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Chapter 1
Evie
It took me months to get that job.
Weeks and weeks of sitting at home, glued to the screen of my phone and my computer, waiting and praying and hoping and making all kinds of deals with the universe in a desperate attempt to get a positive response.
But, nada.
“Nobody wants you,” my older brother Steve teased me when my job hunting hit the six-month mark. “You’re too fat.”
“I’m not fat!” I hit back, a bit self-conscious because I had actually gained some weight sitting behind the laptop, firing off emails all day, eating candy while I scrolled the job ads.
“Besides, there is no picture on my resume!”
“Maybe you sound fat?” he said, challenging me.
“And how do fat people sound?” I asked.
“Hungry!” he laughed. I had to smile at that. I knew this was Steve’s clumsy way of trying to cheer me up. He had a job, working with our father in a charter boat fishing business on Lake Tahoe, taking visitors out for trout fishing in summer. It wasn’t heaps of money, but enough to keep the business ticking over.
But I’d insisted on going to college, got myself a little degree to prove I was smart and that I had options besides smelling like fish all day. Only problem was, it seemed I had no options after all. Unemployment was high, the economy was slow and there were too many business graduates flooding the job market, one recruiter told me, asking if I’d be happy to work in another industry.
“Like what?” I wanted to know.
“How about accounting?” she asked.
“Err… I don’t think so,” I said, not wanting to mention that I had only barely passed this particular subjectafter several failed attempts. It also bored me to tears, and the thought of crunching numbers all day was worse than puking my guts out from motion sickness on the boat.
Then, just like that, my lucky break came.
I got a call from an agency asking me if I’d be interested in being a personal assistant.
“A PA?” I asked. “Like, a glorified secretary?”
“Nobody refers to them like that anymore,” the recruiter said stiffly, clearly not impressed with my attitude.
“But I’ve got a degree!” I protested. “Don’t PAs fetch coffee and take messages, basically?”
The problem was, I’d had this idea of me working at maybe a digital agency, or in advertising, some sort of media business, putting together witty campaigns and cute videos.
“This isn’t just any PA job,” the recruiter said. “Your resume was selected by Tate Sagarro.”
“Who’s he again?” I asked. Embarrassing moment number two. I’d heard the name but I couldn’t pinpoint where. Football player maybe?
“Are you interested or not?” the recruiter asked, tetchily.
“Yes, sorry, I am.”
“Google him,” she said pointedly, before putting down the phone.
So I did.
A picture came up of a blonde hunk with too-white teeth and hair that looked like it had more product in it than mine. He was the CEO of HumanITy, a tech start-up in Silicon Valley. It was an app development agency with a number of hugely successful apps, most of which I had on my phone. I read an article that described him as a kind of wunderkind, an innovator who spent more time doing extreme sports than sitting in an office chair. He was divorced, a single dad with a young daughter and a reputation as a bit of a daredevil. What kind of a man went off skydiving when he had a child to look after? There was not a lot of information about the ex-wife, but it seemed she lived in Los Angeles. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, I thought with a disgusted snort.
Tate Sagarro’s world couldn’t have been further removed from my own. I’d been raised to value family, to love and appreciate my siblings and parents. I was not a thrill seeker at all, I hated going out even on the flattest of water on my father’s boat. My pulse was sent racing by a sale at the local store and that was enough of an adrenaline rush for me.
My job interview took place online, in our kitchen at home. HumanITy’s Head of HR interviewed me. An older lady with loads of make-up asked me a few questions, seemed bored by my responses and I did not expect to hear from the company again.
