The Billionaire´s Toy (Last Day) (7 page)

I waited for him to give me the approval to take one.  I could have done with the whole tray, I was so hungry. But I knew he would probably tell me off.

“Is that all you want?” he asked as I took a spring roll and put it on my plate. I was looking at the sad lonely spring roll and wondering if I should take another one.

“Take what you need, not what you think you should take.”

I grinned and then I took 4 from the tray and put them on my plate. He had a smile on his face as
he watch.  That's  when I noticed that there was another tray at his side of the table, with the same amount of food on it.

Gee, I´m so slow at times, we have
array each!
Now, I understand why he was edging me to take more. Silly, me.

He made me feel very anxious all of the time. Like I needed to watch myself with him, like I couldn’t
be  myself. I knew that wasn’t entirely abnormal, he was my boss after all.  Which boss would not make you feel nervous, being in the middle of Central Park with a waiter and chef. It was perfectly normal.

“So?”

“Are you going to eat or just stare at it?”

“Sorry.”

“Why do you keep apologizing?”

“Because—”
because when I look at you all I want to do is have you take me in my arms and rip my clothes off and when I don´t look at you I can feel your eyes burning into me like you can see me naked.
That’s what I wanted to say, but not what I said. “It´s because we´re in the middle of Central Park,” I whispered, as if everyone was listening.

“
Arh, you feel nervous about our surroundings?” he said, rolling up his sleeves and eating the spring rolls with a hunger that suggested he hadn’t eaten anything all day.

I was happy to see that he was hungry too. I glanced at my watch and saw it was nearly ten. How time flies. 

Time continued to fly by. We ate and he educated me about the bottles of wine that must be stored in a secret chamber under the park.  Before my glass was even empty it was filled up again and again, until, I completely forget that I was in the middle of a park and that I was attracted to my boss and really couldn’t handle my liquor.

***

Apparently, I started singing and talking very loudly in the park, so we moved into the limo. He bid me good night as I tried to put the key in the keyhole and he escorted me to my room and lay me on my bed. 

After a long weekend in bed, my head was still hurting. So were my legs, which I could not understand at the time. He told me everything as I walked into the office on Monday morning with a splitting headache. I had no actual recollection of anything.

He came to my desk as soon as I walked in wearing my dark glasses.

“That was a nice evening. Next time I will remember not to mix the wines or not offer so many bottles at once, or to offer you shots,” he said cheekily.

I remembered then that we had been doing a slam dunk at one point. 

Gee, I really can´t hold my drink.

He winked as he moved away, all I could do in my state was smell him and think about that night and how romantic it had been. I wished it had ended on a better note, because after all that drinking my memories of the night was vague.

I sat and frowned to myself, thinking about making a fool of myself. My thoughts were screeched to a grinding halt when Megan came to my desk.

“So, why the glasses?”

“Drank too much on the weekend.”

“Arrh, the dreaded hangover. So, why did Reid come over then? I saw him walking away with a smile on his face.”

Damn, she´s nosey.

“We´re in the middle of winter and I come in with dark glasses and, as much as I’ve tried, I still feel hung over. Not sure why until now.”

“Wait, were you drinking with him?” She pointed towards his office, her long hair was waving in my face and she was practically spitting at me when she spoke.

I realized then that I don’t just have big mouth when I’m drunk, but also when I’m hung-over.

“Did I say that?” I asked nervously, hoping that someone would rescue me from this interrogation.  I tried to pull away but she could see that I was avoiding her question.

“So, did you?”

“Yes.
Friday night, after work.”

“Oh,” she remarked, standing next to me.

I hoped that was enough, that she would leave me alone, but I had a feeling that it was going to get worse.  Avoiding her eyes didn’t help and the lights in the office felt really bright.

“So, you fucked your boss on the weekend and now you´re playing Ms. Innocent with the hangover,” she accused at the top of her lungs, poking a finger at me.”

I didn’t know what her problem was, but my blood was boiling.

How dare she try and humiliate me in the office.

“Ladies, what´s going on here?”

I was standing up, confused about her reaction. What was her fucking problem, I wanted to ask, but Jackson was standing next to us and staring at her.

“Nothing,” she replied, before walking away.

We both watched her walk away, swaying her hips from side to side.  She stopped and turned her head, lowering her glasses as if to warn me.  But warn me of what? I still didn’t know what was going on. I wasn't sure who was intimidating me more, her or Reid.

“Look,” Jackson whispered in my ear, “I know about Friday and I think it would be best to keep it to yourself.”

I was just about to open my mouth in defense and tell him that nothing happened when he held up his finger to silence me and turned his head so that no one could see what he was doing.

“People talk and they get the wrong impression about Mr. Reid, especially with what happened with Ms. White.”

Why are they always the famous last words?

“So, he took you out and you got a bit tipsy.”

“Drunk.”

“Call it what you like. The main thing is you got home safely and, by the look of things,” he chuckled, “You´re still recovering from your ordeal. No harm done.”

I nodded.

“I think you should stick to your job as a secretary, from what I heard about Friday, you would not do well as a singer,” he added with another chuckle.

He was right, I can´t do is sing
,  which is why I never do it in public.  I raised my hands to my face and shook my head.

“Good, now can you complete the
Wilkenshire report, before you fly out to London tomorrow.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you not read your email?”

“No.”

“One was sent at 7am.”

No wonder I never read it. Didn’t he see that I just arrived?

“I can see you are not making good use of your Blackberry.”

“No, it´s in my drawer, I thought it was for work, so I left it here. When I finish work I put it back in the drawer.”

“My dear, it was stipulated in your contract.”

He was talking about the one that told me my hours and how much I was earning.  I signed it without reading it.  Did he really think I was going to read the whole thing in one day?

“You’re his personal secretary.”

“I thought that’s what you were?”

“No, I´m his personal assistant,
you’re
his personal secretary,” he said slowly, as if talking to an adolescent. Or  maybe it was because I was hung-over, was I acting like a complete idiot?

“So, you need to be on call in times of emergencies outside of the office, which is why we gave you the Blackberry, not so it can be in a drawer but so it can be in your hand.
Always,
” he said, nodding his head and looking directly into my eyes. 

Does everyone think I don´t understand English today?  Maybe I should have called in sick.  I’m annoyed and it’s only 9am.  It´s going to be a long day, especially if I´m going to London.

Again I nodded and decided that I needed to read the contract. Right after I'd packed for London.

Chapter 9

“I would like to repeat what we did in Central Park one night, if you´re free?”

“Mr. Reid, sorry to interrupt,” Jackson said, bursting in just when things were getting interesting, “but we must discuss the Parkinson case, it´s getting out of hand.”

“Of course, I´ll leave you to it. We’ve finished anyway.”

Mr. Reid stood up, a frown on his face. I wasn’t sure if the frown was directed at me for leaving or for Jackson’s news. Either way, I knew he was talking to me when he said, “We´ll continue this conversation later.”

With those words, I hurried out of the room and closed the door.  As I closed it, I still had my hand on the door handle and, standing next to me — well, practically on top of me — was Megan. 

“What happened in there?”

“We took notes and then Jackson came in with the big news.”

“I know, so did you find out what´s going on?”

“No…”

“Pity,” she said, giving me a little breathing space. “If you do, let me know.”

Oh sure, Megan, I think you´re the first person I will tell. NOT. Seriously,

I wasn’t sure if she was mad or just delusional. Why on earth would I let her know first?  Especially after the way she spoke to me. 

Holy crap, if she finds out we´re going to London tomorrow, she´ll be on my case again.  Even worse, probably insist she comes along.

As if reading my mind, she walked back towards me when I was at my desk. “You do know we’re friends.”

Seriously?

“Sure,” is all I could
muster. I didn’t want to make her my enemy, there was something about her that I  couldn't put my finger on.  One thing for sure, being brought up on a farm gives you some sort of animal senses and those senses go crazy when she was around.  They had never failed me, but I’d never really had much chance to use them as I had always been in a safe environment.

I’d had a couple of things happen which just felt crazy to me. When I talked to people at work about it, they were like “that´s NY.” My job happened in a matter of minutes, which felt crazy, especially as everyone said it would take weeks to get a job because I was from a small town.

People tend to think that because you come from a small town that you have no sense, so you can´t achieve much.  We worked hard, unlike New Yorkers.  We grew our own food and bred animals, we weren’t afraid of hard work and labor.

Olivia said it was a polite way of them telling me go back home. She was a sweet girl. I had tried talking to her about Megan and she couldn’t stop singing her praises. Even Jackson raved about how fantastic Megan was, and he rarely even spoke to me.

Megan’s job title is MD Financial Services, a small subsidiary. They had their own offices out of town in Washington, so why she was always in the office was beyond me.  Obviously, no one cared, because they never seemed to notice.

Everyone in the office liked her. I knew they thought she was the best, they constantly talked about it. Making her an enemy wouldn’t be in my best interests. I wouldn’t go out of my way to be vindictive, but she
crept me out and was always up my ass. Sometimes I felt the need to go to the bathroom to check to see if she was in there.

I found her far too threatening, or maybe it was because she was always threatening me with a smile. And it’d be best not to talk about how she looks at me when she drags her glasses half way down her nose and just stares.
Why do people do that if they wear glasses? Do they think it is intimidating?
It scared me whenever she did that, it made me feel like I was in the principal’s office at school, being told off for not following instructions.  The problem was, the only instruction she gave was to stay away from Mr. Reid.

I once asked her if they were together.  She didn’t reply and merely sighed, an answer in itself. They must have been together and it didn’t work out, so she feels threatened by others being with him.

I shuddered at the mere thought of it.  Mr. Reid appeared on the office chat system, he was hardly on there so I knew he must have been desperate to talk.

CR:
Hey

Me:
Is everything OK?

CR
:No

Me:
Oh

CR:
Oh, so is tonight still on?

Me:
Oh, I thought you was talking about whatever is troubling Jackson.

CR:
Everything troubles Jackson, that´s his problem.

I sniggered. He reminded me of the time there was a leak in the office — you would have thought we’d had a flood. Jackson paced up and down going on and on about why maintenance didn’t do their job.

We had important deadlines to meet and clients due in the office, yet we had buckets around the office like we were hillbillies. He was sweet, but sometimes he reminded me of an old man.

CR:
What are you thinking playing with your imaginary piece of hair?