Hell, I don’t even know if I am.
I’ve never taken on a workload like this, and my previous assistant Rosaline already moved on to another job. If I’m going to find a staff to help me manage it, I’ll have to start from scratch.
But with the schedule we’re on, I might have to go it alone.
“Five days from today, we’ll convene in New Orleans at the property site to get started. I’d like it if we could all go into that day with at least one thing we can contribute to making this the best property in the country. One specific, plan-oriented thing. Take the next few days to consider it, to strategize, and Wednesday, we’ll start implementing.”
His smile is big but completely devoid of warmth as his father steps in front of him in a gesture of dismissal. “Thanks, Trent.”
Junior only hesitates for a second, his features strangely confrontational as he focuses on the back of his dad’s head, before turning to the glass door, heaving it open, and retreating down the hall.
That’s weird.
Fortunately, I don’t have the time to focus on their freaky exchange or my panic attack as chatter fires up once again.
The rest of us stand up from our seats and start to mingle as Senior makes a point to talk to each of us individually.
It’s clear he’s known Marcus and Harold for years, but Brad, Frederick, and Isaac all seem to be new like me.
Still, he treats us all the same, inquiring about our personal backgrounds with a thorough warmth.
Marcus is the only one who’ll actually be on site with us, everyone else’s role centered in the financial and business aspects of the build, but by the time Senior’s done making the rounds, I feel like I know little pieces of everyone’s lives. Their families. Their work experiences. Their personalities.
Everyone but his son and the actual boss of the New Orleans project.
No, other than the bothersome way he makes me feel, that asshole is still a complete mystery to me.
Mr. Turner finishes getting to know everyone just before lunch and dismisses us for the day.
After a quick call to Emory, who’s been shopping all day on Fifth Avenue—the lucky bitch—we decide to meet for lunch at the 51st Street Deli.
It’s no surprise that Emory is waiting for me in a booth at the back of the restaurant—built soundly for a party of eight—when I walk in. Most of the seats are filled with bags from designer brands and boutique shops I could never afford, but she manages to leave just enough space for her ass and mine.
“You’re late,” she accuses as I sit down to a hot pastrami sandwich and a half a dozen pickles—a personal weakness—already waiting for me. I roll my eyes in a secret gesture of appreciation.
I’m the only one who knows the secret, but I’m thankful in my heart, and that’s what really matters, right?
Right.
“And?” I laugh caustically. At some point, she’s got to realize this is never going to change. “If you’re surprised, you should be really disappointed in yourself.”
She huffs, banging her hands on the table and innocuously rearranging her silverware. I smile, amused by my friend’s closet OCD.
“I just don’t understand. You were done when you called me. You were closer. We agreed to meet here as soon as we could. How on earth do you end up taking double the time?”
I shrug. I really don’t know. “I guess I just come by my tardiness naturally.”
I’ve always had a gift for shitting away time. Two hours in front of the TV, an hour and a half in the shower, forty-five minutes on my bed in the middle of the day for no reason—I’m an Olympic-level athlete at all of it.
It’s no wonder I haven’t a clue what I did between the time Emory called me and the time I got here to delay myself.
Seriously. Time just disappears.
“Whatever,” she finally sighs, delicately spooning a mouthful of her side of chicken noodle soup into her mouth and swallowing. “Let’s talk about the job.”
“What about it?” I furrow my brow, and she rolls her eyes like my question is the dumbest question that’s ever existed.
“Aren’t you excited?” she asks, and her voice rises three octaves. “Relieved? Anything? I mean, I feel like there should be some kind of emotional evidence of your success.”
I shrug. In a way, I am relieved. But in another, much bigger way, this is just the beginning. And the rest of the story includes finding some way to lose the animosity I feel toward my new boss. Trent fucking Turner. He may be a stuck-up prick, but I doubt his opinion of me is much better. “I didn’t make a great first impression with my boss.”
“What do you mean? You got the job, didn’t you?”
I choke down an overly large bite of pastrami in my haste to answer and have to grab my throat as it burns.
“You’re not a snake, you know,” Emory teases. “You don’t have to swallow your food whole.”
I scrunch my face into a fake hysterical laugh and sneer. “I’ve hardly eaten anything all day,” I retort. “And if you keep up that kind of bitchy food judgment, I’ll assume you want me to start eating your food too.”
“Greer.” Emory just stares. I swear, if her eyes get any bigger, they’ll pop straight out of the sockets and literally push me for the answer to her initial question.
I waver between ending or prolonging her misery, but it doesn’t take long for me to decide that it’s best if her eyeballs stay secured inside her head.
“Yes, I got the job,” I finally answer. “Mr. Turner loved me. But it’s his son who’s running the New Orleans hotel and, well, it’s that Trent Turner I fucked up with.”
“How?” She scrunches up her nose. “How have you already fucked up so badly in a day?”
“Because I sort of met him the other day at the hotel, when you sent me to the gym…” My voice is needlessly accusatory. “And I might have said a thing or two I shouldn’t have.”
She pulls her sandwich away from her mouth and glares. Sometimes she really knows me too well. “What did you say?”
I shrug in an effort to play it off and pick at the seeds in my rye bread. “Just…you know…that the décor in their hotel was so hideous, I felt as though I might actually die from it.” My laugh is scary. “No big deal, right?”
Emory drops her head into her hands. “Jesus Christ, Greer.”
“I know! Gah!” I wail. “But I didn’t know it was him! He never introduced himself, and he was really fucking rude to me about my fitness. It just came spewing out like lava. You can’t blame me, really. It was a volcano!”
She’s skeptical, and it shows. I can’t blame her, really, but I’m actually telling the truth this time. Green-eyed, good-bodied Trent is a Grade A prick. “Rude to you how?”
“He said I was pretending to work out!”
Her raised eyebrow is nothing but accusatory and calling me on my bullshit. “And were you?”
“What does that matter?” I screech.
Her sandwich hits the plate so hard, it falls apart and rains corned beef on the table. I reach out to pick it up—no meat left behind and all that—and she smacks my hand.