Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78990 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78990 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
“Pounds,” she replied. “A hundred and twenty actually. But two hundred wouldn’t be enough to deal with his stupid ass.”
A hundred and twenty thousand pounds? I did the calculation in my head. That was over a hundred and fifty grand a year. “What exactly was your job?” I asked.
She groaned. “To do anything Andrew asshole Blake wanted me to do.”
“Like what? Be specific.” We’d never gotten past how much of an asshole her boss was for me to understand the detail of what it was she did. “Were you getting him coffee?”
She sighed. “You know what? That was the one thing I didn’t do. No dry-cleaning or making personal appointments either. Like, nothing personal. It was almost as if he didn’t have a life outside work. Like he was a robot or something. A rude, stupid robot.”
Most assistant positions that I knew about involved a lot of coffee making and dry-cleaning retrieval. A friend of mine once had to break up with her boss’s girlfriend. How bad a boss could Andrew be if he kept things strictly professional and paid a hundred fifty thousand dollars a year?
I grew up in New York with a single mother who worked three jobs—or two and a half, if my participation in the weekend office cleaning job at the office above the CVS on 113th and Broadway counted. I could put up with a rude, demanding, spoiled boss for a hundred and fifty grand. Hell, I’d deal with his dry cleaning for that.
“You’re definitely not going back?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” she said, taking another gulp of wine. “No freaking way.”
“Sleep on it,” I said, my mind racing through the options of when would be a good idea to ask her if she thought I’d be a good fit for the role.
“I’ve slept on it plenty the last three months. I can’t do it anymore. Did I tell you the last person in the role only lasted a day? Not even—she didn’t come back after her lunch break.”
“You’ve done amazingly to stick it out. But a hundred and twenty thousand pounds is a lot of money.”
She glanced over at my laptop. “Still nothing?”
“Nope.” Jobs were scarce. “It will happen though. And we’re not here to talk about my lack of job.”
“No, now we can talk about my lack of job.”
I offered her an I’m-sorry smile of solidarity.
“Don’t feel bad. Tomorrow morning I’ll feel elated that I don’t have to deal with that jerk anymore.”
There was no time like the present. If she was completely sure she wasn’t going back, I needed to take the bull by the horns. “And if you do, then we can talk about whether or not you think I’d be good to take over as Andrew Blake’s assistant.”
Natalie’s beautiful, saucer-round eyes widened. “You. Want. My. Job?”
“Well, no. Not if it’s still your job. But if you’re done with it—really and truly can’t take any more—then it’s got to be worth a shot?”
Natalie shifted sideways in her seat and grabbed my shoulder with her wine-free hand. “No, Sofia. It’s not worth a shot. He’s awful. Truly awful. And what he does for a living? He basically ruins peoples’ lives. And you help him ruin people. It’s really not worth it.”
I loved Natalie. But she’d grown up in a wealthy suburb in New Jersey. Not trust-fund wealthy, but definitely no-student-loans wealthy. We-have-great-healthcare wealthy.
Natalie’s mother hadn’t worked one job since she and her brother were born, let alone three. I didn’t resent it. It was just a fact that she couldn’t understand what it was like to be truly desperate.
“Natalie, I’m running on empty and at this rate I’m going to have to go back to New York with less than I left with. And when I get home, my mom is still going to need a knee replacement I can’t pay for. I still won’t have managed more than an awkward ‘How’s things’ phone call with my father. I’m a tough cookie. I’m sure I can handle Andrew Blake for a couple of months. Until I find something else at least.”
Her gaze hit the floor like I’d just told her that her cat had died.
“But seriously, I’ll only go for the job if you’re really done with it.”
She sighed. “Honestly, I’d almost rather go back than have you exposed to the horror. But I don’t think I can take one more day with that man.”
I was sure I could deal with one day with Andrew Blake. I was sure I could do three months. Maybe even a year. Whatever it took to keep me in London long enough to build some kind of relationship with my father and get the money I needed to fix my mother’s knee. I was just going to have to suck it up.
Two
Sofia
The sky was as black as it ever got in a big city. If the darkness didn’t give it away, the chill in the March air trumpeted that it was way too early to be standing outside the Blake Enterprises offices.