CHAPTER 3
Amelia
The rest of the week is an absolute disaster. Every guy in the building making inappropriate gestures, winking, and I even heard a few catcalls. Rumor had it there was an office pool of which guy could make me orgasm.
It was so humiliating I almost wish I had been fired. There was just that one reason I didn’t. One very big reason.
He was a numbers guy and of course my first thought was just how big was his own, personal number? Ten inches?
I saw the bulge in his slacks that afternoon in his office. He thought he could sit down and hide it, but it was too late.
At first I thought he was just another high-level executive narcissist who gets off on firing people…but he didn’t fire me. Not only that, I couldn’t get those nine little words out of my mind.
“I can help you with that problem of yours.”
If anyone else would have said it I probably would have slapped them and gotten away with it, and I certainly could have gotten them fired. But he didn’t fire me, and the last thing I wanted was him to be relieved of his duties.
I had to know more about this mystery man. The man with a last name that almost sounded made-up. Mr. Cash the Chief Financial Officer. Was it real? Was it some sort of strange joke or power trip? Some sort of psychological move?
I had no idea, and it was just another of the mysteries that surrounded him.
The girls in the office had teased me at first, but relented once they each had a chance to see him. The women had an office pool of their own. Who could hit the jackpot with Carson Cash. Little did they know I already had an offer.
I liked having a little secret to carry around with me during the day. As much as I felt powerless the moment I made that nearly job ending mistake, and I call it a job because it’s definitely not a career, I now felt powerful.
Carson was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. His suits were surely custom made, as his chest size was possibly double the classic European seven inch drop when comparing chest measurement to waist. The V-shape his body formed was massive, but he didn’t have that big, bloated look.
One of the girls in the office had seen him in the downstairs gym at five in the morning a few days after my incident. She said he was in a tank top and shorts and was working out so fiercely that his shirt came up exposing his washboard abs. How he kept his stomach fat eliminated while being that big of a man was beyond me.
He must have been six foot five, or at least that’s what I guessed from my estimation of being almost exactly a foot shorter than him, give or take an inch or two.
And he oozed power. He had the best parking spot in the entire garage, and he wasn’t even the CEO. How he negotiated that I could only guess. How do you out alpha the company alpha?
A Google search revealed his multiple homes across Southern California. Downtown L.A. penthouse? Check. Hollywood Hills estate where the stars lived? Check. Palos Verdes villa with an ocean view? Check. And those were just three he had in L.A. There were others in Laguna Beach, Hawaii, and San Francisco.
Forbes listed him as worth in excess of one billion dollars. One billion freaking dollars! And his bio stated just how he got there. “World’s most feared corporate restructuring consultant.”
But if he was a consultant then why did he have the CFO title? Was he set to leave at some point? I definitely didn’t like the thought of that, and I didn’t like the thought that he was on my mind constantly.
I couldn’t stop thinking of him. Just last night the cashier at the grocery store asked me, “Cash or card.” “Carson Cash,” I said, as I handed her my CapitalOne card. She looked at me funny, before I even realized what I’d done. What was even funnier was her reply. “He certainly is a hottie.”
How did I not know about this guy? This guy that seemingly owned L.A., but was out of the public eye.
Shari had her sights set on him. “I’d poke holes in the condom with that guy,” she joked. At least I think she was joking.
But Shari told me he’d passed her in the hallway yesterday and despite her attempt to push out her chest, drop something right in front of him and bend over with her backside right in the way, and that she was wearing more perfume than the entire Macy’s perfume counter…she didn’t even get a look. Not a single look, and she’s definitely arm candy material for most of the guys in L.A. Guys are tripping over themselves to buy her dinners and take her to Palm Spring for the weekend. Not Carson though.
I need the monthly report by close of business today.
I stare at the screen and see the “from” line of the message. It’s him.
Yes, sir. It will be finished and ready for you.
Need you to bring it to my office. Thanks.
It wasn’t a question. He’s like a ghost around the office, with girls offering cash for cell phone shots of him, and here he is asking me to come to his office. Scratch that, telling me.
He’s cocky just to the point of arrogant, but not quite. There’s something about the gentleness, yet firmness, with which he handled me that first day. Handled my situation I mean. He showed me empathy. There’s a heart in there somewhere. I’ve seen it…but what will I see this time?