Chapter 4
Emmi
“Where are you?” Jessica said over the phone.
“I’m by baggage claim; where are you?”
“Out front. Grab your things, and I’ll swing around again. I can’t stay parked here.”
“Okay, but I have a lot of bags,” I said as she hung up.
I needed a baggage cart to get all my bags out to Jessica’s car. Instead of paying for a bunch of movers, I had opted to sell off my furniture and larger items and only brought my personal belongings. There were a few items that I had shipped through the parcel service, but mostly my entire life was stuffed into four large suite cases, and it was rather pathetic.
“We are going out to The Woods tonight,” Jessica said full of excitement as she wrapped her arms around me to greet me.
“I don’t know who you think I am, but I definitely don’t want to go out into the wilderness on my first night in Los Angeles.”
Jessica laughed and rolled her eyes at me as we loaded the bags into the car and took off before one of the airport security guards yelled at us. It was nice to be with Jessica, and even nicer to be in the warmth of California as I pulled off my jacket and settled into her car for the traffic-infested drive to her house.
“You do know it’s a club, right? The Woods is a dance club.”
“Oh, okay, that sounds better than hiking,” we laughed. “I don’t know what kind of clothes I have for going to the club though. I’m pretty much a boring business woman right now.”
“No problem, I can get you some of mine. I’ve got tons of dresses.”
I laughed but didn’t say a word. Jessica had colorful, skin-tight dresses that showed off her dark complexion and voluptuous curves. I seriously doubted I would fit into any of her dresses.
“So tell me about this job and how you’re really liking it? It seems a little below your degree. Do you get to use your business knowledge at all?”
“I thought the same thing when I first took the job. Why on earth do they want to hire an MBA-educated woman for this position? But the truth is, I use my business skills every day. I’m meeting with venues, advertising executives, and celebrities. During the day I’m straight-laced and buttoned-up in boring business wear, just like you.”
“Hmm, it sounds interesting. Will you be working tonight?”
We pulled onto the interstate that was crammed packed with traffic. It wasn’t even rush hour and the cars were hardly moving. I felt the anxiety building up inside of me. I wasn’t at all interested in driving every single day in this traffic.
“I’ll be talking with the celebrity appearance couple and a few other people, but nothing too major.”
“How much longer do we have to be on this interstate,” I asked as I put my window down. “I think I have claustrophobia already.
“We are outside and moving; you can’t get claustrophobia here.”
“Well whatever is going on, I’m not feeling good.”
My stomach was hurting, and I felt like the neck of my shirt was strangling me. My pulse quickened, and I even got a little dizzy as my breathing started to get faster also. I tried laying my seat back and then quickly put it forward again. I tried opening the window all the way and sticking my head out since we were barely moving, but then brought it back in. Nothing seemed to help the nausea, and soon I could hardly keep my eyes open as I tried to pull in breaths and just couldn’t seem to get enough air.
“Are you alright?” Jessica asked. “You don’t look so good.”
“Something is definitely wrong. I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“You look like you’re having a panic attack,” she said calmly. “I used to get those when I first moved out here. It’s because of the traffic and not having control of the situation. You’ll get used to it.”
“Are you sure? I feel like my heart is beating out of my chest.”
“Or you could be having a heart attack, but let’s go with panic attack for now.”
“What if it’s a heart attack? Do you know where a hospital is? How would we get there in this traffic? It really could be a heart attack; I feel my heart pounding really hard.”
“Emmi, you’re a control freak, we both know it. Remember how you’d get before tests? This is just a more extreme version. Close your eyes and take some deep breaths.”
I wanted to believe what Jessica was saying was true. Obviously, at 26, I wasn’t the typical heart attack victim. But I had never experienced a full on panic attack before. If that was what was happening, I could see why people got so scared by them.
Slowly I took in some deep breaths and tried to concentrate on the music that was playing. Jessica had turned it to soft Jazz, and although it wasn’t my type of music normally, it was good in this situation. Finally, I felt my breathing slow down and my body return to my control. I kept my eyes closed and tried to take advantage of the adrenaline drain on my body by getting a little sleep. The last thing Jessica needed was me causing such a scene while she was trying to drive through the crazy Los Angeles traffic.
“How much longer?” I dared to ask when I started to feel better.
“An hour.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah, sorry, but once we get there, we can take a quick cab over to the night club.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you live in this.”
“You adjust. I live downtown to avoid driving most of the time. Instead, I just have the clients meet me at our offices or one of the clubs downtown. It’s basically like New York then,” she laughed, but I wasn’t in the greatest mood and could hardly muster a smile.
By the time we got unloaded and into her apartment building, it was time to head out to the club. Although I was exhausted, Jessica wanted to go so badly, I decided to suck it up and go for a little bit.
“This dress will be perfect,” Jessica said as we stood in her closet and she put the fuchsia dress up to my body.
“Sure.”
“That doesn’t seem like an excited voice.”
“Sure,” I said again with a huge fake smile. “I really don’t care. Just throw something on me, and we can go. It’s not like I’m planning on meeting the love of my life in a dance club.”
“You might be surprised by the caliber of men that are at these, but you’re right. Tonight is about us and not about them. Just throw this on and let’s go. I know you don’t want to be out too late.”
The spandex fabric actually didn’t look too bad on me as I admired myself in the mirror and waited for Jessica to finish her makeup. My short stature made the dress a normal length on me, and the top wasn’t cut low, and instead the back had a geometric cutout to grab attention. There was no need for me to fluff up my hair or makeup though, and when Jessica emerged, we went down to hail a cab.
“This will go much smoother,” she said as a cab pulled up without us even waiting a minute. “They like picking up the hot girls.”
“Hot girl,” I corrected her. “You look hot; I look like your homely best friend.”
“Wow, look at me,” Jessica said when we climbed into the cab. She grabbed my face and forced me to look at her. “You are one of the most beautiful women in the world. Don’t let the fake standards of Los Angeles get to you. Always keep your confidence and self-worth based on the person you know you are.”
“This is why I love you,” I smiled and hugged her. “You always know how to lift a girl's mood. I’m so happy I came out here.”
I felt my phone buzzing in my purse and knew I had to answer it. My father was protective, and if I didn’t answer him to let him know I had arrived safely, he would keep calling me all night long.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Are you going to come over?”
“Daddy, I just got downtown with Jessica, and I’m exhausted. Can I stop by tomorrow?”
“I could come into the city and pick you up if you’d like?”
My eyes widened, and I looked at Jessica as if she could hear what my father said. She just shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
“No, don’t come all the way down here. The traffic is crazy. I’m tired anyway,” I lied. Man, I hated lying to my father.
“So did you decide to take the assistant job at the McMillan Westbrook Group?”
I searched my memory for the conversation we had had while I was in New York. There was some guy he worked with who needed an assistant, and my father was trying to get me to work there. It hadn’t sounded all that appealing; I had an MBA and being someone’s assistant was a little below my pay grade.
“Dad, I’m looking for high-end business work, not secretarial—”
“It’s temporary, and he needs your help. It pays eighty thousand.”
“What? For an assistant?”
“Yes, you’ll need to travel with him sometimes and are basically on call all the time. He has a lot of business connections, and he’s located right downtown. You should probably stay with your friend instead of me though, since she’s living down there and you can avoid the traffic situation.”
My eyes widened with excitement. I had been trying to figure out a way of staying with Jessica without hurting my father’s feelings. My initial excused to stay there for a few days so we could hang out wasn’t going to stretch out much past that weekend. This was the opportunity I needed. I could make my father happy by working with this guy he knew. I would get paid a decent amount so I could save up for my own place, and the icing on top was that I could stay living with Jessica.
“Yeah, Dad, I think I’ll take that job. Does he want me to come over for an interview or something?”
“No way. He’s my business partner. You don’t have to interview. I’ll just call him and let him know you’ll be there at 8 o’clock on Monday morning.”
“Sounds good. Thanks, Dad, and I promise we will catch up this week. How about dinner Monday night after my first day of work?”
“Perfect. Now go have a fun night with your friend,” he said, and I could just picture the grin on his face. “I love you; make wise decisions.”
“Love you too, Dad,” I said, still in shock that he knew I was going out.
The surprised look on my face caught Jessica’s attention too. As the cab stopped and we climbed out, she stood there wide eyed and waiting for me to tell her what was going on.
“So how is your dad? What’s up?”
“He got me an awesome paying job downtown and I’m going to stay living with you. Things are turning out just perfect for me,” I said with a new-found level of energy for our night.
***
Waiting for Jessica to finish working was so boring. I stood at the bar sipping my martini and watching the handsome bartender move about with ease.
“Don’t you ladies look beautiful tonight?” I heard a man say as he strolled up and made his move on two women who were next to me.
“Hi,” the one in the black dress giggled.
She looked like she was barely twenty-one and might not have even been that old. Her schoolgirl laugh caught my attention though, and I couldn’t help eyeing her and her friend as the man hit on them.
He was rich, but trying to hide it. His tattered jeans and hip leather jacket were clearly being worn in an effort to look like a normal guy. But the jacket was Dusen Klein, a well known international designer that sold jackets that cost more than $10,000. I also happened to see his Rolex glimmering off the club lights, so no matter how hard he tried to play down his wealth, I wasn’t fooled at all.
“Can I buy you ladies a drink?” he asked and motioned for the bartender all at the same time. “Another round please,” he said without waiting for them to reply.
The girls were smitten with him, and I found myself wondering if he was planning on picking just one of them or taking the pair home with him. He seemed like the sort of guy who would try for a threesome.
“I’m Kimber,” the girl in the black dress said.
“I’m Lindsay,” the red dress girl added.
The two women looked nearly identical with her big boobs and blonde hair; I wasn’t sure how he was going to tell them apart once he took their color-coded dresses off of them. I snickered at the group, and it caught his attention.
His hypnotic blue eyes met with mine and I couldn’t look away. He was handsome; there was no denying it. The short scruffy beard and casual-looking clothes seemed part of his charm now that I had a good glance at him. With a quick nod of my head and raise of my drink, I motioned for him to continue on with his flirting as I turned in the other direction. I could have seen a smile flash just before I turned, or it could have been my imagination, but either way, I was off to find Jessica, tired of waiting for her.
“You were right; the men out here are gorgeous.”
“I'm telling you, it’s like having a man-candy factory. But most of them are jerks; I wouldn’t hold your breath for the perfect guy to marry or anything like that. But for having fun, there are lots of options.”
“Let’s dance,” I said as I grabbed her arm and pulled her out to the dance floor.
The music throbbed through my body as we twisted and moved with the beat. It was just what I needed: a lot of hot sweaty dancing and a little alcohol to help me relax and get over everything that had happened in New York. I was ready for a fresh start and certainly ready to have a little fun while I was at it.
For a solid hour, Jessica and I danced nonstop to the music. By far the best workout session I’d had in a very long time, and by the time we stopped to get some water, we both had our shoes in our hands.
“Two ice waters, please,” I said as we set our shoes on the bar and slid onto a couple of stools. “You should have seen this guy earlier, he was so cheesy as he was hitting on these women. I couldn’t help but laugh at him.”
“What did he look like?” Jessica asked as she leaned in close.
“Tall, dark hair, beautiful blue eyes and a leather jacket.”
Jessica’s eyes seemed to be looking over my shoulder and not paying attention at all to what I was saying. I couldn’t help but turn around to see who or what she was looking at. Sure enough, the blue eyes flirt was right beside me with a huge grin on his face.
“You threw me off my game,” he said playfully. “I’m Declan, and it’s nice to meet you.”
“I wouldn’t call what you were doing a serious pickup game. More like amateur hour at the nightclub, but it’s nice to meet you too.”
“You took off before I got to the good stuff,” he continued on playfully.
I couldn’t stop looking at his eyes. The more I told myself to look away, the more fixated my stare got. At this point, I probably looked like some sort of maniac, and in self-defense I turned toward Jessica to finally pull my focus away from Declan.
He smelled amazing though, like a combination of cinnamon and Old Spice. It probably wasn’t Old Spice, considering his high-end taste in clothing. I didn’t think he’d pick a bargain scent. I pulled in a deep breath to fill my lungs with the smell and then turned back toward him, still not confident at all in my ability to talk to this man.
“Did you ask them what they did for a living? Or if they come here often?” I continued to tease him.
“Hey, I happen to be very good at the pickup game.”
He could have picked me up. Declan could have wrapped his arms around me easily and swept me off my feet. He was nearly a foot taller than me with a muscular build that showed through the tailored shirt he had on. Even the bulk of the leather coat couldn’t fight back the muscular body that was likely under it.
I was seriously distracted by this guy, and that wasn’t what I wanted for my first day in Los Angeles. I had to get away from him. I had to make a run for it, so I resorted to a little nastiness.
“Is that supposed to impress me? It doesn’t. I like guys who don’t have to come to clubs to pick up their women.”
“But you’re at a club?” He looked at me with a snide expression like he had just nailed me in our game of words.
“And I don’t want to be picked up by a slime-ball who was just trying to get in the pants of some underage college girls. Have a good night,” I said curtly and grabbed Jessica as I stormed off.
“It was nice meeting you. I’m Jessica,” she hollered back toward him.
“Jessica!” I yelled at her as I pulled her behind me.
“What? He was so handsome.”
“Handsome and a jerk. You could do better.”
We were both exhausted and ready to go home after that excitement. I slipped my shoes on and tried to ignore the sticky residue on the bottom of my feet as we waited in the line for a cab. It was a long line, even though the traffic in the city didn’t seem bad at all. But I figured there were a lot of people leaving the bars and clubs around the same time, so we just had to wait.
“He was cute,” Jessica finally said as our ears stopped ringing.
“Cute doesn’t make up for being a jerk.”
“Oh, come on, he wasn’t a jerk. He seemed like a normal guy just trying to meet a woman. Maybe you’re just mad he wasn’t hitting on you?”
“He was hitting on me! That’s what that whole conversation was about. He wanted me to think he gave up trying to get those other two girls in order to flirt with me. When the reality of the situation was likely that they didn’t see the humor in his threesome offer.”
“He wanted to have a threesome?” Jessica said confused at what I was talking about. “I must have missed that part of the conversation.”
“Why else would a man buy two girls a drink and flirt with them both? That’s what he was doing when I saw him earlier.”
I knew men, and I couldn’t think of a single reason why a good-looking guy would buy two girls a drink, except the obvious. He was trying to get with both of them, I was sure of it. Declan looked like the kind of suave guy who was into kinky things like that, at least in my imagination he was.
“Maybe he was just being nice because they were standing there together. Man, you really need to lighten up and be nicer to these guys if you’re ever going to nab one.”
“Oh, my God, men are the last thing on my mind right now. I just want to find a decent job and get settled in out here. It would be fantastic if this guy my father has me working with didn’t turn out to be a chauvinistic pig.”
The ride back to Jessica’s apartment was quick since it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. We both winced in pain as we walked in our heels through the lobby and then slipped our shoes off once we hit the elevator. It was ridiculous how much high heels hurt my feet, yet I continued to wear them on a daily basis.
“You’ll change your mind when a hunky guy catches your eye.”
“Doubtful.”
The sweet smell of Jessica’s apartment was comforting as we walked in. Her furniture was arranged so the couch back faced the door and I fell over it in exhaustion. The cold leather touched all my exposed skin and should have shocked me awake, but I was just too exhausted.
My bright fuchsia dress was just fine to sleep in and I grabbed a blanket from nearby and cuddled up with it. I’d been awake for over twenty-four hours and could barely keep my eyes open, I was so tired.
“You’re sleeping there,” she laughed. “In case I didn’t tell you before.”
“Perfect. I’m going to sleep right now. Thanks for having me; I really appreciated it.”
“See you in the morning, and we can go work out,” Jessica said as she walked to her bedroom.
“Work out? Like go to the gym and get sweaty on a Saturday morning?” I asked, actually concerned I hadn’t heard her correctly.
“Yep, it’s boot camp Saturday. You’re going to love it. Look at how tight my ass has gotten from going to this class.”
“We’ll see,” I said as I closed my eyes and drifted off toward sleep, although I had no intention of going to any workout class in the morning. I wasn’t really the workout sort of girl.
Chapter 5
Declan
“Santa Monica Pier please,” I said to the Uber driver after loading my bag into the back.
“On the beach or the actual pier?” the driver asked.
“Beach; thanks for asking. I’m going for a quick run.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about the cute blonde in the tiny pink dress. She was a firecracker and looked totally out of place in that club. It surprised me that I hadn’t been able to close the deal with her; she seemed in to me. Any woman who could get that angry at me, that quickly, unquestionably had a thing for me. But yet she still denied me and I couldn’t forget it.
My morning workout on this particular day consisted of running five miles along the beach. I dropped my bag with a friend at his juice stand and then took off down the sand. No shoes, no headphones, just me and nature making the morning more invigorating. It didn’t matter if I woke up to the warmth of Los Angeles or the cold of Colorado: I loved being outside. In fact, I only tolerated my time in the office because it was a means to an end that I liked much better.
As the sun rose in the East, the beach traffic started to pick up and I quickened my pace. When I arrived back at my friends juice bar, The Squeeze, he was just finishing his morning vegetable prep and opening to the public. Barely out of breath, I wiped off and stayed to visit for a minute.
“Dude, you’re going to die when you see the waves today. I heard they are going to be massive,” my high school friend, River, said.
“Man, I’ve got to go do the whole work thing today. Some of us have real jobs.”
“The purpose of having a lot of money is so you don’t have to work. Not so you spend even more time working. What’s happened to you, Declan?”
“I’m working on getting a break soon. Thanks for the smoothie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Try not to work too hard in that corporate jail you’ve made yourself.”
“I’ll try not to.”
I didn’t feel exactly like River did about working, but I did always have my eye on the future and my end game. Sooner or later I hoped to pass on the day-to-day operations of my company to one of my department heads. Then I’d get to stay out of the messy parts of the business and just show up for board meetings, which was much more my pace. But until I felt ready for that major change, I was going to have to keep plugging along with the day-to-day decisions of my company.
As I walked off the elevator and toward my office, the empty desk, where Margery had sat for so many years, gave me anxiety. I really hoped Teddy’s daughter knew what she was doing and could actually help me out while I continued to interview new assistants. There was just too much work for me not to have a right-hand man, or woman, working with me over the next few weeks.
I quickly jumped into my office shower to clean up and change before the day got started. My week was going to be busier than usual as we finalized designs for the new project and I had a charity fundraising event to go to on Valentine’s Day at the end of the week.
“Hello?” I heard a woman’s voice say after I had just lathered the soap up in my hair.
“Just finishing my shower,” I hollered out, thinking it was one of the department heads and I had forgotten an early morning meeting or something like that.
“It’s fine, I’ll wait in the lobby,” the voice said, and suddenly I realized it was Teddy’s daughter.
“Oh, crap. Sorry. I forgot you were coming this early,” I yelled after her.
“I’m a half hour early,” she replied as she stood right outside the bathroom door. “I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get here. The traffic is wild out here, and I’m such a newbie at it.”
“Yeah, it really is crazy. Thanks for agreeing to help out. I appreciate it. I swear I’d lose my own head if it wasn’t attached to my body.”
“That sounds gross,” she laughed. “I’ll wait for you in the lobby. Take your time.”
“Okay,” I said as I turned the water off and reached for a towel.
But there were no towels. Nothing. Not a single towel in my whole bathroom. Apparently stocking the bathroom with towels was one of Margery’s jobs that I didn’t know she did. Reluctantly, I yelled out to see if Emmi was still in my office.
“Hey, Emmi, are you still there?”
“Yep,” she yelled, and I heard her footsteps move back toward the bathroom.
“I hate to ask you, but can you grab me a towel out of the closet just outside my office? It has a silver handle and is right behind the desk.”
“A towel?”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry. My old assistant did a lot more around here than I knew. I forgot to grab some towels before I jumped into the shower.”
“Sure, no problem,” she chipperly replied.
I couldn’t stop shaking my head at my own stupidity. Teddy would hate it if he knew I was sending his daughter to get me a towel while I stood naked in my bathroom. Not exactly the best first impression to make on his sweet little girl.
I opened the door when I heard her come back in the office and stuck my hand out through the smallest crack in the door. It meant a lot to me that Teddy’s daughter would be helping me out and I needed to get my damn clothes on.
“Thank you. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“No problem. Like I said before, I’ll be in the lobby,” she said as I heard her start to close my office door. “Are you sure you don’t need anything else? I’m really going to the lobby.”
“I think I’m good,” I laughed.
So far I really liked Emmi. She seemed like a relaxed girl who at least had a sense of humor. I also liked the fact that I had promised Teddy there would be no funny business between the two of us. Taking sex out of the equations made it a lot easier to work with someone, and that was exactly why Margery and I had worked out so well for all the years she was there.
After quickly drying off and putting my dress slacks on, I pulled on a white t-shirt and button-up shirt, but no tie. I didn’t wear a tie unless there were lawyers involved, and even then I tried to avoid it whenever possible.
“You can come in now, I’m sorry I was…” my words froze as I looked at the blonde standing in my lobby. It was her. It was the sexy, petite blonde bombshell from the club. I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. “You’re Emmi Shields?”
“Wow, now if this isn’t a coincidence, I don’t know what is.”
“Um, so okay…you’re Teddy’s daughter. This should be fun.”
She raised her eyebrow at me and the spark between us could hardly be contained. The soft smile that grazed her face was in far contrast to how she had acted at the club. I liked this version of her much better. Soft, sexy, and hypnotic as I stared at her glistening green eyes.
She looked good. Damn good. So good that I forgot for a minute that she was there to be my assistant. She had a stylish black blazer on with a stripped black and white blouse under it. Her tailored slacks looked like they were practically painted onto her, and I couldn’t wait to see her ass as when she walked away from me. A blitz of visuals from the night I met her in the club rushed through my mind.
Suddenly my promise to Teddy seemed much harder to keep than I had thought it was going to be when I made it. Having this little sex pot around all the time was going to distract me for sure, but at least she wasn’t yelling at me.
“I think we will get along alright, as long as you don’t use any of those horrible pickup lines on me.”
“I promise not to. How about I show you around the office and let you get settled in. I think I have a few meetings this morning, if my phone calendar is right. I’ve had some problems syncing it up to my computer.”
“Let me see,” she said as she held her hand out and waited for me to provide my phone to her. “Android or iPhone?”
“Android.”
I handed her my phone, and she tinkered with it while we walked to the end of the floor and I started to give her the tour. Our building wasn’t the biggest one around, but it was stylish, and I was really proud of the design and layout we had come up with.
“This is our main conference room. Usually my meetings are in here, sometimes other big teams will meet in here, but there are some other rooms downstairs that they use more often. This one is most often used when outsiders come for meetings.”
“What’s your email password?” Emmi asked as she continued with my phone and barely looked up at the office.
“I’ll type it,” I said as I grabbed it back.
“You’re going to have to trust me with these things if I’m going to be your assistant.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I honestly can’t remember it unless I’m typing it into the phone keyboard. It’s a star with a circle around it. I should probably change it to an actual word so I can remember it, but most applications have it saved in there now, and it seems like a lot of trouble to change them all.”
“What would you change your password to if you could?”
“Capital s, then u-r-f-c-i-t-y-six-nine,” I said with a smile and a shrug.
She didn’t look up or acknowledge my slightly risqué use of the number sixty-nine in my password. So I continued on with our tour and let her fiddle with the phone while we walked. It was a little immature that I still laughed at the mere mention of sixty-nine, but I couldn’t help it. My friends and I had even made snowboarding tricks out of the number to try and get girls attention when we were younger.
“These offices are the marketing team. Edward is the team lead. They are working on some new ad campaigns for our last resort in Big Bear. Feel free to stop in and say hello to them at any time. I’ll get you introduced at the noon meeting today so people will know who you are when they see you.”
“Done,” Emmi said as she handed me back my phone.
“What’s done?”
“I synced your email and changed all your passwords to your desired new password.”
“All of them?” I said as I thumbed through the apps on my phone. “I’ve got a lot of apps on here.”
“There’s a trick to it. I can show you if you’d like.”
“No, don’t bother, I’ll just forget it. But thanks for taking care of that for me.”
“Sure thing. I might be more help around here than you think. I’m not just a pretty face.”
“Your dad said you have an MBA; what sort of work do you hope to find once you’re settled into town?”
“I’m not sure. I used to think I wanted to work at a big company, but my last experience didn’t turn out so well. Maybe I’ll check out some smaller organizations, or even a consulting firm. I have no idea. Do you know how long you’ll be needed me?”
“I have no idea,” I laughed. “Apparently I’m really bad at hiring people, but I’ll have you help me go through some applicants, and it shouldn’t be too long. Did you have a time frame you wanted to finish up here by?”
“No, I’m good through the spring if you need me. I’d like to take it easy and really think through my next career choice.”
The way we were talking back and forth was already comfortable to me. I wasn’t even afraid of flirting with her because she seemed really good at her job and I needed someone like her around. Maybe I was being naive, but I really thought I would be able to keep our relationship on a platonic level.
“I might end up needing you that long. Do you have a place to stay or are you staying with your father? By the way, these are the offices of my architecture team. They are working closely with your father on our new Breckenridge project.”
“I’m staying with Jessica right downtown here; she’s the one I was with at the club. And I don’t really talk to my father much about his business stuff; you’ll have to fill me in on the project.”
“Do you know what it is we do with your father?”
“Sort of. You were a snowboarding guy and went in with him on a resort, and everyone kept asking about you, so Daddy wanted to work with you again. Then you guys started branding his resorts as only carrying your products for sale, and he rents your equipment there too. Now you two are inseparable, like two peas in a pod. But do you work with other clients still?”
“See you know pretty much everything you need to,” I joked. “A large part of my business is still on the retail and pro-snowboarder side of things. I’m enjoying exploring the resort side though.”
We arrived back at my office and went inside. I propped the wooden door open and motioned for her to sit in the chairs near my desk.
“Why a wooden door?” she asked. “I mean, I really love the glass walls; it’s open and irreverent. But why the wood door?”
“You know, that’s the one thing about these offices that drives me nuts. The design team thought it would be too much glass if we didn’t have some sort of accent doors. I fought them, but in the end, I gave in. I regret it.”
“Do you often give in to other people's desires?”
Her voice tone deepened, and I watched as Emmi crossed her legs slowly and watched me as I tried to respond to her. I swallowed hard at her word, desires. I did like giving in to desires of sexy women, but I couldn’t exactly say that to her. She was my partner’s daughter and one hundred percent off-limits. Giving in to desire was a certainty about my life. But did she mean it like that or was she just making a comment about the design team? Maybe she wasn’t trying to be seductive at all and was simply asking me a question? I didn’t know her well enough to know the answer to this.
“I usually try to analyze the feel of my team and negotiate where I can,” I said to be on the safe side.
“Yeah, that’s what good bosses do. But if it had been up to me, I would have told them to do the glass doors too,” she said with that soft grin that I was growing accustomed to looking at.
“Hey, boss, meeting in ten,” Rosa said as she walked passed my office.
“That’s Rosa; she’s the head of the architecture department.”
“Architecture?”
“It’s not really called that, it’s our structural design elements division. But I like architecture better. We are getting more and more involved in the design elements of the properties because your Dad is trying to pull out and be more of a money man. The problem I run into is that I don’t know hotels as well as he does. Something that might seem cool to me, might be a horrible idea for a hotel. Anyway, that was Rosa, and she and her team are amazing.”
Emmi grabbed a notepad from my desk and started taking some notes. I wasn’t exactly sure what she as writing down, but she looked busy, so I let her write and didn’t keep talking. She was beautiful though, and I couldn’t stop looking at her. She had the slightest grimace on her face while she wrote, and it slipped away when she lifted her head and looked at me. I could only hope that she was going to be happy working with me and that my bad habits didn’t turn into too much for her to handle.
“What would you say were the top five things that your previous assistant did for you?”
“Wow, top five?” I asked as I searched the long list of things I knew Margery did for me. “She did so much I wouldn’t know where to start. And as you’ve already learned, she also did things that I didn’t even know she was doing for me.”
“Did she get you coffee in the morning?”
“Yes, usually.”
“We know she got you towels for the bathroom,” Emmi laughed. “Did she do other errands for you, like picking up your dry cleaning?”
“No, I do my personal things.”
“How about meetings? Did she prep you for them a few hours ahead of time, or right before the meeting?”
“Well, it depends on the meeting. If it was important, we usually talked about it in the morning.”
“Can I come with you to your morning meeting?” Emmi asked as I got up to join the architecture team meeting.
“No need to join this one; it’s going to just be the team and I discussing changes to the project. Take some time to get settled in, and we will talk more in an hour or so.”
“Okay.”
She looked disappointed but quickly pressed a smile across her face. She took the notebook with her to the desk in front of my office and sat down as she continued taking notes.
“Relax and make yourself at home. If anyone calls, just take a message, and I’ll get back to them. You’ve got to push the line button next to where it’s blinking to actually answer the call; they won’t be there if you just pick up the receiver.”
“I know how to answer a phone, but thanks.”
“Okay then, the break room is just over there. Feel free to grab any of the snacks or make yourself a coffee. I’ll see you in an hour.”
“Sounds good.”
She went straight back to looking at her pad of paper as she wrote down some more notes. It seemed odd that she needed to take so many notes when I hadn’t been talking about anything important, but I wasn’t about to ask her what she was writing down.
As the design team and I were going through their ideas, it looked like we had some unique rooms for our lodge. Of course, I needed Teddy to take a look at them, and we still needed to go on site to make the final designs, but what we had was promising. Rosa and her team were amazing at listening to what I had to say and bringing it to life.
“Mr. McMillan,” Emmi said as she knocked and then opened the conference room door. “There’s a woman on the line who insists she talk to you.”
“Emmi, like I said, please just take a message, and I’ll call people back.”
“I know what you said, but she keeps calling and is insisting I put her on hold so she can talk to you.”
“Then let her hold,” I said, trying to hide my how annoyed I was. “I need to finish this meeting.”
“Okay, but she’s not going to hang up until she talks to you.”
“I understand that.”
“Don’t you think it would be quicker to just talk to her and tell her you’re not interested in her than it is to have her calling here interrupting your day like this?”
I stood up and walked out of the room and closed the conference room door behind me. How dare this girl talk to me like that in front of all my staff. I didn’t care if she was Teddy’s daughter; it was rude and disrespectful to say something like that. I took in a deep breath before I responded.
“Emmi, I’m a simple man. I don’t have many rules. But I do ask that the rules I give you are followed. Please take a message or let her hold.”
“It just seems cruel to drag her along like—”
“Emmi, this is not appropriate. You don’t know me, and you don’t know who that woman is. I asked you to take a message. Please go do it.”
“Okay but, I just thought—”
“Please don’t add your thoughts to my personal life.”
“I’m sorry,” she said and reluctantly went back to her desk.
Even though I was pissed, I couldn’t help but smile as I turned back to walk into my conference room. That was the girl I had met the other night at the club. It was nice to know I had a woman who could think for herself, even if it was going to drive me crazy. Margery had driven me crazy when we first started to work together, but it was her straight thinking that kept me in line, and I was forever grateful to her for that.
I wasn’t ready to let Emmi know her free thinking would be allowed, though. There had to be some sort of hierarchy of power between us. She needed to know that I was the boss and not her, even if her father and I were friends.