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The box did look a lot more organized after I did that, with five donuts lining each side.
Suddenly the door opened with such a ruckus that I nearly jumped out of my skin. It sounded like a thunderclap. Taking hold of the arms on my claimed chair, I kept myself mostly in check.
“Hey, donuts,” said one of the ping-pong bros.
Those two little words set off a feeding frenzy. People seemed to come out of nowhere to devour the sweet goodness, making the donuts disappear within minutes. No one stopped to even wonder where they had come from.
The box was swooped up and discarded as soon as it was empty. I wasn’t exactly expecting a parade, but a ‘thanks’ would have been nice.
Such thoughts soon fled from my mind. I had assumed that everyone who was going to be at the meeting had already arrived, not noticing the empty seat at the head of the table.
The senior editor’s chair.
It was a seat of power soon taken by the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. My tummy flipped and my pussy tightened as I tried not to stare or drool, Both goals proved to be a challenge given his distracting good looks.
Was this the mysterious Simon Del Rey?
If not, someone was going to have a lot of explaining to do.
The meeting passed like a blur. It took most of my available attention to write down some keywords, my mind too often getting lost in the pools of Del Rey’s blue eyes.
“That’s about everything,” he finally said, in a warmly casual tone.
“What about Secret Santa?” asked the woman next to me.
“Oh, don’t think I’ve forgotten our time-honored holiday tradition,” he assured her. “I was just pausing for dramatic effect.”
Reaching down into the bag sitting at his feet, Del Rey brought up a hat, placing it on the table. It was one of the old-fashioned kinds that rich men in the movies wore, except it was full of slips of paper with peoples’ names written on them.
I wished the receptionist were here so that I could tell her I wasn’t the only one who had come prepared.
Taking out a piece of paper, he passed it to the person on his left. The hat made the rounds before returning empty to Del Rey’s hands.
He flipped it up into a rakish position on his head. I would say he looked like Sinatra, but that would be insulting. To Del Rey.
“Have fun, kids,” he said with a wink, before strolling back out of the boardroom and momentarily back out of our lives, cool as you please.
I could have sworn that wink was aimed right at me.
But maybe it was just wishful thinking.Chapter Four - SimonMy parting wink was aimed in Skye’s direction as I left the boardroom. I knew who she was and exactly what I wanted to do with her by that point.
After I had parked and walked into the building, I saw that Sam was at his post, like he had been every day since I saw my future at the company when I was a tea boy back at 15 years of age. University was never really been a thought. I knew there was money coming sooner or later and my parents would help me out as long as they still lived.
It was really more a matter of finding something to do and publishing seemed the thing. I could have pulled a Lord Byron and lived on my parents’ money while I wrote, but I wanted to contribute to the industry that had given me so much, books basically being my only friends as a kid.
I did write, of course, but it was purely for the love of it. Some might sneer that this made me little more than a hobbyist, an amateur. But that type clearly had no idea what the word ‘amateur’ really meant.
Instead of referring to something not for pay as so often assumed by English speakers, the word getting twisted over time, amateur reduces from the French word for ‘lover.’ Basically a true lover, usually of the sexual form, but others as well, all of which could be accurately applied to me with little embarrassment.
Rather past the largely superstitious mores of ‘polite society,’ I took things as they were, demonstrating a strong preference for the beautiful and true, rather in the traditions of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. ‘Romantic,’ in the philosophical sense, was an accusation I wore with great pride.
“Morning, Mr. Del Rey,” Sam had said as I walked in, with a tip of his hat.
“Morning, Sam,” I had told him, taking up the pen as Sam turned the book toward me.
“The new editor arrived today, Mrs. Stewart.”
“Did she now?”
“Yep, you’re in for a treat.”
“Oh, how so?”
“You’ll see,” he had said with a wink.
