Monica walked into the coffee shop a little while later. She dropped her fashionable, black leather bag at the table and hung her pea coat on the back of her chair before going to order a drink. Once she was back, she sat across from me.
“Sorry for being in such a rush. I have a million things going on,” she said, sipping her coffee before pulling out a leather portfolio from her bag.
“Don’t worry about it. So, what do we need to go over?”
“I told Roman that I would go over the details of the job with you, so you won’t be surprised if he mentions anything when you sign your contract this evening.”
“Contract?” I questioned, my brows lifting.
She nodded. “Yes, I talked him into giving you a contract. I hope that’s okay? It just ensures that you’ll have this job for at least a year. That also means that you’ll have a place to live. You won’t be like the million other women who found themselves jobless and homeless on a whim because he had a bad day at work.”
I bit my lower lip as I thought about her words. She did have a point. And God knew that I’d piss Roman off daily, so maybe a contract was a good thing. “OK, what else?”
She read over her notes before looking back up at me. “First off, are you attending school here?”
I nodded. “Yes. I transferred here this week. I was hoping to take some online classes so I could keep my days open for a job, but I just found out it’s too late to enroll. I have to be on campus every day, Monday through Friday, from eight-thirty until two-thirty. I don’t know how that will play into this,” I admitted, biting my lower lip.
She waved her hand through the air. “No worries. Roman went on a little bit of a cleaning binge after your meeting last week. Literally, all of his staff are gone, so Sophia has been attending a private daycare during the day. We can continue to do that.”
“A cleaning binge?” I questioned.
She nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know what you said to him in there, but when I came in the next day, the house was completely silent. He fired the kitchen staff and the cleaning staff. I’m the only person he has on payroll.”
“So, who was watching Sophia?”
Her brows lifted, and she smiled. “He was.”
My mouth fell open, and she laughed.
“I know. I walked in that morning and found her sitting on the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of cereal while he stood across from her, in a suit, drinking coffee and watching her like she was a bomb that was about to go off. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen.” She laughed, and it drew a chuckle from me as well.
“So… all week, he’s been watching her?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, no. The moment I got there, he had a reason to rush off. I’ve been staying at the house, taking her to daycare every morning and picking her up every evening. He has a couple of the women who work at the in-office daycare in the city coming to sit with her at night. Then once she’s down, they leave, and it’s just Sophia and me in the house.”
“So, Roman hasn’t been staying there at the house?”
She shook her head. “No. He has another penthouse in the city where he’s been staying. Usually, he would only use it if he worked late one night and had an early morning the next day, but he has been staying there this week for some reason. He’ll call and check in, but that’s about it. So for the most part, it will just be you and Sophia at the main place.”
I nodded and sipped my coffee, feeling a little better about the whole thing. At least I wouldn’t have to tiptoe around Roman every hour of every day.
“So, you’ll live at the house free of charge, of course. You’ll get Sophia up in the morning, clean her, and get her ready for daycare. For now, you’ll need to prepare her breakfast, clean up, and get her to daycare by seven A.M. Then you’ll be free to do your own thing until she needs to be picked up at five-thirty. After that, you’ll bring her home, make some dinner, and just hang out and play until bedtime at eight-thirty. Since he fired all of the cleaning staff, he’ll probably have you take care of her laundry and tidy up until we can replace the staff he let go. Does all of that sound good?”
I nodded along. It all sounded easy enough. It wasn’t like I hadn’t already been cleaning up after myself and doing my own laundry for years, so it wasn’t a deal breaker.
“You’ll have every Thursday off and every other Saturday.”
I nodded along. It wasn’t like I had a boyfriend that I needed to carve out time for.
“You’ll also be given an expense account for things regarding Sophia. He doesn’t expect you to pay out of pocket for the gas you’ll use running her to and from daycare if you choose to drive. There may also be times when you’ll want to do something special, like taking her out to eat or attending a children’s event, and you’ll need spending money. I know Roman seems like an ass, but he really is very….”
“Ass-like?” I joked.
She laughed and nodded. “I was going to say understanding of everything that goes into giving his daughter a good life, but yeah… we’ll go with what you said.”
We both laughed and went back to drinking our coffee while talking more about the job. Since I was scheduled to meet with Roman and sign his contract, I was told he would be at the house, waiting for me. I had the rest of the afternoon to gather my things to move in, and I was due for my meeting at seven P.M. We parted ways, and I walked back to campus, happy that I got the job and excited to tell the good news to my mom, who had been beside herself with worry for the last week.
She was so excited that I’d finally been offered the job that she helped me pack, and she even cooked my favorite dinner before I left to make the move. I pulled into the parking garage at a quarter till seven. I left my belongings in the trunk of my car just in case things fell through. When I knocked on the door, it wasn’t the woman from before who answered. It was Monica. She greeted me with a broad smile before pulling me inside like an old friend. I could tell that I was going to like her. She was friendly and warm, and obviously tough for being the only one that Roman hadn’t fired over the years. Deep down, I wondered if their relationship was more than professional. Maybe that’s what set her apart from all the others that he’d so easily fired.
