Every word that came out of my mouth made me sound like an ass. I was about two seconds away from sewing my mouth shut so that I didn’t accidentally make Sarah think I was the world’s biggest jerk.
But I couldn’t help it. I was used to speaking to people like this- I was the boss. I could tell Sarah didn’t appreciate it, though, and the last thing I wanted was for her to quit her first day on the job.
And move to Thailand.
…For an undecided amount of time.
“Great,” she responded. “Please educate me.”
Call me a fool, but I had a feeling that wasn’t a genuine request.
Minutes later, we were in the parking lot, headed for my favorite car as of late, the Tesla Model X. I figured that if I was going to be a bona fide San Franciscan, I might as well drive like one, too.
“What, no driver?” Sarah asked, genuinely surprised.
“I have a license, you know,” I told her.
For the first time since she’d walked into my office that morning, I actually saw a flicker of a smile. I knew she’d only taken the job because of the admittedly ridiculous salary I’d offered her. However, I still relished the idea that she was smiling while working for me.
Sarah was something else. And I had no idea why I thought that.
An hour later, after a car ride that just didn’t seem to go well, no matter how many times I tried to ask what I thought were kind, interested, yet appropriately distant questions, we’d arrived at the destination.
My newest property development, in the hills just outside of San Francisco. A luxury apartment complex with all the amenities of the city and a feeling of seclusion, just like the countryside.
Of course, right now, it was nothing more than a plot of empty land and a couple of holes in the ground where we planned to put the swimming pools.
“What is this?” Sarah asked skeptically, getting out and wandering toward the plot of land. It was just under thirty acres altogether, set right up against the scenic rolling hills of the Bay Area.
Personally, San Francisco was becoming one of the best places I’d lived so far. Never before had I been able to get to nature in such a short, quick ride.
“It’s my newest development,” I replied. “Didn’t I tell you that’s what we were doing?”
“Yes.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “But I mean… what is it? Are you building a ranch? A theme park?”
“Apartments,” I replied proudly. “Luxury ones, too.”
I assumed Sarah would be impressed. Women were always impressed when I told them about my plans.
But, once again, I was reminded that Sarah was not like the women I was used to.
“Oh,” she replied flatly. “So, why do you want me to see this, exactly? I’m just the assistant, right?”
Sarah spun around to face me, her expression unreadable.
“You’re a part of the company now,” I said, glancing away from those icy blue eyes in an attempt to make myself a little more comfortable. “You need to learn the ropes and, uh, things. What if I needed you to come down here and oversee the development for a day? Or talk to the contractors?”
I was pulling things right out of my behind at that point. I had never in my life needed an employee to do either one of those things for me. Sarah was staring at me with such intensity that I was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
“Come look over here,” I said, re-directing her attention before she could say another word. “This is going to be the first swimming pool, the main one. I’m going to put a hot tub here, and a waterfall over on that end. Maybe even a water slide. And back there, I’ll be putting cabanas with Wi-Fi connectivity so that the residents can come down and surf the web by the pool. All of the great places in Miami had that, so I want to recreate that for San Francisco residents.”
I turned, expecting to find Sarah at my side. However, instead, she was still standing at the very edge of the property, staring out over it with an expression that I could only describe as baffled.
“Walk with me,” I instructed, surprised that she hadn’t already been doing that. I had assumed it was implied when I began walking away from her.
“Hold on,” she said, shaking her head. “Let me just make sure I have this straight. This morning, you had me come down here for a job interview, for what I assumed would be an accounting position. And then I get here, and realize that it’s going to be some sort of all-around office assistant with an outrageous salary, but, hey, I’m going to go with it because why not. It’s not like I can’t use the money. And then Francesca has me changing out trash bins and making coffee, which wasn’t in the job description at all. On top of that, you wanted me to go pay off your alleged baby mama to keep your name out of the press even though she was lying about it in the first place. Now you want me to learn the ropes of development because I might have to come down here sometimes. Am I getting that right?”
“Yes,” I replied casually.
I quickly realized that was the wrong response.
“You are unbelievable,” she sighed, whipping around to head back to the car.
“Uh, I still have more to show you,” I called after her in confusion. “There are the tennis courts, and the fitness center, and the horse stables—”
“Horse stables?”
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized all of my attempts to show her the ropes and make her feel more at home than I’d ever made an employee feel had failed.
Terribly.
“Yes,” I nodded, feeling like I was saying that word far too much today. “The horse stables. It’s going with the whole countryside theme that I was telling you about.”
“Okay, look, let me explain something to you,” Sarah muttered, stomping right back to me.
I was starting to understand how she stayed so thin. The woman stomped around so much it would have been impossible for her to gain any weight whatsoever. “San Francisco is not some big city full of doe-eyed dreamers who miss their hometowns out in the middle of Kansas. You want that, go to L.A. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love that. What San Francisco is is a city full of tired business people who have had enough of men and women like you swooping on in here and taking over our orchards and our houses and building your massive apartment complexes with their tennis courts and their swimming pools and their freaking horse stables and—”
I had been so intent on watching her brilliant blue eyes flashing with anger, despite the fact that it was directed at me, that I hadn’t even been paying the slightest bit of attention to where she was going.
Which proved extremely detrimental when her entire leg sank into a massive pile of mud. It was like someone had come over and stuck a hose over a two-foot circle, letting the water drip down until it created quicksand.
“Oh my God, are you kidding me?” Sarah demanded, turning her head up to the sky like she really was yelling at the big man himself.
In the back of my head, I knew this was the absolute worst time to laugh. In fact, if I had any sense at all, I would have stuffed a hand in my mouth and rushed over to help her.
But I had long ago established the fact that I hardly had any sense.
A snort bubbled out of me at the sight of the pretty blonde, in the nice outfit that she had picked out specifically for this interview, with her leg stuck in the mud all the way up to her knee, and her other one bent at a strange angle as she attempted to keep herself from falling.