In Service To The Billionaire (3 page)

Inside of Sand's office it was cold—easily ten degrees cooler than it was outside. Right beyond the door was a long, wide sort of lounge area with couches and a few ornately carved cabinets—full of liquor, perhaps, or whatever else billionaires might have. Jokes about millionaires, maybe. Incriminating photos of politicians. Fifth century coin collections.

At the far end of the office was Sand's desk—which appeared to be the stump of a redwood tree, sanded down and carved so that he could sit in the middle of it.

It was clearly a desk meant to inspire awe—and that's certainly what Sophia felt, looking at it.

Sand stood behind his enormous desk, his jacket lounging on the rack behind him, with his sleeves rolled up. He paced as he spoke into a cordless phone.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. No. No. Yes. Yes. Take it out, then. No. Yes...no. Maybe. Check with Dan.”

A staccato of responses, like he was keeping rhythm with some kind of dancing machine.

Sophia had to take a moment to absorb just how handsome he was. Even in the cold environment of the office, she felt a strong heat flowing up through her young body from looking at him. He was perhaps forty—maybe a little older or a little younger. His form was neat, compact—his face handsome and severe. His nose was bent in places, as if it had been broken in the past, but it only added to the rugged lines of his face with his square jaw and burgeoning dark-blonde beard. His eyes, dark and blue, hotly punctuated the enjoyable story of his face.

This is what a billion dollars looks like, though Sophia. Lots and lots of billions of dollars. She didn’t know how many exactly, but she knew he was listed in the top twenty billionaires regularly.

Wow. She could barely even process the number of
one
billion.

The only way that she could even begin to conceive of how many dollars he had was to imagine every grain of salt in the ocean, piled up in a wall...stretching, maybe, from one end of the continent to the other. Maybe even a few times.

Running through responses on the phone, he looked as though he had not smiled in a long time, and strangely Sophia felt herself wanting to make him smile. She could not help but want, impulsively, to make his mood improve.

He stopped for a moment, clearly roaming his eyes over Sophia’s figure as she stood in front of him. She felt very aware of the curve of her generous breasts, the tightness of her pants and how much of her hips and ass were hugged by the fabric. He grabbed the coffee nonchalantly and took a sip, made a face, and swallowed.

He covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “I take my coffee with one sugar, no cream.”

“Okay,” she said brightly. “I make sure to do that from now on. I can take it back and make you another?”

“No.” He sipped at it again, clearly not enjoying it. “You’ll do it right the first time, or nothing. I don’t want second attempts at anything, yes?”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“There’s a report on your desk—it’s labeled the October Entrance Project. I need you to look at it for any errors and then bring it back to me.”

“Errors?”

He had been about to respond to something on the phone, removing his hand from the mouthpiece.

“Proofread it.”

Sophia nodded.

“No, Alan, not you. I’m dealing with a new girl. Yes, another one.”

Oh, god. Even
Alan
knew he had a lot of assistants rolling through—whoever Alan was, anyway. Sophia felt like she was the only one not in on the joke.

It didn’t matter. Soon enough, they would all accept her. It just took time and effort, and she could give both.

Outside the all-seeing office, she searched her desk’s in-box for the document he had requested. It took her only a moment to find them. After five more minutes, she had finished proofing them, and brought them back in, please with her results. She felt well-fitted for the role of proofreader—if a degree in liberal arts had taught her anything, it was to read often and read well.

Standing up in front of his desk now, Sand took the papers with a frown immediately forming on his face.

“This is paper-clipped,” he said calmly. “Why?”

She didn’t understand the question. “I’m sorry?”

“Why is this paper-clipped?”

Resisting the urge to explain that what he said was the same question in a different form, she stumbled out an answer.

“Oh. I thought they needed to be together. So I paper-clipped them.”

“We use staples in this office. Paper clips are extraneous tools for fools who cannot do things correctly the first time.”

“I see.”

“And...” he raised an eyebrow. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

He pointed a finger at the tail-end of a sentence. “This. Here. What’s this?”

Sophia peered at where he pointed. “An oxford comma?”

She hadn’t bothered to really consider it—there were no other instances in the forms where it might have been needed, and she had always judged the usage of the mark on consistency.

“Yes. I want none of them in my office. They are extraneous wastes of ink. Do you have any idea how many commas we’re asked to print every day?” He paused, clearly a bit exasperated. “That’s three things you’ve gotten wrong already. This information, all of it, was in your introductory packet. Didn’t you read it?”

A blush, long and red, had started its crawl up Sophia’s chest to her face. “I did. I mean, you know, some.”

“Which is it? Some? Or did? They are not the same.”

“Oh, well—”

His voice picked up in intensity. “Because if it is some, that means this job is not important enough to you for you to be prepared. And if you
did
read it, and still do not know these simple procedures, then you are not really of the ... intelligence, if that’s what we can call it, that your test scores might suggest. Which suggests to me that you’ve obfuscated the truth somehow on your resume.”

For some reason, Sophia suddenly imagined Julie behind her, shaking her head and whispering, “Oh, dear.”

Sophia brought her hands together. “Mr. Sand, I’m so sorry, I really am. I—”

She could see already that her apology was only making him angrier. He wanted results, not words.

Changing tactics, she said, “I’ll spend all of my lunch today reviewing the packet. I should not have come in unprepared. I had pressing responsibilities at home that affected the amount of time I was able to dedicate to it, and I had thought, incorrectly I realize
now
, that there would be a longer sort of orientation period. But now that I understand your expectations, I will rearrange my priorities accordingly.”

It was impossible to tell if the answer pleased him. It seemed to, at the least, not to continue his wrath. He turned away from her, walking back behind his gargantuan desk.

“Very well. See that you do. I do not tolerate mistakes, here. You are lucky that you are new, and that you have plenty of other...” he paused, obviously looking her up and down once more. “...other aesthetic qualities, of which I am sure you are aware. They may have gotten you far in life this far. Do not expect them to give you much more in the way of grace here.”

Chapter 3

Elle was completely aghast. “He didn’t!”

“He did,” said Sophia. “He absolutely did. He just sized me up like a piece of meat and commented on how I had soooo many 'aesthetic qualities,'” she made the quotes in the air, “and that I was lucky I did, otherwise I wouldn’t have a job.”

The two friends were at lunch in a small diner across from the Johnson Chrome Building. Sophia had a whole hour to catch up with Elle, and then study her packet—thankfully stashed away in her bag.

Elle’s big blue eyes were wide. “I mean...he’s not exactly wrong about you being totally hot, but still. Ew.”

“No, he’s not wrong, that’s not the point.”

They both shared a quick laugh at Sophia’s admission of her looks. It was a joke between them, sometimes, tracking how many men were staring, and at what. Sophia's face, beautiful as it was, rested in a naturally sultry manner, and her legs went on for days.

Meanwhile, Elle's dance-ready fae-like body was tiny, though her eye-popping proportions meant her thick hair and curvaceous hips and bust stood out even more than they would have on a larger woman. So, were men trying to catch a peek down Elle’s outrageous bust, or were they filing away Sophia’s sultry expressions and hot legs in their to-jack file?

Elle was Sophia's best friend, and had been since they started rooming together at college. Elle had pursued a career in dancing, and had a position with a local company since her junior year—for which Sophia was endlessly jealous.

Still, Sophia was open about her envy of Elle's steady job with her friend, and she certainly never thought Elle didn't
deserve
the job. Sophia certainly didn't want to have to perform on stage for a living. But steady, regular creative work! What a dream that would be for someone who worked as hard as Sophia!

“So he thinks you’re cute,” said Elle, digging at her Greek salad. “That’s good.”

“He thinks I’m something, that’s for sure.”

For her own lunch, Sophia had a fruit cup and a small yogurt. She wasn't sure her sensitive stomach could handle anything else on this super-stressful day.

“Is he cute?”

“Elle!”

“What? It’s an honest question.”

“I don’t know. Sure? Yes?” Sophia thought for a moment. “Yes. Yes, he’s very cute. Or, no. He’s not ‘cute.’ That’s too weak of a term. He’s...handsome. Very handsome. Very stern.”

Elle's eyes lit up. “If you fucked him, he’d lighten up, I bet.”

“What?”

The blonde sipped at her diet soda. “You heard me.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Well...no,” Elle admitted, grinning flirtatiously. “I mean, yes and no. I bet he
would
lighten up.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “He already said I used my body to get ahead. Which is
not
true, and never
has
been. Why would I encourage that conception in him?”

Elle paused in mid-bite of a dressing-coated crouton. “Because fucking handsome men is fun?”

“Elle...”

“Anyway, I know you wouldn’t do it.” Elle's smile was instantly disarming. Everything about her was, really. “I was just having some fun.”

“Okay.”

Sophia poked through her fruit cup, looking through the pages of the packet next to it. There were dozens of minutia she had to memorize. It was like trying to learn the entire dictionary.

“Wait,” said Sophia, sitting up straight. “What do you mean you know I wouldn’t do it?”

“You wouldn’t.” She stated this like it was written in the newspaper, like it was on the back of a coupon for the grocery store.

“Maybe, but
you
said it like I wasn’t good enough to do something like that.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know if ‘good enough’ is the term for it.”

Sophia huffed. “I have a fiancé, Elle.”

Elle made a face. “Well, you
kind of
do...and besides, he's out of the country. When the cat's away...”

“The mouse does not suddenly become
less
engaged,” Sophia insisted. “We never...called it off. We just put the brakes on things.”

“Look,” Elle spread her arms out, preparing a big speech. “I’m not saying you should bang your boss. Because, ew, anyway, fucking a misogynist. But you ought to fuck somebody. It’s stressing you out.”

“It is
not
stressing me out.”

That was, Sophia could tell already, obviously a lie. It really was stressing her out. Chatting online had turned into her number one pastime over the past few weeks and months, searching for someone—anyone—that could distract her from her loneliness. She didn't consider that cheating, really—especially since she and Todd had agreed that they would ask no questions of the other as far as sexual partners went during the break.

So even if Todd was banging a girl from every country he went to, Sophia wouldn’t be able to ask. That was fine, though. She found herself, more and more, not minding.

“You’ve been stressed out ever since graduating.” Elle quietly tapped her salad bowl with her fork. “Hell, before that, even. Since like, Todd proposed to you.”

“I was stressed about not having a job and planning a wedding!” Sophia protested. “You’ve been working for what, like four years now? You don’t know what it’s like looking for a job in this economy.”

“No, I guess not. But...” and there was that grin again. “...I do know that fucking is a great way to relieve stress.”

Taking a breath, Sophia couldn’t help but smile. “You’ve got a one-track mind, you know that? Come on. I thought you liked Todd.”

“I
do
like Todd, a little, but...” she took Sophia’s hand. “Look babe, he
ditched
you. He's got a lot of ground to earn back, in my book. And besides that, he’s
out of the country
. How is he ever going to find out? Just keep your affair or whatever out of your social circle, and he’ll never be the wiser.”

Sophia looked down, still unsure.

“Sophia, babe. You are
fucking hot
. God. I’d
kill
for your cheekbones. And your legs. And your breasts. God, forget some other guy. Can we fuck?”

“Ew.” Sophia shook her head.

Elle giggled. “I don’t know if it’s ‘ew’...”

“Oh, you’re totally hot, Elle. I just mean...you know. We’re friends.”

“I know. I...I know.”

She looked down for a moment. They had, inadvertently, stumbled into a sore spot of their friendship.

Once upon a time, in college, the two had tried each other out. They went full-tilt for a week, and it was all sunshine and bliss and long hug-filled walks and an almost fanatical amount of tongue service on the other.

Sophia wanted to keep going, but Elle’s heavily religious upbringing demanded that they stop. And then later, when Elle recalibrated her religiousness and recanted and decided she wanted to be with Sophia after all, Sophia was just starting things with Todd and didn’t want to ruin the budding relationship she had with him.