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“Mr. West is requesting a meeting with Mr. Nagamori as soon as possible.”
“In person or conference call?”
“Oh fuck, I didn’t ask… um, does he have anything in person available this week?”
“He’ll be in town on Friday. Does that work?”
I perused over Damian's full calendar. “Uh, yeah. I can make that work. I’ll move some things around. Maybe late afternoon and they can make it a dinner meeting?”
“Works for us.”
“Okay thanks, Claire.”
“Talk soon.”
“Probably.” I laughed and hung up the phone.
I groaned as I stared at Damian's calendar. I was going to have to move a bunch of things around to make this work.
I spent the afternoon moving meetings around and triple checking that they were all still scheduled before the contract deadlines that he’d be discussing in each meeting. It was like a little puzzle I had to mash together.
While I was pissed at Damian, that didn’t change the fact that I took my work seriously, and as I bent over backwards to do a good job, it didn’t escape me that I was helping put myself out of business. Every chess piece I moved forward on the board moved us closer and closer to the oblivion of the Horizon View building. I secretly hoped the permits wouldn’t come through and that the building would magically be saved. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to rent my space back anyway, at least not at the price I had before, but I couldn’t help rooting for Damian’s deal to crash and burn all the same.
Would serve him right. Fucking egotistical asshole.
The next few hours went by in a blur. Overall, I was beginning to find my footing getting Damian's coffee, managing his calendar, and occasionally fetching his dry cleaning. The job wasn't hard, except for the weird angry energy that now existed between Damian and I. Everyday I wondered if I should quit, but I needed the money. Desperately.
“Addison?” Damian was calling me impatiently from his desk through his open door.
I quickly got up and went into his office. “Yes?”
What have you been doing?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve been calling you for the last few minutes.”
“I’m sorry I’m not at your beck and call every waking minute of the day, Damian.”
“That’s Mr. West to you, and that’s what I pay you for. To be at my beck and call at any hour of the day.” He gave me a look I couldn’t decipher. “I need you to stay late tonight and finish digitizing these contracts.”
“I can’t.” I said simply, giving him a defiant look. I couldn’t help but snap back when he said things like that.
“Oh, you can’t?” He roared.
“That’s right, I have plans.” Which was a lie, but I dug in all the same. I wasn’t about to stay late again.
“Addison, if I need you to get on your hands and knee’s spit shine my shoes at three in the morning, then you’re available to do it. You got that? If not, you don’t have a job.”
“Please, you think your shiny shoes are going to close your deals for you? Maybe if you did a little bit of your own grunt work, you’d know how to get something done around here.” I was grasping at straws, but I was pissed at him, and taking jabs wherever I could find them.
“Excuse me?” His eyes were dark, and he paced over to me.
“You heard me. I think you’re a lazy, fucking, business killing bastard.”
He was towering over me with a sinister look on his face that sent a chill down my spine. “Sweetheart, I run a multi-billion dollar company. I don’t have time to fetch coffee. But you do. It’s what I pay you for. I have bigger, more important things to take care of, it’s how I sign your checks.” He was seething, “And as far as shining my shoes, if I need you to get down on your knee’s for me… then that’s what you’ll fucking do.”
I tried to hold my ground, and not shrink as he yelled at me.
