CHAPTER
“I’ve wasted…” I trail off, regarding the man as though he is mad. Did I hear correctly that he thinks I wasted his time? The insufferable jerk. Of all the rude, obnoxious men I’ve ever met in all my life, he has got to be the worst.
I don’t bother to grace him with a response, knowing I will have the last laugh anyway when he reads the letter on his desk and realize it is my resignation letter. Now I am grateful I came in early this morning. If I had harbored any doubt I was doing the right thing earlier, it is all gone now.
No way I am going to continue working with this new psychotic boss. Who cares that he has the body of a Greek god? He had the mannerism of a pig. No, that is an insult to pigs everywhere! He is worst.
Without a word, I walk out of the office, barely able to prevent myself from slamming the door shut behind me. I get to my desk and opened the drawers, checking one final time if I am leaving anything behind. Ah my coffee mug that I use to get coffee from the break room instead of using the Styrofoam cups they keep for staff. Much healthier for the environment than using a Styrofoam cup once every day. Even I who am not a big environmentalist know that is just too much.
Yuck! I’d been so upset yesterday, I forgot to wash my cup out. I grab the box with my stuff and take the elevator to the second floor where the lunch break is. I wash out my cup and dries it before placing it inside the box and resume my trek in the elevator to the first floor.
The security guard is on the phone talking when I step out the elevator. Before I could leave the building, he hangs up the phone and comes to stand in front of me, blocking my way. I frown at him, wondering why he is trying to prevent me from leaving.
“Is something wrong?” I ask him.
“Actually there is,” he answers, gesturing to the box in my hands. “I’m afraid I’ll have to check the items in that box.”
“These are my personal items,” I reply. “Why do you need to check them?”
“Security reasons ma’am. You entered the building with a letter and you’re walking out with a box. I’ve to ensure nothing of value to the company is leaving with you.”
By this, I am very upset. This is the second person in a matter of minutes who is trying to make me feel like I’m a thief. I plunk the box down at his desk.
“Be my guest. As I said before, these are just my personal effects.”
I watch him go through my box, thinking he would shuffle the things around and confirm that indeed the items are not so much valuable as they are sentimental. Instead, I stare in disbelief as he slowly goes through the items one by one, inspecting it as though he believes I’ve hidden drugs somewhere in the bottom of a pen.
“This is ridiculous,” I explode, reaching for each item and dumping them back into the box. “You can see nothing in here belongs to Ash Publishing. Now sir, have a good day!”
I wrench the box out of his hands and made for the door again. He hurries by me to block the interest. This is not right. What the heck is this man doing? Is he trying to deliberately keep me in his office.
“Why are you trying to keep me here?” I snap at him and he flushes.
“I-umm,” he couldn’t form an articulate response.
He tugs on his ear. Definitely a tell. I remember the phone call then and instantly figure out what was going on. That was him on the phone trying to get the security guard to keep me in the building.
Without thinking, I jam the box in the security guard’s stomach, to get him out my way. I did it out of panic because I know if he should catch me down here, he will make it more difficult than it already is for me to leave.
“Joyce. My office. Now.”
I groan at the voice behind me. I glare at the security guard who has a chagrined, apologetic look on his face. As if that is going to help my situation now.
“The letter will explain everything,” I respond, squaring my shoulders for courage before I turn to face Mr. Ash.
He is furious, the muscles in his jaw ticking. He waves the letter before my face. “This explains nothing.”
“It’s my resignation letter,” I explain though if he had read it which I am sure he had, then he would already know this. “Effective immediately. Now goodbye Mr. Ash. I wish you all the best in your venture.”
The security guard is no longer blocking my way and I push against the door, glimpsing my freedom.
“Joyce, aren’t you forgetting something.”
To the best of my knowledge, no but the mocking tone of his voice makes my skin crawl. I am forgetting something. What is it and why does he know of it when I can’t remember what it is?”
“Your contract.”
My contract?
“You still work for me and you cannot be released from your contract without my approval,” he adds. “You might want to step into my office and beg for my approval.”
Beg? Over my dead body. But he is right. I am so stupid. How could I have forgotten about that contract? I have ten months left in my current contract, having signed a new one this January. Sweet Mother of Jesus, there’s no way I could last ten months with this man.
When I turn to face him once more, he is already at the elevator, holding the doors open. “Coming?”
Like I have a choice. I walk towards him but not before casting a longing look at the door which holds my freedom. We ride the elevator in silence, me huddled back in the corner, remembering the last time we took the lift together. On the third floor, he walks out taking it for granted I’ll follow him but then he knows he has me cornered.
Somehow I have to let him see we are not a good fit as employer and employee, worse when I would have to work so closely with him as his Personal Assistant. That position requires having a certain rhythm and good working chemistry. All this tension between us would never make for a good working relationship.
Taking the box from my hands, he dropped it heavily on my desk.
“You can unpack after our little talk.”
When I stall, his hand came down onto the small of my back, shooting disturbing electricity through my body. Traitor! I confront my body. How can you be attracted to this beast? I don’t even like him. But my body and my brain are determined to be at war. I didn’t like it one bit.
I can’t help jumping when he slams the door shut behind us. I turn to face him. He is not the sort of man I would feel comfortable trusting my back to.
“Your contract states if for any reason you want to resign,” he starts, perching one butt cheek on the edge of his desk. “Then you can do so with the expressed approval of your boss.”
“That- that contract applied to Mr. Cavil,” I point out. “Not to you. This is no longer Cavil Publishing.”
“The name may have changed but I inherited all the employees by nature of my contract with Cavil,” he states. “Or do you want to get our lawyers involved in this case? Because if you walk out that door Miss. Brown, you owe me ten month’s salary.”
“That’s preposterous,” I announce. “It’s not as if I’m taking any payment with me. Whatever I am to be paid can easily be paid to your new PA. You’re not losing anything by me leaving.”
“Let me make this clear to you, Joyce. I was promised a PA who already knows the ins and outs of this company and that’s exactly what I will have.”
“I can recommend someone else,” I insist. “There’s the—”
“Enough!”
I really need to stop jumping at the sound of this man’s voice and giving him physical evidence of how intimidated by him I am.
“Mr. Ash.”
“Axel.”
“Mr. Ash,” I repeated. “This is not going to be a good working relationship. I’m afraid I don’t think I will suit as your PA. We- we are too different in personality. Frankly, I don’t think I can like you.”
His booming laugh is a surprise. He throws his head back, his face awash with amusement at whatever it is I said which he found funny. The sound resonates within me as I watch the transformation in his face from that laugh. His features soften, his blue eyes twinkled with warmth instead of coldness and his lips soften instead of flattening in a disapproving line.
He is even more gorgeous when relaxed. Too bad it’s at my expense.
“What does, you liking me, have to do with you doing your job?” he enquires, his eyes still crinkling from mirth. “Once you do your job the way you’re supposed to, liking me is of very little consequence. I’ve enough liking in my personal life without adding that to my professional life. I’m not here to be your friend. Just your boss.”
“Mr. Ash, I feel you are not understanding me,” I try again. “I’m sure you understand the nature of a PA’s job. It means working closely with each other and I’m not comfortable around you. You don’t know how to respect a personal space.”
“Whatever do you mean my dear Miss Brown?’ He mocks me and deliberately moves away from the desk to walk up to me, crowding me, stealing my breath. “Is this invading your personal space?”
“You-you know it is.”
“My question though to you is, why does my presence bother you so much?”
“it’s not your presence but you who bother me, Mr. Ash. You’re trying to intimidate me.”
“And is it working?”
“No, it is not!” I deny but take a couple steps away from him to restore my breathing properly to my aching lungs. “Because I am leaving. You’re being unreasonable with the request for ten months’ salary.”
“I am?” he continues in his mocking tone. “Then what would you say when the assault charge is added to it?”
My eyes widen in shock. “Assault charge? I never assaulted anyone.”
“No, you didn’t? Did I see you hit the security guard with a weapon?”
“Will you stop making stuff up!”
“I’m a witness. I’m sure you deliberately pushed that box at him.”
“That’s no weapon and he was standing in my way! I did tell him to move!”
“Tell that to his judge.”
My mouth bob open like a fish as I struggle to find a response. What an odious man! I am disliking him more and more by the minute. And what a pity too. A line from GRL’s song Ugly Heart comes to my mind “It’s such a pity a boy so pretty with an ugly heart.” They must have written that song with this man in mind.
“What you’re doing is not right,” I told him in one last attempt to appeal to his kinder side. A side I still have yet to see. “You know I’m replaceable. I have no idea why you won’t let me out of that contract.”
“Let’s just say I have my inner motives,” he replies and walks behind his desk. “You’re dismissed Joyce. You may go and unpack your box. I will need you to help me tackle a few projects today. Close the door behind you, will you? And don’t make any attempt to leave Joyce. I think you know enough about me to understand everything I say, I mean it.”
“I understand,” I say stiffly and walk towards the door, my back erect from the anger I am holding in.
“And Joyce,” he adds, stopping me when I am about to close the door. “You’ll thank me someday.”
I give him my frostiest look. “With all due respect, Sir. I highly doubt it.”
I close the door quietly behind me but mentally I had slammed it into his cocky face.
I wish.