“Two weeks,” I correct, earning myself another harsh look from her.
I barely restrain my shoulders from shrugging. I mean, if it’s going to be my last day on the job, the least she could do is get it right. I’ve been working as her assistant for two weeks.
“Two weeks on the job and she’s already saving your ass.” Andreas whistles and shakes his head before turning to me. “Nice work.”
Those damn butterflies.
I was never one to go googly-eyed over famous people. Maybe because I never envied actors or performers. While I adored the stylists and costume designers, I knew the actors were just playing a role, not being their authentic selves.
I knew what that was like.
Playing the role assigned to you and not being able to be who or what you truly wanted. No, acting and the people who did it never appealed to me because I’d been forced into a role I never asked for before I was too young to choose.
“Andreas, this is a professional matter between my assistant and I?—”
“One that I’m more than happy to leave you to, as long as it doesn’t end up with you firing her. That,” he pauses, looking at me before turning back to Rebecca, “would be the biggest mistake of your career.”
Rebecca is left speechless, which in the two weeks I’ve been here, I’ve ascertained is pretty difficult to do.
Andreas smiles down at Rebecca but he’s not even attempting to make it appear genuine.
“Anyway, it was great catching up with you, I’ll see myself out.” And with that, he takes one final look my way and heads out of the office.
An uncomfortable beat of silence holds between Rebecca and I before she pivots on her heels to look me up and down.
“I have a meeting.”
I take that as my cue to leave, not bothering to ask her if I still have a job or not.
“Oh,”I blurt out when I round the corner to head toward Lillian’s back office only to run directly into the path of Andreas Knight.
He doesn’t move out of my way. In fact, he steps fully into the middle of the hallway, taking up additional space. Andreas isn’t particularly wide. At six-foot-two, however, he does loom over my five-foot-ten height in these three-inch heels, in a way that just borders on inappropriate.
“Mr. Knight,” I say, feeling more than a little awkward.
The smile that had been playing on his lips drops instantly. “Mr. Knight?”
I clear my throat. Did I say something wrong?
“I know your name, Ivy.” Did he make a special point of sayingmyname? “It’s only right that you use mine.”
“That is your name,” I remind him.
A slow shake of his head. “Mr. Knight is what my accountant calls me. All three of them,” he amends.
“You have three accountants?” Why, oh, why is that the question I decide to go with?
He shrugs a shoulder. “Three that I have direct contact with. There’s plenty more, though.”
How did I end up discussing accountants with Andreas Knight?
“Anyway,” he pivots. “The name you call me is Andreas.”
He says it as if we’ll be seeing one another again and again.
I shake my head at the thought.
“Okay, well.” I clear my throat, trying to bypass the lump in it, but his name doesn’t come out. Something about calling him by his first name feels way too intimate. Not after having barely just met this man.
