He answered the knock at the door, grumbling at me under his breath.
Henri had provided a huge feast for us with a plate each of the fettuccine alfredo, along with a tray of breadsticks with marinara dipping sauce, chocolate cheesecake, six layer cake, and berry cobbler.
“I think I’m in heaven.”
Rhys laughed and picked up the remote. “Action or rom-com?”
I piled my plate high with creamy pasta goodness, grabbed some bread and a little of each dessert, and settled into the overstuffed cushions of my sofa. “How about something sci-fi?”
We chose something that looked good, and soon got sucked into the compelling story. Before the movie was half over, my eyelids got droopy, and Rhys threw a blanket over me. I fell asleep before the movie ended.
Chapter4
Mia
Iarrived to work bright and early, before the sun was even up, because I wanted to get a good start on things. I had a lot to learn about Draven’s business, and I didn’t want to take up his valuable time taking too long to learn it. It was a good thing I picked up on things quickly.
When I opened the door to the study, I found my boss sitting across the room, studying his phone like it held the mysteries of the universe, and nodding at it. I found this funny for about 3.5 seconds until what sounded like Portuguese flowed smoothly from the speaker of the phone. He was on a conference call this early?
I blinked in surprise and started internally panicking. Was I late? What time was I supposed to have come in? Before I could get too far into my spiral of panic, Draven ended the call and smiled at me. “You’re fine. You don’t have to be in until 9. I just had an early morning conference call with one of the boutique hotels I’ve invested in overseas.”
I nodded, relieved I hadn’t been late on my first day, put my purse away, and looked at the desk that had been moved into the study for me. It was a beautiful desk with a cherry lacquered top and lots of cubbies and drawers to put all of my stuff in.
I loved it. My very first desk. I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo, and captioned it,Woohoo!And best of all, it had a rollie chair that dwarfed me when I sat down. I laughed in delight, rolling it back and forth.
Draven laughed at me as I took a few more spins in my chair. “They are fun. Down at the main building, my staff have an annual Office Olympics. One of the events is a Roller Chair Derby. You should join them next time. There are great vacation prizes for the winners.”
“I would love to do that! That sounds like so much fun!” I was getting the feeling that Draven was an amazing boss. I felt like I had been so blessed by this job. Words couldn’t even describe the kind of hopelessness that I’d felt recently. With that thought in mind, I wanted to prove that I could do a competent job here. Not just to my boss, but to myself. I checked the drawers for all the little things I’d need over the course of my first day and noted that I didn’t have everything I needed.
“If you’re missing anything, there’s a room down the hall that I use as an office supply. I’ll show you where it is later. It should have anything you could possibly need in there.”
I made a mental note to check it out later.
Draven nodded at the spread in the middle of the room on a high table. “Help yourself to something to break your fast. I’m sure you haven’t eaten yet.”
I palmed my grumbling tummy. Just the thought of the delicious food that came out of the kitchens here had me salivating. “Thanks.” I blushed, certain he could hear my stomach, even from across the room. I’d gotten the sense that the books had gotten that part about vampires right: they had amazing hearing.
Henri had set the tray up with what looked like croissants, coffee, peppermint tea, and butter. I opened up a steaming croissant and slathered some of the butter inside. It smelled heavenly!
“Oh my gosh, this is good. Is that honey butter? Yum.”
I tried not to shove the whole croissant in my face and eat like a lady, but it was a very near thing. Honey butter was awesome stuff. I poured some peppermint tea, served myself another loaded croissant, and scooted back to my desk. Seeing that I needed a few things still before I could even get started, I had Draven show me the office supply room, and just stared at the cornucopia in awe. Draven chuckled from behind me and gently nudged me inside. “Go on. It won’t bite,” he said with that trademark wicked amusement of his.
I shook my head. If a person had never gone into an office supply store, and almost got kicked out because they wanted to smell, taste, touch, andhoardall the pretties, this would not make sense to them. But I wasexactlysuch a person. I had a weakness for crazy and cute erasers, like penguins and sparkly lions. I loved colored pencils and pens, colorful binders and paperclips, reams of different packets of papers in the colors of the rainbow. There were coffee mugs! Draven, with a curl of his lip, handed me one that saidWorld’s Best Boss.
I handed him one back that saidWorld’s Best Assistant.He laughed while I loaded up a shopping bag’s worth of beautiful stuff and logged out what I’d taken in the open logbook on the counter.
I had a feeling I was going to love my job.
* * *
Once we got backto the office, he showed me on the computer how to log in to his private network, and walked me through what he needed from me week to week, and I got started. I input his schedule into an app that I then shared to his phone so he would have his schedule handy if he needed it. I also printed a copy and pegged it on my new sea-foam colored corkboard behind me.
I worked on catching up his account books for his private office and started inputting all the numbers into the computer. When I finished that, I mailed off all of his correspondence and sent off emails. My to-do pile was still enormous, but my ta-da-done pile was slowly growing.
By late afternoon, my stomach snarling interrupted the quiet of the office.
Draven laughed and made a call to the kitchens. When the food arrived, I almost jumped the boy with the tray, I was so hungry. He took one look at my feral eyes and decided to put the tray down and make a run for it. Only Henri, with his pursed lips and haughty air, stayed.
