“Take a left here,” she said.
I put on my blinker to try to merge.
As soon as she saw I was distracted, Lexi shoved the door open.
“You didn’t put the child locks on!” She took off in that same awkward run down the street, disappearing in the crowd. Her phone was still connected to my car stereo, and singing circus animals mocked me.
“Don’t follow her,” I told myself firmly, finally figuring how to turn off the radio. “Sometimes we have to let nature take its course.”
9
LEXI
“This is why you never had a real boyfriend,” I reminded myself as I rode the subway into work the next morning.
The surprise leftovers had been met with cheers from McKenna and a bottle of champagne from Grenadine when I’d arrived back at my sublet studio apartment.
Why hadn’t I just let Mr. Richmond drive me home?
Because even though I loved the building, it wasn’t anywhere close to the multimillion-dollar tower he’d developed. I was, truthfully, a little embarrassed.
Don’t be embarrassed, I heard my mom’s voice in my head.Any man who talks down to you because of where you came from is not your Prince Charming.
Not that Grayson would ever be it.
“Possessive dingleberry,” I muttered as I walked into the office, carrying the bag with the padded box holding an antique marble bust that was the partner to the one already on the shelf of Mr. Richmond’s penthouse study. I’d had to really dig deep and swap up favors in order to even score a meeting with the reclusive hermit who’d had it in his collection.
I’d spent a number of long afternoons where I’d gone and visited him for tea and listened to his fascinating stories. And I wasn’t being patronizing. He was fascinating and had traveled all over the world, but shut himself in after his partner had passed away. I’d gotten the art collector hooked up with a social media account and helped him find adoring fans of his historical videos. He was delighted and had just given me the bust.
“Anthym is going to freak,” I said giddily when I set the bag on McKenna’s desk. “Maybe she’ll overlook the fact that I’m rewearing this shirt.”
“Don’t worry too much. Anthym is out,” McKenna told me. “She is closing on her new condo and has to go sign the papers.”
“Must be a super nice place if she’s letting it interfere with work,” I said. “Mr. Richmond has that big presentation today for the bigwig clients.”
“Which I’ll need your help for,” my friend said. “Anthym gave me a list.”
“This means it’s my time to shine! Ugh, if only Mr. I-Hate-Praise had just accepted the compliment and gone on with his life, this might have been my ticket to a raise,” I said with a groan.
“Just stick it out another one year and ten months, then you can safely job-hop without people thinking you’re a flight risk.”
I sighed and looked out over the floor of Richmond Electric employees below us.
“I’m literally not going to make it.”
“Let’s look on the bright side,” McKenna coaxed.
I rallied.
“On the bright side,” I said, holding up a finger, “today I get to be an actual corporate assistant, not just the courier-slash-garbage collector.”
When I had first applied for the job of assistant to the assistant to the secretary of Grayson Richmond, I’d assumedthat I would be one of those cute TV show assistants, the ones who knew everyone in the office, who, when the billionaire asks her to schedule him a meeting with a powerful senator, booked the meeting for that afternoon because she gets her nails done with the senator’s daughter’s nanny.
I had imagined myself as the woman behind the curtain making everything run smoothly for Mr. Richmond—helping write his emails, managing his schedule, keeping his life ticking along perfectly and efficiently.
Instead my job consisted of menial tasks and contradictory orders from Anthym. I didn’t even get to fetch Mr. Richmond’s coffee because that was McKenna’s job. I seemed to exist solely to clean out Mr. Richmond’s fridge and act as Anthym’s punching bag.
But not today! Today I was the one who fetched the coffee.
