“Come on,” says Janet, pulling me by the hand outdoors. We’re at the craziest house I’ve ever been to. It’s not only luxurious and obviously owned by someone with a ton of money, but it’s inhabited by the richest of the richest and the most famous of the famous. It seems like every step I take, Janet has to drag me away from staring at some famous celebrity or someone I’ve seen in the gossip columns of the newspapers. “Come on,” says Janet again, really pulling on my hand this time.

“But, I just saw…” I say, realizing I don’t actually know his name, but I do know that I’ve seen all his movies. I guess I’m just used to these Hamptons parties.

“You’re going to embarrass me,” says Janet. “Plus, we didn’t come here to ogle celebrities. We came to celebrate your new job.”

“You mean my job, not my new job,” I say. “After being unemployed for over a year, I don’t really have an “old” job that this can be a “new” job in relation to.”

“You’re so weird,” says Janet, taking some champagne from a passing waiter who’s wearing a suit. She hands two glasses to me, and keeps two for herself. “We’re supposed to get drunk,” she says, somewhat seriously, with a very serious expression on her face. “You haven’t had fun in so long that you don’t remember how you have to do it. But that’s why you have me here, and I’m here to tell you that the thing to do is to get drunk, and then the fun happens.”

“How can you have fun when you’re so serious all the time?” I say, laughing at Janet.

“Just wait and see,” says Janet, giving me another serious glare. She downs one champagne glass, and then the other. Then she takes two more from another passing waiter.

I take a meager sip of my own glass. I’ve never really been one to get drunk or wasted. I’ll have a glass of wine once in a while, but heavy drinking isn’t really my thing.

“Come on,” says Janet, downing another glass, a glassy expression appearing on her face. “Bottoms up!”

I take a small sip just to appease her.

“Let’s check out the garden,” I say, and it’s my turn to pull Janet away from the champagne waiter.

“I’m staying here,” says Janet, obstinately.

I’m getting annoyed with her, because the next time I turn to talk to her, she’s chatting up some movie star, and ogling him quite clearly. She’s flashing her breasts at him and sticking out her chest.

“So much for not ogling the famous,” I mutter under my breath.

Janet pretends to not even see me so I just walk into the garden by myself.

The night is gorgeous and slightly cool. I shiver a little in my jacket.

I think about the last year, and about today.

I can’t believe I finally have a job after all this time. This means that I can finally move out of my Mom’s apartment, which is becoming more than cramped. This means I can get my own place. This means that, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be ready for another relationship in a couple months, once I’m established and on my own, with my own apartment.

I’ve heard a lot of different rumors about my new boss, John Clark, and his strange way of running a business. For one thing, it was like no other interview I’ve ever had.

I mean, hell, I’m waxing all poetic about my new job, but it’s really nothing more than the simplest job you could have. It’s a cleaning job. I’ve going to be doing the least glamorous work in the world. I’m going to be scrubbing toilets and doing whatever the hell they tell me to do.

It’s not like I don’t have an education or can’t get another job in the future. I was training to be a nurse, actually. I would have gone to medical school, considering my grades and the recommendations I got, but it was way too much for me to afford.

I hit a serious patch of depression when my dad died and found that I couldn’t continue in nursing school. I dropped out, and I worked for a time at some low level jobs, but I Just couldn’t keep them up.

I’ve finally got a handle on my depression now, and I’m determined to work my way up again. I’m not going to settle for being a nurse. I’m going to do everything I can. Hell, maybe I’ll go back to medical school.

I change my attention from scrubbing toilets and minimum wage for a moment to that meeting I had with John Clark. He certainly was…hot. He’s honestly one of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen in my life. He has broad shoulders, and a slight stubble beard that compliments his piercing dark eyes. He really looks like a billionaire, if you know what I mean, and not in any negative way at all.

It was so strange that he wanted to interview everyone who worked for his company personally. But that’s his reputation. He apparently has a very unique way of doing business, and it’s obviously worked well for him, since he started out without any money at all and worked his way up all the way to the tippy top of a variety of industries. Honestly, I’m not even sure what it is that his company actually does. All I know is that I’m going to be cleaning one of the biggest and tallest and fanciest buildings in all of Manhattan. Well, it’s not like I’m going to have to do everything myself—I’m just one girl on a huge team, probably one of the biggest teams. I’ve never cleaned anything before, and my own room at my Mom’s apartment is incredibly messy. My mom actually laughed in my face when I said I was going to become a cleaner—“but you can’t even clean your own room. Is that what you want to do instead of becoming a doctor like you wanted to? You were valedictorian of your school, and now you’re cleaning floors?”

I didn’t know what to say. I mean, how else can I move forward? How else can I get on with my life if I don’t take a job like this?

I turn over my shoulder and look through the darkened garden to the open door. Inside, I can see Janet flirting quite severely with her catch, her celebrity.

I sigh, and look up at the moon.

There’s a noise behind me.

It sounds like someone is sneaking up on me. It’s all those creepy sounds from the movies—a twig breaking, a heavy footstep. Then I catch my breath and remember that I’m at an upscale party. A party that my friend dragged me to because she had an extra invitation. It’s a party that I don’t even belong at. I should be cleaning the floors here, I think to myself, rather than masquerading as a guest. I don’t really belong in this company of the famous, rich and beautiful.

“Hey, beautiful,” says someone behind me.

I turn around. So there was someone there!

I spin around, and almost gasp in surprise. I instantly recognize him. He’s my new boss, the famous CEO and billionaire John Clark, looking as hot as ever. Actually, he looks even hotter.

He looks hotter than anyone else at this party. He’s not wearing a suit like everyone else here. And he’s not clean-shaven. He looks rugged, with a motorcycle helmet under one arm. His eyes cut through everything, and seem to pierce me. He looks slightly bigger than I remember. Maybe that’s because he’s standing up now and he was sitting down the last time I saw him.

“Hi,” I say.

I figure he knows who I am and he’s just joking around with this “hey beautiful” stuff. There’s no way a billionaire like John Clark could think I’m beautiful, and there’s certainly no way he could be hitting on me at a party where there are women who literally work as models and movie actresses.

“What brings you to a party like this,” he says, handing me a drink.

“Oh,” I say. “Thanks, but I already have one.”

He takes it back, and tosses it back, down his throat in one gulp. But, unlike Janet, he seems to have a high tolerance and it doesn’t affect him. I really wouldn’t expect a couple drinks to affect him much, since he’s a big, powerful man, with a muscular build and broad shoulders. He looks like he’s the type they’d say has a “strong back,” whatever the hell that means.

He’s both lean and muscular, and I wonder if he’s ridden his motorcycle here all the way from Manhattan, because he’s a little sweaty, and looks like he’s been on the bike for quite a while. They say a woman is attracted to a man’s smell before anything else, and he smells fucking delicious. I just want to jump his bones already…it’s something about my hormones…or it must be, since no rational woman would want to jump her CEO Billionaire bosses’ bones right away, right?

“My friend had an invitation,” I say, hoping that this explains the presence of his newly-hired cleaner at one of the fanciest parties I’ve ever been to, one that I certainly don’t really belong at.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” says John. “I just had to get out of the city…I work in Manhattan at a company…well, you don’t really want to hear about it. I’m sure it’d be really boring for someone to listen to me talk about. And I’m always talking about it. Anyway, I just had to get away from Manhattan, from the clubs, the parties…everything is just all the same there.”

That’s weird. Why does he think that I don’t know what he does for work? Does he think that a lowly cleaner wouldn’t understand what it is the business is all about?

I don’t say anything, though, except to comment that it’s a nice party after all.

“I guess,” he says. “But, listen, I came over to talk to you for a reason. I was going to leave the party. I was pulling up on my bike just as you were passing by in your car. Well, what I mean to say is that I was just going to turn around and leave on my bike, and then I saw you in the car, and I knew I had to come back to the party to talk to you, to find you. I knew there was something special about you at first glance.”

At first glance? He means earlier today. “You mean earlier today?” I say.

He gives me a confused look. “No,” he says. “When I saw you in the car with your friend, pulling up the driveway here. Here, in the Hamptons.” He ads this last sentence, as if it’s necessary to make it overly clear what he’s talking about.

Suddenly, something dawns on me: he doesn’t have any idea who I am. He either doesn’t remember me from earlier today at the interview, or doesn’t recognize me in my dress with my makeup. I probably do look quite different than the professional version of myself, wearing my ridiculous interview clothes. I was probably totally overdressed for a cleaner position, but, what the hell? I mean, I couldn’t afford to take any chances and not get the job.

Should I tell him?

No, I should have a little fun with this first. Well, that’s my first thought, and then I realize that it’s a really stupid one. I could be risking my job. But, on the other hand, if I tell him who I am right now, he might get upset and fire me or something. I heard he’s eccentric, after all.

But, really, if I’m being honest with myself, I know that I’m just having too much of a good time talking (and potentially flirting?) with this gorgeous billionaire. For one moment, I don’t have to be the broke woman applying for a cleaning job. I don’t have to be a cleaner. I get to look all fancy and apparently fit in and act like I’m the equal to this billionaire.