Chapter 3: A Rough Day
Anaya's P.O.V:
Three hours later, I was cursing every known God on the planet for the ungodly existence of the being called Lancelot Eustis.
Not only was the guy rude and arrogant, bastard was also a sadist. He'd given me work alright, and I wasn't complaining about it at all, but he purposely kept calling me out to do meaningless chores so I get delayed from the actual work at hand. For example, I'd been working on compiling data in a recent merger Reefwood had undergone with Glasgow Internationals, but he constantly kept calling me in his cabin to fetch files for him which simply kept piling up on his desk. Not to mention that the files he asked for were kept in places too difficult to find.
"Ms. Johnson."
And there we go again.
I gathered the Glasgow files in my hand as soon as the printer released the final page; stapled them together and put the whole thing into a file and took it with me when I entered his office.
He was sitting on his huge revolving chair with his legs popped up on the desk. He was leaning back on his chair with his eyes closed and hair disheveled. He looked like he was drained. Yeah right! A person who was drained of energy wouldn't be hovering over a half-n***d girl, ready to get sweaty a mere five hours ago.
He opened his eyes as soon as I walked in and before he could utter out a command, I spoke. "Here you are, Sir. The progress reports you asked for about the Glasgow merger, along with the details on their bankruptcy before the merger and the list of all employees that work under Reefwood now and that too…15 seconds ahead of time. You were saying?"
Did I mention he'd been giving me time limits? Do this in 30mins Ms. Johnson. Those files should be on my table within 1 hour. Etcetera. Etcetera.
I held out the file for him to take but he stared at me for a good 10 seconds before taking the files from my outstretched hand and flipping through the pages. With the speed he was flipping through, I had doubts he even read a single line of the report, but he must have because he definitely looked impressed by the time he'd flipped through to the last page.
"Well done Ms. Johnson. You've exceeded my expectations." He told me with a small smile that transformed his face from grenade to nuclear handsome.
"Does that mean I get to keep my job?" I asked sweetly.
"No." His smile disappeared and was replaced by his usual frown. "You get to leave an hour early than the time I'd planned to send you home."
"Which was?" I had a very bad feeling about this.
"Midnight."
Judging by the way his lips tilted at the corner into that oh_so_wretchedly_handsome smirk, I knew my face had paled considerably. But he was firing his next order before I had a chance to complain about the atrocity of the act. "Bring me that red diary from the coffee table."
Frowning I went over to the table and brought back the tiny red diary which looked like the miniature versions of the Bible we got from school. I went to hand it over to him but he held up a hand.
"That diary has all the information about my mistresses, arranged according to alphabetical order. I-"
"Wait a minute...mistresses?" As in plural?
"You have a problem?" There was a hard edge to his voice, like he was daring me to ask more.
I would've gladly taken up the challenge had I not been on a one week deadline. "No, Sir."
"As I was saying, arrange the names accordingly in weekly orders and tell me the first name you come up with." His voice was firm.
So without fussing over him any longer, I did as told and arranged the names in weekly order. It didn't take me all that long to arrange.
"Annabelle Brooks." I told him the first name that came on the list.
"Scratch that out of the list. I've already drained her."
I looked up sharply at his last word. "Drained?"
For a second, I saw an unknown expression pass through his eyes before they became expressionless and a smirk tilted his lips upwards. "I'm a very hard man to please Ms. Johnson. She drained herself trying to do so last night."
My hands tightened around the diary. How dare he talk about a woman with such disrespect! "Mr. Eustis." I grit out, surprised to find my voice still even. "Do you have any real work for me other than fetching files for you and sending out gifts to your mistresses?"
Right now, I'm tempted to call Antony and terminate the contract. I'm the best secretary Bluestar Internationals had ever seen and the CEO of Reefwood treated me like his personal bellboy! Antony and the entire staff of Bluestar respected me. They knew that I could handle any project they threw my way. Here, at Reefwood, I feel like my brain cells are about to commit suicide from the amount of boredom they suffered for the past four hours.
"You've been here barely a day, Ms. Johnson, what makes you think that I'll trust you with million dollar assignments?" He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
"With all due respect, Sir, Antony ne-"
"Do not bring Antony into any conversation with me. Ever! You will remember to do so henceforth Ms. Johnson or I won't tolerate you in my office for another second." His words were sharp, snapped out....and help age-old anger. Whatever it was between him and Ace, it's been there for a long time. However, it was clearly one sided. I've never seen Antony show anything but concern towards his younger brother.
"Understood, Sir." With that, I turned around and left the room. There was no point in me staying here anyway, since Lancelot had turned his chair towards the huge glass wall overlooking New York City and I didn't like having to repeat one sentence over and over just because the other party wasn't paying attention.
Lunchtime passed by without any actual lunch. I had a pile of data compiling to finish by 2.30pm, so I ate the single leftover sandwich from this morning and typed singlehandedly. When I was done, with still 10 minutes to spare, I gathered up all the files with one hand and dumped them on his desk. He simply raised his eyes from his laptop screen and then went back to typing whatever the hell he was typing.
Why was I even expecting a word of appreciation? Better yet, a word at all?
Huffing, I went to turn when his voice stopped me.
"Ms. Johnson."
Oh, I knew that voice very well and I'd only been working for him a few hours. It was his 'I have something to order' kinda voice. Turning back to face him, I answered sweetly, "Yes, Sir?" While he still had his face in the laptop screen.
"What do you know about Trevina McKinley?" He asked.
I though back on what I'd heard about her while working at Bluestar. "She's the newest celebrity Interior Designer; rose to fame in just 5years and at the age of 26; considered one of the most promising talents of 2014 and her fame is still growing. And also the daughter of Producer and Film maker, Jason McKinley."
"Good. Hire her."
I looked at him startled. "Sir, she's also one of the costliest-"
"Money isn't the factor here." He turned to face me, hands folded in front of him. "I want her to design the new branch of our hotel that will open shortly at West Babylon. Having her name connected with ours will give us instant popularity."
"I'll get in contact with her as soon as I can." Suddenly, my mood was a lot better than before. He was finally giving me some sort of real work!
But once again, he stopped me just before I exited the door.
"Ms. Johnson." I turned to look at him. "Just remember, that our competitors in this contract...are Bluestar."
Holy Hell! Come again?