Page 9 of His Assistant

“He’s not so bad.” I shrug. “A lot nicer than some of the men who just barge in here.”

She nods with wide eyes, and I know she’s looking for more information. As kind as the gesture is, I realize too late that it’s come with strings attached.

Dominic is shrouded in mystery, and I’m the one who guards him. The other assistants are all desperate for gossip, but I know better than to put my job in jeopardy.

“Anyway,” I say, trying to organize the folders in some workable way. “Dominic has a meeting in five minutes. I’d better prepare. Thank you again so much for the coffee. It was really thoughtful.”

She nods and slinks off, disappointed. I grab my notebook and the folder prepped for this very meeting. I knock on Dominic’s door to remind him, and we end up walking over together.

We’re the last to the conference room, which is by design. Dominic likes to make an entrance. All the people waiting stand up when he enters. It gives me a weird little thrill. I start passing out all the packets, then take a seat in the corner to take notes.

A silver-haired woman kicks off the meeting. Vieri Holdings is acquiring a new company, and the people in this room are the power players. The amount of wealth and influence sitting around the table could run a small country.

I had to double- and triple-check all the packets for this meeting, so I’m very familiar with the information being shared. I scribble my notes efficiently and try not to roll my eyes at the thousand different opinions being shouted across the room.

At the end of the day, Dominic is the one who makes all the final decisions, but people need to feel heard. It makes these meetings extra-long, when they’re mostly formalities to begin with.

A man named Leonard Shaw taps one of the pages in his packet and says, “I have some concerns about these staffing numbers.”

I don’t like Leonard. He often stares at my legs too long. He also asked me to get him coffee the first time I walked into a meeting. Dominic had to step in and tell him that I was his assistant, and not in charge of coffee runs. At this moment, what I like least about him is that he’s questioning my work.

Dominic looks up at Leonard, then immediately down at his packet. “Which ones specifically?” he asks.

“These,” Leonard answers, turning his packet toward Dominic to show him. “They don’t match the summary we were emailed last week.”

I crane my neck out of curiosity. He’s got the wrong tab open. Of course he does, the idiot. The silver-haired woman who started the meeting looks between his tab and hers and frowns.

Leonard just has to continue. “If this is the level of oversight our company is bringing into the deal, I think we need to slow down and have a more serious conversation about internal review.”

My pen stops moving and I have to bite the inside of my cheek. Don’t say anything, I repeat to myself over and over. It’s definitely not my place to correct him in front of all these people. I’m supposed to sit in the corner quietly and take notes.

Dominic leans back slightly in his chair and crosses his arms, staring at Leonard. The whole room goes quiet, except for the furious turning of pages. Leonard takes that as his cue to continue.

“Maybe someone from your office can explain how this got missed.”

Goddamnit, Leonard. He just had to goad me.

“It wasn’t missed,” I cut in.

The entire room turns toward me.

Leonard blinks at me with a smug look on his face. “Maybe you should focus on your notes,” he says petulantly.

I sit up straighter, telling myself that I’m in the middle of the storm now. I’d better walk into it confidently.

“You’re looking at the supplemental draft,” I tell him as kindly as I can manage. “You see the yellow tab in front of the page? The current numbers are under the blue tab.”

He looks down. So does everyone else. They’re all referencing the blue tab apart from Leonard. He flips more slowly than necessary to the blue tab and then clears his throat.

“Ah,” he says. “I see it now.”

A few people smirk or snicker under their breath, but I catch it all. The great Leonard Shaw has just been humbled by an assistant. They’re eating it up. I guess I’m not the only person he acts like an ass to.

Dominic shoots me a look I can’t decipher. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. At least I still hold the record.

The meeting continues without incident, but my nerves are shot. When everyone finally gets up to leave, I’m already mentally packing up my desk. The silver-haired woman passes by with a smile. “Nice job with the packets, Sofia.”

I haven’t met her yet, so I’m surprised she knows my name. Dominic shakes her hand and tells her he’ll call her later. Then he turns to me and my stomach does somersaults.