Hidden Gem

"DING!" My cell phone chimed noisily right after I hit the snooze button. I gave up on the idea of sleeping in for another 15 minutes and pick up my phone. Before I can read the message, I already know who it's from and what it's about. "Can you pick up my dry cleaning on your way to work today?" The text message read from my boss of five years, Bradley Carmichael. I had to chuckle, as I had correctly predicted this scenario and already had his dry cleaning slip waiting in my purse. "No prob Boss :)" I quickly type out the response. And it really wasn't a problem. Bradley's dry cleaning place was technically on my way to work. Also, there was an amazing Italian bakery right next to it. My mouth was already watering thinking about the chocolate croissant and cappuccino that I was going to devour for breakfast. "Thanks! You're a life saver! :)" I give Bradley's reply a small smile. Oh how I wish I could be more than just his life saver. I would love to be one who got to kiss his enticing lips. The one who got to rip off his clothes. The one who got to feel his incredible naked body against theirs. "Okay girl, you definitely need to take a shower." I tell myself as I roll out of bed. I had to hurry, because there just wasn't enough time in my morning to masturbate, shower, get dressed, catch the bus, pick up the dry cleaning and grab a quick breakfast. I had to skip out one of these things. When I eventually reach the dry cleaning place, I can see the dissapointment in the cashier's eyes when I walk in holding out Bradley's slip. I understand her deflated mood. She was probably looking forward to seeing and flirting with Bradley. But instead she got me. I don't blame her, it would dampen my mood too. Her look of dissapointment is quickly replaced with a perfunctory smile. "Good morning, Miss Mills." She greets me as she takes the slip of paper out of my hand. "Good morning, Leslee!" I greet back, smiling at her knowingly. It's no surprise that all the women that cross Bradley's path ultimately fall for his charms and form highschool sized crushes on him. Although, I'm pretty sure that my highschool sized crush has grown into something more that I choose not to delve into. "No offense, but does Mr. Carmichael ever pick up his own dry cleaning?" Leslee asked with a giggle. I laugh out loud at her statement. "He brings it in by himself." I quip. "I'm sure you can drool over him then." "Hmmm, yes I suppose so. But usually my husband takes his order." She huffed. "I think there's an obvious reason why your hubby is taking his orders. He probably doesn't like seeing his wife's tongue hang out like a sick puppy whenever Mr. Carmichael is around." I joke. Leslee snorted with laughter. "I know! You're right. He's the worst! He never lets me have fun." She laments, shaking her head. "Not even a little." Leslee and Jude have been running their dry cleaning business for 20 plus years. They were a delightful old married couple that were always a joy to interact with. Jude could be on the grumpy side at times but it was part of his charm. "Well, it was nice to commiserate with you Ruby, but I'll need to grab your order now." Leslee stated with a wink. "I know you'll probably want to drop by at the bakery before catching your bus again." "Look how well you know me," I say with an appreciative smile. "I should hope so, after five years of picking up Mr. Carmichael's orders I should know a thing or two about you, even in my senior state." She quipped back before dissapearing behind a curtain. After a few minutes Leslee returns with three garments bags. I take them from her with thanks before I can rush off to the bakery next door. I make it to the office just in time to meet with Bradley who also just arrived to the office with his keys in hand. He's in shorts and a t-shirt, and his large gym bag slung over his shoulder. It looks like he just arrived after his daily workout routine. He's freshly showered with moisture droplets in his wavey blond hair and smelling gorgeous from whatever overpriced rich people shampoo that he uses. "Good morning, Ruby." He said with a bright smile on his face. His clear blue eyes light up even more when he notices the paper bag in my hand with the Italian bakery's name printed on it. "Did you bring in some extra croissants today?" He asked hopefully as he eyed the paper bag. "Of course I did. That's the best part of picking up your dry cleaning." I reply with a short laugh. He chuckles and he reaches for the paper bag. But I snatch it away and shake my head with an admonishing look. "If you take these now, then there'll be none left for anyone else." I chide. He gives me look like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "I only did that the one time." He replies with a guilty smile. "Then I ordered pizza for everyone afterwards." He is so adorable and my heart can't help but melt for him. "I obviously got two extra ones specifically for you, boss." I relent with a giggle. "Ruby, you are such a sweetheart. And thank you again for picking up my dry cleaning" He replies as he holds the door open for me. "You're welcome Bradley." I tell him with a smile. He waits for me to squeeze pass him and I get another chance to experience his intoxicating scent. He then takes the garment bags from me and rushes into his office. Knowing him like I do, he was probably out of nice suits that he kept in his office which is why he needed his dry cleaning so badly. He was going to get changed and then get ready for his first appointment before he had to head to court in the afternoon. "Ruby, before you start anything else today, can you cancel all my morning appointments?" He requests before shutting his door. "Cancel all the morning appointments?" I said aloud in confusion. There were a few important ones that could not be missed. Especially the one with Mrs. Smith, which had been cancelled two time previously. After a few moments of thinking how many people I would have to cancel on, I thought that maybe I had misheard him. I scramble toward his office and fling open the door. "Did I hear you correctly? You wanted all your morning appointments cancelled?" I ask as I walk in. It takes me only a moment to realize that I should have knocked on the door before I burst in. Bradley has already taken off his t-shirt and I am confronted with the naked wall of his hard muscled chest. I feel my jaw drop open at the sight and feel my mouth go dry. He was certainly a well made man. He didn't seem too embarrassed by me catching him in this state of undress. And honestly, why would he? If I were a man and had his body, I'd be happy showing off its perfection as well. "Yes, Ruby. I'm sorry, I know its short notice but it has to be done. I need to prepare for my big meeting this afternoon." Bradley replied as he perused his suit options. He had already neatly arranged his freshly dry cleaned suits in his closet. "Meeting? Don't you have to go to court at 1:00 PM?" I queried. He shook his head. "Sorry that I left you out of the loop, but I had Miranda reschedule my court dates on Friday." Bradley told me. "Valerie called me after you left and said Monday afternoon was the only time she had this week to meet up." I bristle when I hear her name on his lips. "But what about yout appointment with Mrs. Smith? This will be the third time that it's cancelled." I say in a terse tone. "She's the one who cancelled on us twice, I think she owes us some understanding." He replies and then he plucks his desired dress shirt from his closet. I spin around and face his office door to give some semblance of privacy. But personally I don't think I could actually handle seeing him take his shorts off. "Then surely you have gotten Miranda to cancel your appointments. You must know that I have a busy morning today. You have a lot court dates coming up this week." I reply, not looking forward to calling all those potential clients and cancelling on them. "I don't think Miranda quite has those same people skills that you do to accomplish this task," he explains with a laugh. "She would let them push her around and those appointments wouldn't even get close to getting cancelled." Bradley was right. Miranda our secretary, was just too sweet to complete this particular assignment as required. Otherwise, she was an ace secretary. "Also, getting the family ranch sold is my top priority right now. Everything else will have to wait until the sale is made." He pointed out. If you hadn't guess already, Bradley Carmichael is a man who grew up in the lap of luxury. His family is what you would describe as old money. There was even a library with their last name in town. He could probably live off his inheritance excessively and still have money left over for his own private jet. Even though he was super ultra rich, he was never uppity and was fairly down to earth. But sometimes it was mystery why he kept up his small law practice. A lot of us think it was stipulation in his late father's will if Bradley wanted to keep that flow of inheritance money. His father Conan Carmichael had one of the most prestigious ranches in the country. All of the horses from Carmichael Ranch always made to top five spots in all the horse jumping competitions that they were entered into. From what I could glean from Bradley and his mother over the years, is that Conan had hoped that one of his two sons would take over the ranch, but neither of them showed an interest. His older brother Eric had chosen to pursue law and politics, promptly moving to New York after graduation. Then Bradley followed suit in own humble way, not wanting to take on the responsibility of running such a renowned stable on his own. Eventually, Conan passed away and then his wife Everly took over the ranch. She hit the ground running and was able to keep up its high reputation for the past decade. However, this past year she felt she couldn't keep up with running the ranch as she got older and made the difficult decision to sell it. She had given the task of selling the ranch to her youngest son Bradley, which is why I knew so much about their situation. Because he still lived in California, he could do proper vetting of the candidates that were interested in purchasing the ranch. At first, it seemed that Bradley found flaws with any and every offer that came his way. He had turned every conceivable offer down. A lot of them had been generous. It was almost as if he didn't want to sell the family ranch where he grew up. But then Valerie Laurent entered the ring and everything changed. She was stunning real estate agent from France. She had long red locks, emerald green eyes and swimsuit model's body. Not only was she beautiful, but she was sharp like a knife and a tough negotiatior. She was representing an eccentric French billionaire Francois Bisset. When Bradley and I first met her to go over her client's feeble offer, that is when I saw Bradley's tongue flopping right out of his mouth. She seemed very aware of how Bradley was attracted to her and used it to her advantage. After an hour of discussion, he was ready to sign on the dotted line. Unfortunately for Valerie, her offer also needed Everly and Eric's approval for the sale to be final. Neither mother or eldest son accepted their initial offer. So, for the past three weeks or so, Bradley and Valerie have been renegotiating the sale of the Carmicheal Ranch. They had finally come to a point where Everly was happy to sign off on the deal. But Eric was still the last hold out that kept rejecting every offer that they brought him. I was really beginning to loathe Eric. Because of his constant refusals to sell, Bradley had to spend more time with Valerie hatching out a new deal. The more time he spent with Valerie the more enamored he became. It was blessing and curse to have a boss that already wealthy beyond any regular person's wildest dreams. If any of us messed up or made a glaring error, it would never bother him and he would never panic. However, because he was so calm and collected all the time, he sometimes lacked passion for most of cases that he took on. I knew that Bradley had a lot passion, I had witnessed it with my own eyes. But it appeared that he only reserved it for a few cases that got his motor going, which wasn't as often as I would like. "Of course, Boss. I'll get right on it." I tell him before I leave his office. I head to my office, deposit the bag of croissants on my desk and start booting up my computer. As I wait for it to get going, I slurp my French vanilla cappuccino and flip through the office appointment book. Luckily there weren't that many appointments to reschedule, so I breathe a small sigh of relief. When the computer is ready, I search for Mrs. Smith's pertinent information on one of our programs and look up our office calendar to find another date to rebook her appointment. Then I hear Miranda stumbe in, cursing after her keys and large purse clatter to the floor. I can hear her mumbling loudly to herself as she grabs her items off the ground. She then steps into my office as per her regular routine. "Good morning Ruby! Can I make you cup of coffee, because I sure need one after my commute." She says as cheerily as she can. I hold up my takeaway cup and slightly jiggle it to show her the caffeinated glory that I already have access to. "I'm good, but you can certainly take a croissant. You look like you need it." I reply as cheerily as I can. "Oh thank goodness for you Ruby. And thank goodness for Mr. Carmichael's dry cleaning." She says with much gratitude as she approaches my desk. "Actually, please take the entire bag to the breakroom. I can't be this close to such temptation." I instruct her as I push the paper bag in her direction. "Also, two croissants are for Mr. Carmichael. If you could serve them to him with his morning coffee, that would be great." She snaps up the bag of pastries with a big smile. "Of course I can. Anything else on the agenda this morning?" Miranda inquires as if she wasn't aware of the all court dates she had to reschedule last Friday. "Well it appears that everything will go on the back burner until the sale of Carmichael Ranch is finalized." I reply with a heavy sigh. "I'm actually mentally psyching myself right now for all the cancellation calls I need to make." Miranda smiles sheepishly, knowing that it partially her fault that I was given this duty. "Thank you so much for that. You know that you're the best work colleague in the world right?" "Yes, yes, I know. And you're welcome." She then leaves my office, which allowed me to return to my rescheduling task. I wanted to finish this as soon as I could so I could then assist Bradley with the sale. The faster I could help get this deal closed, the faster I could get Valerie Laurent out of our lives.