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I concentrate on returning one email after another for the next fifteen minutes until I hear a knock at my door. “Enter.”
Hollie walks in with a confident stride and her head held high. She has a notebook and pen in one hand, coffee in the other. She gingerly sets the coffee down on my desk and then remains standing in front of me with an expectant expression on her face.
My eyes sweep from the top of her blonde bun down to the tips of her high heels. Every dirty secretary fantasy I’ve ever had is running through my head.
“Have a seat.”
She quickly plants her butt into the same chair she sat in on Friday and opens her notebook to the first fresh page, pen poised to take notes on whatever task I assign her. It would amaze you at how many of my previous assistants have walked in here with nothing to take notes on. They’re usually gone by the end of the day.
“I assume you’ve taken care of all of your HR paperwork?”
“Yes, sir.”
Heat shoots through my body. Damn, I like it when she calls me ‘Sir’. It would be even better if she was on her knees in front of me while she did it. It would probably be inappropriate to add that to her to-do list.
“I’ll expect you here every morning before me so that you can prepare to brief me on my schedule for the day. In fact, if I’m here, I’ll expect you to be here as well. That means your day isn’t over until mine is.” I pause for a moment to see her reaction to that. This is the point where the weak ones usually hem and haw about other responsibilities or places they need to be in the evenings, as if I should care. Hollie merely nods, pen poised over her pad of paper.
“I’ll also require my coffee to be on my desk when I arrive. It should never be cold. Understand?” I know I’m being rather short with her, but I need to get her out of my office and back to her desk. Plus, I don’t plan on treating her differently than any other assistant I’ve had, even if she did star in my fantasies this weekend.
“You got it, Mr. Clarke.” She’s studiously making notes in her notebook, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as she concentrates on what she’s writing. Jesus Christ.
I clear my throat, and she brings her hazel eyes up to mine. “You’ll have access to my calendar and scheduling my appointments. You’ll also be screening my emails. If there is something that you can take care of, do it. I don’t need to see requests for appointments, just handle it. If there is anything that I should see, forward it to me.” I don’t even give her a moment to finish writing before I continue rapid-firing information at her. “There should be a list in your desk of people that should be put through to me immediately if they call and those that need to go straight to my voicemail. There’s only so much time in a day and I don’t want it wasted.”
“Of course.”
I glance at the white gold Patek Philippe on my wrist and realize that I’ll barely make my nine a.m. video conference with the board. “I need to speak with the General Manager of our San Diego hotel. Notify me when you have him on the line. That will be all for now, Miss. Simmons.”
I dismiss her with no room for discussion, and she closes her notepad. Before she makes it out of my office, she stops and turns back to me. My eyes haven’t left her once.
“Oh, Mr. Clarke?”
My eyes remain on her, staring, while waiting for what she has to say.
“Thank you again for the job. I can promise you won’t regret it.”
“The best way for you to thank me is by doing your job,” I say gruffly. She nods and is quickly out the door, closing it behind her. I’m once again left alone wondering what I’ve done by hiring her. I was hoping when I showed up today I would find that my reaction on Friday had been a mistake. A fluke. That she wasn’t as beautiful as I remembered, that her curves weren’t quite as soft and grabbable. If anything, my memory had underestimated her appeal.
Letting out a sigh, I log into our secure site for my conference call. As the screen populates with boxes of other board members in their offices, I wait impatiently for the meeting to start. If it’s not one thing, it’s another with these people.
I see the box pop onto my screen that contains the rounded and reddened face of my Uncle Gilbert. Once upon a time, after my parents died when I was sixteen, Uncle Gilbert took over the operations of Clarke Hotels. It had not been a great time for us as a company. He was more interested in partying than he was in the business, and things slowly started trending downhill.
I couldn’t let my father’s legacy be run into the ground. I graduated from Stanford with a degree in business in three short years and at twenty-one, I took the reins of Clarke Hotels. It was my father’s wish that I take over as CEO and while some of the board members resisted, most could see the writing on the wall with my uncle at the helm of this ship. When I took over, Uncle Gilbert maintained his position on the board. I can’t imagine he was thrilled about giving up his job to a kid just out of school, but he didn’t really have a choice.
Over the next twelve years, I not only righted the ship, but expanded operations, taking the company to a whole other level. Suddenly, a company with boutique hotels exclusively in Washington state had grown outwards until we were blanketing the western United States. What was once a multi-million dollar company was now a billion dollar one.
I am planning on opening a New York City hotel within the next three years. In the meantime, we are going to up our status and value considerably once we open the resort in Santa Cruz. While no one could complain about the job I’ve done, a few board members are still worried about what putting so much of our resources into the Santa Cruz property would do if it failed.
They don’t realize that I won’t allow that to happen. This resort is going to be my crowning achievement. I just have to get Caroline DuPont to sell it to me. I know she is entertaining bids from several developers, but I’m confident that we’ll offer her the most enticing deal.
Richard clears his throat over the speakers and begins the meeting. About thirty excruciating minutes later, everyone is logging off and my internal intercom buzzes. I hit the button to answer and Hollie’s sweet voice comes out of the speaker at me.
“Mr. Clarke, I have a Mr. Rivera from The Clarke, San Diego on the line for you.”
“Send him through.” I glance at my watch, noting that the morning is slipping by me. There’s a soft click in my ear as Hollie drops off the line and connects me to San Diego. I’m not looking forward to hearing Rivera complain about staffing problems. This should be something he can handle on his own. This is a general manager issue, not mine. However, I didn’t make this company successful by keeping my hands clean.
I’m not sure I’ll have time for lunch today with how things are going. It’s not even ten, and I’m already woefully behind.
There isn’t a chance to leave my office for the rest of the morning, so I haven’t seen Hollie. She’s begun forwarding me emails she thinks are relevant and most of the time she’s correct. I also notice her forwarding emails that don’t require my attention to the correct department. She is turning out to be at least competent. She has initiative. Perhaps this will work out better than I thought. I just have to stop thinking about her hair… and her lips… and her breasts.
