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Someone must be here, I reckon, even though I’m applying for her very job. I wonder if she’s resentful, or if she’s a temp.
I have my portfolio in a file on my lap. There are neatly stacked magazines on the side table beside the row of seats, but I ignore them. My hands are damp, and I surreptitiously wipe them on my skirt, even though there’s no one around to see me. I keep imagining that there’s a hidden camera in one of the ceiling corners, and my potential employer has it trained on me to see how I would react in front of an empty desk.
OK. So I’m a little paranoid.
One of the double doors to the office of the Chief Executive Officer, Morton Enterprise Ltd. opens. A wan-looking woman with slightly disheveled red hair stomps out on her equally red high heels. She’s pretty in a supermodel anorexic kind of way, but her features are scrunched up and her nose is red as if she has a cold, or if she’s been crying.
I sit up as she goes over to the desk and grabs the Louis Vuitton bag and flask. She eyes me vehemently.
“It’s all right,” she says, her eyes flashing. “You can have the job, I don’t want it.”
My jaw drops.
She stalks out through the front door, but not before turning to give me an imperious stare. I can’t help but quail from the physical blow of her eyes.
“Whatever he wants you to do, think hard and deeply about it before you say ‘yes’,” she snaps.
With that, she pivots on her sharp heel and breezes out of the office’s waiting area. A gust of wind goes with her, and it is as if a tornado has left the building.
If my hands were damp before this, they are practically dripping with sweat now. I get that she was the PA before this . . . but what happened? Should I even be here, applying for this job?
Suddenly, I’m scared.
I’ve come all the way for this after getting the heads up from my old college roommate, Lyla, who works as an exec down in Accounting . . . all the way down, down in the 42nd floor from this 75th floor ivory tower. I’m not even familiar with Chicago, having only been here once with my parents during my tenth grade summer. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a room, and I’m crashing in a cheap apartment somewhere in River North, the kind you rent by the week. So I’m basically bumming right now.
Should I be going in? The redhead has left that one door to the forbidding CEO’s office open like an invitation.
Step into my parlor, says the spider to the fly.
I clutch my portfolio as I get up. I take a few tentative steps to the open door. There’s no one to usher me in, and I can choose to sit here in the waiting area like a dummy or seize my own job opportunity in my hands.
Why are my hands so clammy and why is my pulse threatening to spill out of my throat?
“Hello?” I call out in a nervous voice. There could be no one in there after all, and if I walk in, they might accuse me of trying to filch corporate secrets.
A man’s voice replies, “If you’re the new PA, come right in. If you’re not, take a rain check and call me in the morning.”
Uh. Right. I’m not sure which option I’m supposed to choose.
I take a few more guarded steps to the doorway. I peer in.
The CEO’s office is almost like an entire floor to itself. It strikes me that it is oval – the significance of which is not lost on me. Yes, I know the skyscraper we are in is one of those architectural marvels with curved walls, but still – to have an actual oval office. I wonder if it’s the architect’s idea or the boss’s.
A large mahogany desk sits on one side and the walls are filled with rows and rows of dark bookshelves. There’s a painting that looks like a Rembrandt, but I’m not sure if it’s a real Rembrandt or if it’s a reprint. A sofa and two armchairs set in a blue-and-white striped design occupy another section.
Did I mention the view? Ah well, it’s staggering. Downtown Chicago sprawls below with its tiny toy cars and bustling pedestrians. And beyond, Lake Michigan stretches as far as the horizon – far, far into Canada.
The man with the deep, masculine voice is not sitting behind the desk. He’s coming out of what looks like an attached bathroom, and he is buttoning up his white shirt. I catch a glimpse of his chest – his pectorals are well-defined and broad and richly muscled, and his skin is creamy smooth, like a gym trainer’s.
But I’m not prepared for the man who steps out.
I take a step back, stunned.
He is singularly the most attractive man I have ever laid eyes on. OK. That is an understatement. He is utterly, mesmerizingly, mind-blowingly, take-your-breath-away gorgeous. His eyes are richly hazel with green and gold flecks in them. These catch the sunlight filtering through the glass windows as if they were mirror themselves. His dark hair – the color of rich teak – is slightly disheveled, as if he’s just tumbled out of bed.
And his face. Oh, his face. He could have been an actor or a New York model, and he would be a superstar of superstars. It’s as if the angels really put out the mold and taken a painstaking time to sculpture the most exquisite features possible on a man. I’ll put his age at around mid-thirties, because he already has some gravitas on his face – a world weariness and a slightly manic edge to his eyes.
He looks unpredictable and volatile. A man who has earned his reputation as the hostile corporate takeover king of the last five years.
Oh yes, I’ve done my homework.
His father is the Chairman of the company, and his younger brothers are the COO and President respectively. All this would lend him an aura of invincibility, of old money and family power, but the family is shrouded in secrecy, as if they are organized crime dons rather than respectable businessmen. They are hardly seen at social functions and are rarely photographed. Not much else is known about them other than that they lead equally shrouded lives.
He doesn’t wear a jacket and his pants sport a damp patch tellingly on his groin. His hazel eyes blaze at me.
“Well, what are you staring at?” he says, the side of his mouth crinkled in amusement. “Haven’t you ever seen the aftermath of guy getting coffee splashed on him before?”
Is that what happened? It’s funny the way he said it. Get coffee splashed on him. Does he mean it wasn’t accidental? You may forgive me if I’m a little dubious, because the whole scene with the redhead was a little suggestive.
My instincts are all telling me to flee. I don’t really want this job. There are other jobs in this city and other cities.
Christopher Morton is bad, bad news.
But I’m transfixed somewhat. Like a bug drawn to a flame, I can sense his raw, magnetic power. He exudes pungent, primal sex – the sex of cavemen and hunters and Highlanders riding on the coastline.
Now, I am not one to be drawn to bad boys. My parents are strictly religious and they brought me up to revere the institution of marriage and to preserve my virginity until then. I know. It’s archaic in this day and age. But I’m from a small town in the Bible belt, and I went to an all-girls’ Catholic school. Everyone thought like this, or at least pretended to think like this.
“Well,” Christopher Morton says, “I take it you’re not a corporate spy. So what are you doing here?” He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he walks to his desk. He moves like a predator.
“I-I’m here to apply for the job as the new PA,” I say, trying to suppress my rising panic.
“Really?” He glances at an open diary. “She didn’t pen it in. Figures. Then again, she didn’t slot anything else for me either. So sit.” He gestures to one of the chairs in front of the desk.
I’m going to get my interview? Butterflies do kamikaze runs in my stomach.
It’s just a job interview, Elizabeth Tyrell, I tell myself, trying to swallow the multiple lumps in my throat. How are you ever going to work for somebody like this? If you can’t even walk through a CEO’s office without wobbling like jelly, then you’ve got no business being in the corporate sector.
I seat myself in the swivel chair before his desk. I’m wearing a long-sleeved blouse and pencil skirt. Very officious. Very demure. I lay my portfolio on the desk before me. I daren’t look into his eyes. They are too intense. Too terrifying.
Besides, I don’t quite trust myself.
“So tell me about yourself,” he says as he folds his hands on the desk.
He has fine large hands, I notice. I can well imagine those hands stroking a woman’s body. Not mine. But another woman’s.
I clear my throat and launch into my well-rehearsed spiel. Come on, Beth, you can do it.
“My name is Elizabeth Tyrell, and I’ve just graduated from TMU in business administration. These are my qualifications.”
I nervously pass him my portfolio. He takes it and puts it down, unopened. His unflinching gaze still hasn’t left me.
I continue, my voice wavering slightly, “I have had no experience, but I’m a fast learner and I’m willing to work very hard and for very long hours . . . if someone would give me the chance.”
