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Nor has he seen the form clipped to the board tucked under Donna’s arm.
Streams of icy water run beneath my skin as a thought seeps into me: Did he already know while I was busy trying to de-beet his shirt that I’d be working with him?
Is that why he was watching me so intently?
Kind of like he is now...
He holds his right hand out for me to shake and after glancing quickly at the three other men sat around the table watching us, I comply with the taciturn request, my fingers clumsily sliding across his palm before he squeezes my hand firmly, his eyes ablaze as he watches me.
I withdraw my hand, pretending to ignore the full-body tingles that just washed over me like warm ocean water.
“Thank you, Donna,” he says as she departs. “Indigo, this is Andre Williams, Steven Bradshaw and Ian West. We’ll be discussing their plans to open a new casino in Virginia next year and the possible PR fallout from it.” He turns to them. “Indigo has signed our NDA.”
The men all smile, saying hello, though in my tight little skirt, I suddenly feel like some little doll brought in to amuse them, the opposite of the powerful inner goddess I tell women to embrace when I’m giving yoga classes or leading kirtan meditations.
“You can sit here.”
My apparent boss for the next week points to the chair at the end of the table right next to him in front of which sits a notepad and pen. “I’ll need you to take some notes about any concerns raised, any problems that could arise and suggestions we make along the way. It doesn’t have to be verbatim—just the ideas in note form.”
“Okay.”
He fixes me with a stern regard. “First, we’ll need some tea and coffee. The machine’s at the back.”
He gestures towards the back wall, but I don’t look, my whole being flooding with most probably unjustified outrage at the fact that he’s turning me into his own personal tea-making slave.
I mean, granted, I’m here to be his freaking assistant apparently, and he is paying me, but it’s not so much the request as the bold way he required it of me, as if his superiority to me was without question and I’m supposed to just waddle along and do anything he wants.
I attempt not to glare at him too uncivilly as I begin to contemplate whether debasing myself in a minor fashion for the next week is worth the three grand I’m going to be paid.
In one ear, I hear Rami’s voice telling him that he can go sit on the spout of that tea pot over there, and in the other, I hear Fran’s telling me to just suck it up and be his little tea maid and in exchange, milk him, not literally hopefully, for more money than I usually make in three months.
Fuck.
Throwing him my boldest glower of indignation, which if I’m not mistaken causes a sliver of amusement to dance in his eyes, I turn on my heels and head to the back wall, switching the full electrical kettle on which I presume I’m supposed to put on the mat in the middle of the table next to the sachets of tea all neatly sorted and stacked, no doubt by one of his minions, in a box on the table.
I turn my attention to the coffee machine, suddenly feeling like my ass is really on display in this tight skirt.
The machine has about eight different buttons on it and looks like something that could blend in on the International Space Station.
I think my mother had something similar at her house, though I was always so eager to get out of her company that I very rarely sat around the kitchen table long enough to watch her sulk her way through the most mundane of tasks in her fancy kitchen.
By the time I’ve figured out that this thing has its own built-in grinder, the water in the kettle has already boiled and I decide to take it over to the table to take the heat off me as I figure out how to work the coffee machine of my nightmares.
As I place it on the table, Greyson’s voice stops me. “There’s a clear jug for the hot water.”
“Oh.”
“This will do… for today.”
I arrow a pointed look at him before heading back to the coffee machine, opening the grinder at the top and pouring in what I imagine is an appropriate amount of beans from a metallic bag next to it, adding the water from the dispenser nearby and spending thirty seconds trying to figure out which button to push.
But before I can do so, a shadow darkens the wall before me and I angle my head up, my gaze colliding with the arrogant prick I have to be subordinate to for what I sense is going to be a week that requires me to draw on every single one of my zen meditations to get through.
Not that I was ever that good at those, frankly.
“It looks like you need help.”
“No, thank you,” I sing as the men at the table keep talking. “I am capable of making coffee, believe it or not.” I let out a sigh. “Unless you need it before the end of the meeting, that is,” I mutter, realizing I’ve earned an E for effort for my first task as personal assistant, or whatever PG-rated Dom-sub fantasy Mr. Everitt’s going to subject me to this week.
