Damien
“Brenda!” I call out from the doorway of my office. I should never have to yell for my assistant. In fact, I should never have to leave my chair. She should know my needs before I do. She should be studying my schedule and the goings-on of the place so that I don’t have to lift so many fingers just to ensure that my hotels are running the way they should be.
And yet here I am, barking down the hallway, turning every head, showing everyone that works for me that I hired someone incompetent. She’s making me look bad. That alone is reason enough to send her packing.
“Jesus, did the intercoms go out?”
I whip around to see Diego, my best friend and right-hand man, standing in the doorway of his office, which unfortunately is located right across from mine. He also has his signature shit-eating grin spread across his spray-tan face.
“I’m trying to find my fucking assistant,” I bark out as I rake a hand through my hair.
“Well, first of all, her name is Bernadette, not Brenda,” he points out.
“Well, the way I go through them–”
He nods, rolling a toothpick in his mouth. “It really is like toilet paper.”
“Yeah, well this one’s gone too,” I say. “Why the fuck is it so hard to find good help? It’s not like I ask a lot.”
I walk back into my office, and Diego follows. “Oh no, you don’t ask much at all. Just five foot three, nice ass, good rack, but enough brain cells to predict your every move before you even wake up in the morning. Hotel industry experience, but not so much that she aspires to climb any further on the corporate ladder than the step below you. Oh, and not to mention the extracurricular itinerary. Which in itself requires no less than falling from heaven with a few years of experience in hell status…you know, to keep it interesting,” Diego says with a wink and a smile.
“I’m glad you find my frustration amusing. You have an assistant,” I point out as I slam things around on my desk. I haven’t had coffee, which is notably half of my problem. That isn’t Diego’s problem. It is, however, Brenda’s problem. Brenda? Bernadette? What the fuck ever.
“I do, and she’s great. You know why?”
“Because she swallows?” I ask.
“No. I mean, she does. But no, she’s a good assistant because I don’t expect her to be perfect. She shows up, she does the things I ask, and she’s great in the after hours. I’m not looking for the do it all Barbie. I have five requirements: Get here before me. Only make eye contact with me. Make sure lunch is on my desk at eleven thirty every day. Don’t tell me jack shit about her personal life, and never wear any perfume that is cucumber based. Because fuck that. You, on the other hand, are looking for a unicorn.”
“Yeah well, I have higher standards than you, clearly,” I say as I sit down and open my laptop. The assistant job isn’t one I list on public job sites. It’s more of an inquiry from within sortof thing. There are also a lot of allusive clauses around the ‘all inclusive’ part of it. Again, it’s not something I can just list. Even Sin City has a certain amount of morals. Or the facade of them anyhow.
“What you are looking for, you aren’t going to find,” he says, sitting down in the chair in front of me and kicking his feet casually up on my desk. “Because it doesn’t exist.”
“Perfection exists,” I tell him. “I’ve had it.”
Diego snorts out a laugh as he tosses his empty coffee cup at my waste bin and misses. “Lies.”
“Six years ago,” I tell him.
“Six years—ah yes. Your one and done lady of the night. Masked and manipulated,” he muses.
“I didn’t manipulate her. She didn’t do anything she didn’t want to,” I snap.
“I know, I know,” he holds his hands halfway up in mock defense. “But she was cornered by Dylan fucking Decker. She was a damsel in distress at that point, and you dropped in like the Phantom of the Night and whisked her away. That was well played, by the way. My only criticism is that you didn’t get a number. Or even a name.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” I admit. In my defense, I truly wasn’t. That woman from six years ago was so bewitching, so mesmerizing, so fucking surreal, that by the time we fell from the clouds and drifted back to Earth, I was incapable of anything but running away. No one, and I mean no one, has ever knocked me off my game like that nameless masked woman. And I sure as fuck haven’t had anyone like her since.
“No, you were too busy falling for her.”
I smack his feet off my desk. “Fucking shut it,” I warn him. “I didn’t fall for anyone. You know that’s not how I am.”
Diego’s phone buzzes, and he sits up. “Alright, alright. So you weren’t into her. It wasn’t fate. You didn’t miss your onein a million. Fine. But either way, you’re going to have to find another assistant. And for that, I say Godspeed. Because you, Damien Graves, are impossible.”
My friend makes his way out of the office, and I sit with a cold stare. I am aware that I am picky. But I am also the proprietor of two of Las Vegas’ most prestigious hotels. Not to mention, one of Sin City’s hottest gentleman’s clubs. A good assistant who understands her job and can switch her role at the drop of her panties is a must. I don’t give a shit what Diego says. I will find her. Whoever she is.
“So are you going to call me or do I call–”
“We’ll let you know,” I cut the red head girl off and as she pigeon-toes her way out of my office with her red hair in a messy bun I literally don’t understand how she even made it to the interview line up. Whoever is vetting these people is fired. Jesus. My staff are dropping like fucking flies. But seriously…the criteria isn’t that complicated.
