“What the—?” I muttered under my breath.
“Clearly, he’s in one of his moods again today,” the receptionist said, shaking her head. “Good luck to you,” she tutted and looked down again.
“Sorry . . . uh, what do you mean?” I stood up and walked over to the desk.
The receptionist looked around nervously and then leaned in and whispered. “Mr. Stark, well, let’s just say he’s not exactly easy to get along with.”
“Really?” I swallowed hard and clutched my CV even tighter.
The woman nodded. “He’s made almost every one of his staff cry at some stage. And you better know how to do your job, he doesn’t like inefficient people or take kindly to—”
The phone interrupted her and she answered it at the speed of light. “Yes, sir, Mr. Stark,” she said into the phone. She paused and looked up at me. “Yes, there’s one more.” Another pause as she listened intently on the phone. “No, I’m afraid I can’t tell if she’s an ‘airhead buffoon with no real qualifications other than being the most inarticulate person you’ve ever met’ like the other one.” The receptionist widened her eyes at me. “I’ll send her up.” She put the phone down.
“Um.” Nerves gripped me. “Maybe . . .” I started backing away. “Maybe I’ve made a mistake. Maybe this job isn’t really for me after all.”
I didn’t wait for a reply and ran out the door as fast as my legs would carry me. This Mr. Stark sounded like a monster and even though I was desperate for the money, I didn’t want crying to be part of my job description. I cried enough already. I was one of those “nervous crier” types. And if I were truly honest with myself, I was feeling quite relieved that I had an excuse to leave. I mean, what had I been thinking . . .a disguise, a name change, a fake CV, for heaven’s sake. It sounded like a storyline straight out of the telenovela itself. It was probably one of the most ridiculous things I’dalmostever done in my entire life.
But then I saw it and stopped dead in my tracks . . .
“HEY!” I yelled as my car was lifted onto the back of a tow truck. “What are you doing?” I raced over to the traffic officer standing next to it.
“Are you the owner of this vehicle?” The man asked in that firm police tone that is intended to strike terror into your heart.It did.
“Why?” I asked cautiously.
“Do you know this is a no-parking zone?” The traffic officer pointed at a sign that was barely readable, due to the layer of rust on it.
“That?” I protested. “But you can’t even read it. That should be illegal, having a sign that no one can read. How are people supposed to . . . uh, uh—”
The traffic officer raised an eyebrow at me and pointed down at the road as my car moved off it.
“Oh! That.” I swallowed hard.
“Yes, that,” the traffic officer answered sarcastically. “That giant red cross through the big yellow word ‘parking’ is a dead giveaway, don’t you think?” He flashed me a patronizing smile.
“I guess I didn’t see it.”How the hell hadn’t I seen that?“I’ll move my car right now if you stop towing it.” I started digging frantically through my bag for the keys.
“Too late for that,” he said, sounding way too pleased with himself. He tore a piece of paper off his little notepad and thrust it into my hands. “One thousand rand gets it out. But you’ll have to come down to the pound to collect it. Have a nice day . . .ma’am.” He said that last part with disdain. And then he and my car were gone.
I looked down at the ticket in my hands. Asking me to pay R1,000 was like asking me to pay a million. I just didn’t have that kind of cash. Or any cash for that matter. I was down to my last hundred rand and unless I could use my eviction notice to print more money on, I was broke.
I looked at my other hand, the one that was still clutching my CV, and then my eyes slowly drifted back up to the cold steel building in front of me . . .
CHAPTERTWO
Ryan
He crunched the CV up and tossed it across the room where it landed in the dustbin. His aim was perfect, but he’d done this quite a few times already. He was frustrated. His entire world was falling apart around him and he didn’t like it one little bit.
He felt like he was walking a knife’s edge at work; with the current recession business was not great. The number of people taking vacations was down 35 per cent, and this was very bad for their cash flow, since holidays were their business. The shareholders and his board were putting huge pressure on him, and on some days he felt like he was drowning. He was also struggling to balance his business and his personal life, and currently feeling like he was failing at both.
“Dammit,” he cursed loudly. He needed an assistant! And he needed one now. And he needed one that didn’t cry and break down and go through ten boxes of tissues a day because she was going through a bad break-up. Boo-fucking-hoo. He’dhad tofire her.
Of course, this had only gone on to cement his reputation even further as a cold-hearted bastard, incapable of any real emotions, and generally a bad, horrible boss! (That’s what he’d overheard them say around the proverbial water cooler anyway.)
What they didn’t know,couldn’t know, was that he was very much capable of real feelings. Real pain and anguish and every other negative emotion you could think of. His emotions tended to err on the negative side. In fact, he couldn’t really remember the last time he’d felt happy—or laughed, for that matter. All he felt these days was pain. He’d just become very good at hiding it behind a wall of anger. Because anger was so much easier to deal with.
And he had to hide it, because on some days the feelings were so overwhelming that they threatened to knock him off his feet. And if he collapsed, three hundred people would soon find themselves jobless—but they never thought about that, did they? They never thought that their job security relied on him being a “cold, hard bastard,” always in perfect control of his emotions. “Never get distracted. Always stay focused. Never show weakness,” as his father used to say. He’d let him down once before in this regard; he didn’t intend to do it again.
