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“It’s totally fine. Just an accident.”
I went to the bathroom to clean myself up. Unfortunately, getting coffee out of a white shirt wasn’t exactly easy. It was okay, though, because I had an emergency dress in my desk. I chanted “emergency dress” over and over to calm myself down. Everything was fine. The coffee stain wasn’t important.
When I cleaned myself up as best as I could, I went back to my desk and pulled out my big drawer, the one that I kept everything in.
No emergency dress.
I flipped through my binders and papers, but my dress wasn’t there.
I winced as I remember where it went. I’d pulled it on for an impromptu meeting on Casual Friday. Desmond had wanted me in there to take notes, and I could hardly do that in jeans. I’d used my emergency dress and worn it home without bringing it back.
I was just going to have to hope that nobody noticed the very obvious coffee stains on my clothes.
Squid Ink
Riley
By five o’clock, I was ready to tear my hair out. Nothing had gone my way today. After that dumb fight with Paul and getting coffee spilled on me, I’d started calling people on Desmond’s calendar to confirm the meetings with their assistants. I’d somehow gotten them a row off and messed up their names. I’d also accidentally called someone’s direct line instead of his assistant, and he’d yelled at me for ten minutes straight for interrupting his golf time.
I was just printing out tomorrow’s agenda for Desmond when I heard a sound coming from the printer that I’d never heard before. It had jammed, which was easy enough to fix on my printer at home. You just had to open it up, move the paper out, and close it again.
Not true for corporate printers. Somehow, there was black ink spraying everywhere when I tried to open it up and take the paper out. Now in addition to the coffee stains, I looked like I’d wrestled with a squid.
And lost.
I needed to go home as soon as I could. Desmond had been in meetings all day, so at least I hadn’t had to deal with him. We’d declared détente or something, because after that explosive kiss and Zara’s interruption, we’d never talked about it. I was professional. He was professional. I had my assignments, did them, and went home alone. On the plus side, I hadn’t been brought along as a wing-woman to any bars since the last time when Desmond had walked me home. I didn’t have to walk him make out with anybody or see anybody touch him like Zara had. It still made me mad when I thought about how he’d made out with me while he was engaged to someone else, but it was a banked fire instead of an inferno now. It was his business, not mine.
I looked at his office door. Sneaking out at five, after the long day I’d had, didn’t seem so bad. Half the office left at five anyway. The overachievers stayed until six, which was when Desmond sometimes left. As his assistant, I normally had to stick around if Desmond was here.
“Riley? Can you come into my office?”
I spun around and looked at Desmond standing in his office’s doorway. I stood up, trying to pull my blazer together to hide the coffee and ink stains.
> “Of course, sir.”
I walked with my head up, but inside I was ready to snap. The guy whose golf game I’d interrupted this morning had probably called Desmond and now I was going to be fired. I hadn’t been alone with Desmond since that disastrous kiss, but I thought that I was pretty safe now. Two months had gone by without anything happening. No explanation, just a professional relationship.
“Could you sit down, please?”
His face was serious. This was it. I was going to get the ax, and I’d only been here for two months.
I started crying. Unladylike sobs made my whole body shake. I covered my face with my hands, incredibly embarrassed by crying in front of Dez.
“Oh, shit! Christ! Stop crying!”
“How can I stop crying when you’re firing me?” I choked.
“Firing you? What are you talking about? I’m offering you a promotion.”
My tears dried in an instant. “What?” I wiped my eyes with the back of my right hand. “What did you say?”
Position
Desmond
“I think that you’ve been doing a really good job. I know that you really want to work in marketing, so I contacted someone in my marketing department to see if they wanted any extra help. I told them all about what you’ve done as my assistant and it’s time for the next step.”
She stared at me. Her mouth opened and then closed. “I don’t know how to thank you. I really thought that you were going to fire me after…”
