and tears into his breakfast without looking at me again.
I take it as my cue to leave.
Like a schoolgirl, I’ve been dismissed.
I walk out of his office and head back to Sasha’s desk. I don’t want to talk to her again, but the quicker I get it done, the better.
“Hi Sasha, Mr. Walsh asked me to make an appointment with him for lunch. Can you pencil me in?”
She rolls her eyes, “Sure, I’ll look at his calendar at my earliest convenience and let you know.”