by Holly Rayner
“Great. So, I hope you have a wonderful day!” Audrey said, spinning on her heel back toward the taxi. Her breath came in bursts, hoping she could get away from the scene as swiftly as possible. But moments before she reached the steps, she heard a strong Parisian accent from the door that was speaking directly to her.
“Excusez-moi!” the woman cried. “Halt there. Stop.”
Audrey frowned and turned, curiosity getting the best of her. Swallowing sharply, she eyed the tall, thin, almost angelic-looking woman as she floated across the front yard after her.
As she grew closer, Audrey saw there was nothing angelic about her expression.
“Excusez-moi,” the woman snapped. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m-I’m dropping off your things,” Audrey said softly, not accustomed to being accosted like this. “They are your things, aren’t they?”
“Who am I to know?” Claire said haughtily. “These dresses, I would rather have them burned than ever have them back. Do you know what he did to me? Can you possibly understand?”
Audrey pressed her lips together, conscious that her fight-or-flight response was telling her to flee. Her eyes widened. “I’ve been instructed to give them back. You can do whatever you want with them now.”
“But, darling, no,” Claire said, giving her an ominous smile. “You can’t get away with that so easily. I need you to tell him something for me. I need you to tell him I hope he dies in a hole somewhere. And I hope someone as ugly as you is wrapped around him when he goes.”
Audrey’s cheeks burned. Compared to Claire, the model, perhaps she wasn’t gorgeous, but she’d certainly never been called ugly. “I’ll pass that along,” Audrey said. “Thank you.” Her voice was sarcastic, yet wobbly, making her look even weaker. She snapped her hand back, beginning to open the back door of the taxi.
“Oh, I see now,” Claire said. Her eyes flashed. “You’re falling in love with him, aren’t you? I can see it written all over your face.”
Audrey rolled her eyes, hating that this woman was getting to her. “No, of course not. He’s my boss,” she replied. “I’m here on duty, nothing more.”
“That’s what he’ll have you think,” Claire said. “And then he’ll latch himself around you, and he’ll ruin you.” She stabbed her long, fake nail towards Audrey’s face, making her wobble uneasily on her black heels.
Shaken, sensing that Claire had said all she could think of, Audrey bolted into the back of the taxi and called out “go!” to the driver. He did, switching gears with a quick motion and speeding away from the mansion, Audrey chilled and shaking in the back.
“It got pretty heated out there, huh?” the driver asked, glancing at her in the rearview window. “Does she really hate you that much?”
“I think she hates my boss,” Audrey said, rubbing her palms together. “But I’ve never made someone so angry before just for existing. That was terrifying.”
“What are you then, a personal assistant?” the taxi driver asked.
“For now, yes.”
“Ah. I’ve driven your kind around before,” the taxi driver said, his eyes brooding. “It’s never easy for you. Never. I’ve seen too many personal assistants sobbing in the back of this very taxi. You’re handling it pretty well.”
“It’s my first day,” Audrey said, sounding hesitant. Her chin slumped down to her chest as the realization folded over her. She would spend the next two weeks being yelled at, being dragged through mud and unfortunate situations, and being told she was ugly? Jesus. Would this destroy her?
“Can you take me back to where you picked me up?” Audrey asked softly, crossing her arms over her chest.
The taxi changed course, skidding left at a stoplight before bolting back to the Mission. But moments before their arrival, Audrey received a text message from the Sheikh, explaining that he needed her to pick up his lunch on the way back.
“There’s something else,” Audrey said with a sigh. “If you could make a left at the light.”
“There’s always something else,” the driver said, his words somber. “Just get used to it, darling.”
About a half hour later, Audrey entered the offices again, carrying a large bag of Indian food. Its smell wafted toward her nose, turning her stomach into a raging, hungry machine. The Sheikh’s door was cracked open, allowing the sounds of her boss and his coworker, a man named Connor, to escape. They were discussing real estate potentials in the Los Angeles area, with Connor explaining the market in greater detail. Audrey knocked halfheartedly at the door, allowing her tired eyes to show through the crack.
“Ah, Audrey,” Sheikh Jibril said. “Come in. We’re just finishing up here.”
Even after the treacherous past few hours, Audrey felt a wave of warmth immediately envelop her with Jibril’s eyes upon hers. “Hi,” she said, her voice high and nervous. “I brought your lunch—”
“Audrey, hello,” Connor said, his face distrustful. “I saw the magazine headlines this morning. Stellar work.” His words were clearly sarcastic, causing her smile to falter.
“We’ve worked something out now, haven’t we, Audrey?” the Sheikh said, accepting the bag of food. “Besides, the tabloids have been hunting for something to write about me since Audrey started. She’s done a stellar job trying to quell their voices since she began. This was just one—very, very major—mess up. Right, Audrey?”
“Right,” Audrey murmured, watching as he separated the silverware, handing a fork and knife to Connor. “I also delivered the clothes to your ex—”
“Oh, wonderful,” the Sheikh said, seeming uninterested. “I’ll call you after this meeting. I have a few more things I need you to do this afternoon. Actually, quite a few more things.” A laugh came from deep in his belly, his eyes dancing with humor.
Audrey smiled yet felt perturbed. Was her time really not worthwhile to him?
Connor waved his hand like a diva, telling her, without words, to get out of the office. She slipped back, feeling slapped, and shut the door behind her. Remembering the warning words of the taxi driver, she sensed she was walking a kind of plank, staring at the water below.
“Just two weeks,” she whispered, biting her lip. “I can do this. I can do anything.”
That was what she’d always told herself, first as a college student and then as a PR rep in the Bay Area. But as a personal assistant, the words fell flat.
Chapter Five
The next few days brought much of the same trauma. Audrey found herself waking at dawn—far earlier than she did as a PR rep—and scrambling up to walk the dog the Sheikh had adopted with a previous girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend, a model from South America this time, didn’t have a single kind word to say about the Sheikh, and the animal was a huffing bulldog who seemed moments from either biting Audrey or passing out on the sidewalk.
Immediately after walking the dog, Audrey headed to the Sheikh’s penthouse apartment to make the Sheikh’s coffee just the way he liked it, with steamed milk and a drop of honey, and then prepare all his presentation slides for his meetings throughout the day.
By the time eight-thirty rolled around, she was ironing his clothes in the large, walk-in closet, listening to the Sheikh as he prepared for the morning in the next room: showering, shaving, humming to himself with the happiness of a man who’d clearly gotten more sleep than her.
But Audrey couldn’t escape his charm.
Midway through the week, she finished ironing his button-down shirts and hung them delicately across several hangers in the back closet. Bursting from the walk-in closet, she bumped into the Sheikh, who was standing in just a pair of pants, his shirt not yet retrieved from the closet. His muscles gleamed in the soft light of the morning, showing his perfect chest, his dark nipples, and his high, rounded shoulders.
His eyes danced.
“Good morning, Audrey,” he said, his voice booming.
Audrey felt a quiver of pleasure run down her spine. “Morning,” she whispe
red, speaking for the first time in the hours since she’d woken. “How are you doing, sir?”
“Just fine, Audrey. Got a big meeting with a client from New York this afternoon. I assume you’ve ironed my white shirts—”
“Just finished,” Audrey said, oddly proud that she’d completed such a menial task. In previous years, she’d had meetings with celebrities and not felt half as content afterward. “They’re ready for you. And if you need any help going over your notes for the New York client—”
“Ah,” Jibril said. “I don’t think that’s necessarily the duty of a personal assistant. Perhaps a PR rep—something you might be again in a few days.” He grinned, teasing her. “Just about three quarters left to go. Not too bad, right?”
Audrey felt herself almost snort. Wanting to keep her emotions to herself, she shuffled away from the closet and toward the pantry, where she began to reorganize his snacks for the coming day—something she’d learned his ex-personal assistant had made a system for. Apparently, the Sheikh took his nutrition incredibly seriously, and his personal assistant was in charge of tracking his carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
Audrey didn’t even do that for herself.
That afternoon, Audrey delivered Jibril a large mug of his honeyed coffee moments after the New York client left post-presentation. Jibril was seated with his feet up on the desk, his head leaned back slightly and his eyes facing the window, gazing out over the water. He was a perfect, stoic portrait, with thoughts like waves gravitating and emanating all around. Audrey could feel his focus.
Setting his coffee mug on the desk before him, she placed her hands on her waist, wanting to ask him what was wrong. In the main office, people were packing up for the day, clearing out, making time and space for their friends and family. But the Sheikh, who’d obviously dumped more women in the area than she could keep track of, would return to his home alone.
Feeling tension form between them in the silence, Audrey stumbled through some words, trying to build a conversation. “How was the meeting?” she asked him, her voice quiet.
Jibril didn’t move his body’s relaxed form. His eyes flickered toward her, taking a sudden interest, or perhaps only just noticing she was there. “Oh, not so great,” he said.
“What happened?” Audrey asked, feeling a pit form in her stomach. Why was she so invested in this man? Why did she care that he seemed upset?
“Just another billionaire asshole so certain I should give him a good deal,” Jibril said, his eyebrows high. “Arguing with him about the state of the housing market in San Francisco did nothing since he’s a New Yorker, and you can never convince anyone from New York that their life could be better or harder anywhere else. They love the struggle. They love to complain.”
Audrey grinned, knowing this was true based on her few friends from the East Coast. “They’ll never learn,” she said, her shoulders loosening. She felt oddly giddy to be speaking with him so intimately. This was what she’d secretly hoped for.
“But anyway, that’s an entire afternoon wasted—and I hate wasting time,” Jibril said.
After a pause, he turned his head around toward her, almost like an owl. “Did you happen to finish printing those documents, by the way? I have about a million things to go over before my drink with the housing developer from Seattle this evening, after which I’ll be coming back here to go through the paperwork. Do you think you can stick around here till ten or so? Shouldn’t be longer than that…”
Audrey’s smile faltered. With a five-thirty wake-up time, she’d hardly slept that week and had been looking forward to a long, uninterrupted nap that evening. But now she’d be trapped at the office, shackled to the Sheikh’s schedule.
Frazzled, she heard herself blurt out, “Sure. Of course. Anything for you.” She couldn’t sense if she sounded sarcastic or not.
Regardless, the Sheikh took her words at face value. Rising from his chair, he slipped his business jacket over his firm shoulders and then shoved a large stack of papers across the desk, toward Audrey’s open hands. “And if you could just forge my signature on all of these, that would be wonderful. Can’t find the time.”
Jibril left Audrey in a sea of emotion and regret as he went to meet the Seattle developer. Gazing longingly at the ocean, Audrey remembered her past life, when she’d been allowed out of the office whenever she’d pleased due to the conditions of her PR contract. Now she was essentially a kind of slave.
The only sunshine in her life was her few interactions with Jibril—her captor.
The days continued in much the same way, with Audrey feeling increasingly anxious and exhausted from the continuous errands and maid-like tasks. After just seven days of personal assistant work, Audrey collapsed on the steps of the office, falling in a sea of white button-up shirts and sparkling-clean black shoes, which she was bringing to the Sheikh for him to choose which he liked best for a weekend fundraiser. Immediately, she realized she’d dirtied the shirts and scuffed the shoes, making them completely inappropriate to present to the Sheikh.
Bursting into tears, her spine bending into a C-shape, she recognized she was in over her head, that it was best she start over someplace else. Pushing through an additional week of this seemed outside the realm of possibility for her.
Besides, perhaps the full effect of her PR screwup was now forgotten in the public eye, making it possible for her to find a new position. She wouldn’t get to work with the Sheikh anymore, but she also wouldn’t run the risk of going insane or becoming increasingly exhausted.
Yanking the clothes and shoes the rest of the way into the office, she stuffed them beneath her desk, opened her laptop, and prepared to write a resignation letter, although she felt largely unqualified to be doing so, having not typed anything in the days since she’d been demoted.
“Jibril,” she began to type, her brain humming. She had to do this; it was necessary. “It has been marvelous working for you the past three months, but given the conditions of our new arrangement, along with my major mistake, I’d like to take this opportunity to resign. Thank you for the opportunity, and my sincerest apologies again for failing you.”
As her mouse hovered over the “Send” button, she waited, her eyes skimming the document over and over again. After a last-second panic, she reached for her phone, wanting to speak with her parents just to get their feel for the situation. It had been a long time since she’d wanted their advice, but in this case she felt child-like, nervous and unsure.
Before she could dial her father, however, she received a text message from the Sheikh. Sensing it would be more of the same—“Please, go back and feed my dog again” or “There’s a huge mistake in the granola bar stock in the pantry. Far too many carbohydrates for the afternoon. Please fix”—she opened it, sighing evenly, to find a surprise.
“Happy one-week anniversary of your personal assistant position. You’re halfway through! To thank you for your troubles, I’d like to take you to dinner tonight. I hope you’ll consider it.”
Audrey shivered. Mere moments before she’d sliced the connection between herself and the Sheikh, he’d asked for more personal time with her. Was this a sign? Hurriedly, she typed a text message back, agreeing to dinner. She was excited to get to spend some downtime with the attractive Sheikh.
Of course, she couldn’t immediately forget all the horrendous things he’d forced her to do in the previous week. The trash she’d had to clean up. The ex-girlfriends she’d had to corral. The dog. The shirts—the endless, endless button-downs, each of which, she’d learned, cost about five hundred dollars.
But she raced home, centered on finding an appropriate dress for the occasion, knowing that wherever the Sheikh chose to dine would be spectacular, exclusive, and better than anything Audrey would be able to afford for years—especially if she ended up putting in her notice.
Chapter Six
Jibril texted her when she arrived home, explaining that he’d pick her up at around eight-thirty for the evening ahea
d. In response, Audrey texted him her address, grateful that she lived in a decent neighborhood—yet further grateful he wouldn’t have to see the state of disrepair her apartment currently existed in given that she hadn’t slept or spent more than a few hours in her apartment in the previous week. Clothes were strewn about, dishes were piled high, and it certainly wasn’t visitor-ready.
From the depths of her closet, Audrey grabbed a deep-cut red dress, which she’d worn exactly once to a celebrity wedding when she’d needed to keep a certain actress away from her ex-husband for PR purposes. The woman had grown outrageously drunk and then plotted to douse her ex in an entire bottle of champagne. Just in the nick of time, Audrey had slipped her into a cab and made them both disappear into the night. She’d been grateful the woman hadn’t vomited on the nicest gown she owned.
Now, she donned it noting that she’d lost a bit of weight around her waist and on her thighs—probably from the stress of the previous week. She pushed her feet into nude heels early to grow accustomed to them and curled her hair in the bathroom while humming along to the radio.
Audrey felt a glimmer of youthful excitement, a reminder of when she’d been in high school and going on her first few dates. Would they kiss her? Would she let them? Back then, she’d felt a lifetime away from marriage. Now, as a 27-year-old, she felt the time slipping away too fast, as if she should have found someone by now.
Unfortunately, she knew her parents felt the same. They’d hinted at it occasionally, telling her how much they wanted grandchildren, how much joy they would have showing her son or daughter around their Alaskan wilderness. “We just want you to be happy,” they’d said on more than one occasion, instilling a fear within Audrey that perhaps she wasn’t, truly, all that happy.
Once eight-thirty came, Audrey awaited Jibril at the front entrance of her apartment building, her eyes looking up and down the street, hunting for him. Moments later, a large red sports car zoomed down the road, halting abruptly in front of her apartment building and revealing the stunning Sheikh, dressed from head to toe in black. His skin was glowing in contrast to the dark black, and his hair was chaotic and loose, not reined in and gelled as it normally was at the office. Audrey’s body stirred with desire.