“Why is that?”I asked, immediately getting the feeling I was going to regret it.
“So that when you are fired, you can easily call me to come back in and take up my position again,” she said imperiously.Somehow she managed to come off as both commanding and superciliousandhumble, as if she was doing me a great favor by offering her help in the eventuality of my failure.“A powerful and important man like Mr.Harvey should not be left without a competent secretary.”
“Right,” I said.I couldn’t bring myself to give her any kind of formal send-off.She’d made her position clear.
She swept away from me as if she was an old duchess in a fur coat, not an out-of-work secretary, and I watched her go with complete incredulity.
What a bitch.
It wasn’t a word I liked to use often, but there were situations now and then where it was called for.
I glanced at the clerk, who was suddenly very interested in her computer screen and the visitors’ book.No help there, apparently.I sighed and squared my shoulders.As demoralizing as literally all of this was, I had to go outside now, and I at least needed to look a little bit like I wasn’t about to have a nervous breakdown.
I tried to keep that confidence on my face as I walked across the marble at last, taking my phone out of my pocket and quickly checking the map.The café at the furthest to the other side of town was…
Huh.Exactly the same brand as the one right opposite the office.
I walked across the street, looked up to check that I couldn’t see the giant silhouette of a certain former football player framed in the window of an office up there, and then quickly ducked inside.It would have taken me twenty minutes to get to the other branch.I could get a pastry for myself and spend forty minutes sitting in a warm spot instead.
Maybe it wasn’t quite the letter of the law that had been handed down to me, but it definitely felt like it was in the spirit.Mr.Harvey just wanted me out.He didn’t genuinely care where.
I ordered the sweetest, fluffiest pastry I could find – a raspberry-filled Danish – and a hot chocolate to go with it, then sat and nursed them both as well as my head.
How was I going to fix this?Mr.Harvey clearly didn’t care about being rude to me, which meant he probably wasn’t worried about keeping me on as his secretary.I was beginning to see the edges of that legendary temper that had driven so many of his secretaries away, no doubt.It was probably going to get worse from here.
I sighed.I’d only recorded one evening’s worth of footage.I was exhausted and shaken.And this was all I had to show for it?
At least if things got worse, I could film more.But cold rage wasn’t really enough of a show.I should have had my camera on when he sent me out of the office – that was the closest to the real thing I’d seen yet.Damnit.I needed to sort out my setup and get something installed on my desk somewhere.
Thinking of the footage, I scrolled through my phone’s camera roll until I found the videos from last night.The video I’d taken in the office, and…
After.
Once Mr.Harvey told me to go home, I’d left the office – but I hadn’t gone home.Not when I had the knowledge that Ridley Angus, and a lot of the other players, were going to be at O’Finlays.
I’d gone to O’Finlays.
It was the perfect time to try and get some more footage that I could use.I wasn’t really thinking about what would come up, exactly; more just scouting for any opportunity.Again, I only had my phone camera, but it wasn’t like these undercover shots had to be perfect.I figured there was an outside chance Mr.Harvey would show up too, or I’d catch one of the players doing something shady.
I scrolled to the first video I’d taken at the bar and opened it.I’d found a spot a short distance away from where the players hung out, but significantly lower-rent – outside of their roped-off VIP area.There was a curtain hung between us and a security guard standing in the way, so I couldn’t always see a lot, but I could see some.Whenever the curtain wasn’t quite pulled back across or it swayed out of the way in the breeze from a passing body, I could spotsomethingon the other side.
Every glimpse of Ridley was tantalizing.I’d managed to score footage of him drinking from a glass of pale liquid, joking around with one of the other players on his team, and talking to a few scantily-dressed women who had slipped behind the rope.
I watched all the footage I’d taken as I slowly sipped through my hot chocolate and ate my pastry.I’d finally left in the early hours of the morning when Ridley Angus did – he’d been falling-over drunk, stumbling and getting propped up by his teammates as they steered him toward his driver.
He looked back at me, directly at the camera; I remembered the heart-stopping moment when I thought he’d seen me filming.But he just grinned as if he was recognizing me but not fully understanding what I was doing, and then he’d disappeared into the car.
I stopped the recording and laid my phone down on the table.The thumbnail preview was a perfectly-framed shot of him looking back at me over his shoulder.I still couldn’t really believe that I was in such close proximity with the only football player whose name I actually knew – because he was the most gorgeous one who had, in my opinion, ever taken to the field.
Was he hotter, or Mr.Harvey…?
Wait, why was I thinking about that?
It was irrelevant which one was hotter.One was my boss and one was the most sought-after sportsman in the world, surrounded by hot women all the time.Oh, and they were both straight.So, completely not relevant at all.
What was relevant was the fact that Ihadfootage of a football player behaving badly – and I’d chosen not to use it.
I couldn’t exactly say why.Part of me thought that since he’d looked right at me, selling it would be a good way to get caught, and I might get fired before I’d done what I came for.Another part of me was clinging onto this ridiculous idea that since Ridley was the hottest player I’d ever seen, and he now knew my name, it would be disloyal to sell the footage.As if I actually had a chance with someone like him.
