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Chapter 1
Angelina
MylegshookasI sat in the chair. I put a lot of effort into trying not to let it shake. But this was my opportunity. I was no fool. I knew how much it could elevate my career. Every other job had fallen by the wayside or not called me back. It was a debilitating feeling that stripped me of all my value.
But as I sat in the office, this modernized, overly silver, futuristic place that only specialized in selling brick ovens to pizzerias and making millions a year off of that, I felt like I had a chance to feel alive again. Perhaps there was hope for me to turn things around.
"Angelina Demott." It was a female's voice. When I looked up, the woman was sticking her head through a door.
I flashed a smile. My nerves left me for a moment. But it wasn't a long moment. It was about as long as I flashed the smile. It was game time. I was going into that interview like a lioness. No one was going to take it away from me. No one was going to deny me.
I had expected to see the CEO. After all, I was interviewing to be the assistant to the CEO, so I thought maybe he would interview me. That was what kind of fired me up initially. But, the person behind the desk was not the person I had seen in the photos. He was not the rumored mafia man with a mound of black hair and chiseled arms. Instead, some balding man with glasses pushed them up on his nose while looking at some papers. He only gave me a passing glance which gave me the motivation to be myself. This man was barely paying me the time of day. Why should I have lowered my self-esteem?
" Angelina." He extended his hand. I shook his hand right before I sat down. Once again, I flashed that smile from before.
What happened next was me being in the zone. His questions were all a blur. They were basic, nothing that had to make me rethink an answer. The answer's kind of just flowed out of me. I could have likened it to a sport. It was fun, actually.
But then again, I did have this moment of thinking that things were going a little too good. This caused me to slow my words down as if I hit a speed bump in the conversation. I doubted that he picked up on that. It was all in my head. Honestly, the man seemed bored. Everything seemed so generic. That worried me. That made me bite my lip a little bit.
" Well, you definitely have the education. You have internships. You have some assistant experience. This is pretty much all we need. But I think you should interview with someone else."
I don't know why I took that as a negative thing. That was definitely a positive thing, right? It meant that I had a second interview. That didn't just mean that this man was giving up on interviewing me and ushering in someone else because I was too difficult. Difficult. But that's how my mind worked. My mind went to the negative first before the positives. But this would definitely have to be positive.
No matter what. I was thinking about it, though. It was all irrelevant because I needed to give this man a response. That was the trickiest part. Being in an interview with nothing more than having to sit there with hyper focus and make split decisions between seconds. "Okay. Whatever you think is best."
In my head, I had just ruined the whole thing. These were the most submissive answers that I had ever given in my entire life. Perhaps I was hard on myself, but I don't know. It just sounded like I was pandering. Maybe I was overthinking it, but I was dead in the water. In my mind, this man was not going to bring out anyone else to interview me. The interview had just ended.
He smiled behind the desk, stood up and left the room momentarily. During those seconds when I had to wait for whoever was going to walk through that door, whether it was Barney the dinosaur or Bill Clinton himself, I had no idea what was going to happen next. To say I was nervous was an understatement. My leg was shaking, and my breath was short. I did my best to not bite my nail, but my best was not good enough.
I sat there for a good minute. In an attempt to calm down, I did my best to clear my head. That I did a better job at. My technique was to think about the show Sex and the City. That was essentially my safe space that stopped me from shaking my legs and returning my breathing to where it belonged.
Eventually, that door opened up and then came this tall glass of tan skin, dark hair, popped collar, spicy cologne, and eyes of a lion. I knew this man from the website, from pictures in the hallway. Tomaso Vitelli, the company's CEO– Vitelli Co. He was also the company's owner. The Big Kahuna, if you will. There went my legs shaking all over again. Luckily the table was covering me. But still, I wished that I could get my head in the game a little bit better. Something told me this part of the interview would be harder than the last.
" So you want to be an assistant?" He asked before even sitting down. His voice boomed through the room. It was deep and told me that it smoked for quite some time, a real man's voice. " Why'd you pick this company versus all the other companies you could be an assistant at? Because I'm sure those other companies would have a less stringent policy on who they hire."
He whipped at his suit jacket before sitting down. When he did sit down, those lion-like eyes connected with mine. I felt a little turned on just by how his look penetrated me. It was impossible to not find the man attractive. But it didn't mean anything. It was a nice distraction, to say the least. It actually kind of calmed me down somewhat.
" This is one of the top companies in the world. I aim for the top. I won't settle for less. Maybe that's a corny answer, but I'm a corny person."
Okay, that last line sucked. But I was talking so fast that I really didn't think before I spoke. It happened, and I couldn't take it back. If anything could come from this whole interview, I would be proud that I was myself the entire time and not some sort of carbon cut out of what an interviewee should be.
He gave me a measured look. " You think this job is a joke or something?"
My lips pursed. Anyone else in my position would probably start crying. But not me. I wasn't some bitch who was going to back down because he was a little intimidating and sexy. " I don't know where on earth you would assume that I'm not taking this job seriously. What? Because I'm being myself? I don't think you need an assistant who's going to be a yes-man. What you see is what you get. I'm not filtered. If that's not what you want. I can walk right now."
I was proud of that, on second thought. I was super proud of that. I couldn't remember the last time I spoke to someone so forthright, let alone in an interview. But hell, I was there for it. I finally matched my dark red hair in terms of my personality. It was fun having a fire under my butt. What was even more fun was watching his reaction to what I had just said. Clearly, he was not used to people talking to him like that. And not to tote my own horn, but if he wanted me to be his assistant, he would have to get used to things such as this.
All the while, I felt that I couldn't help but wonder whether I would be doing good or bad. It felt like I was doing bad. It felt like, at any given moment, he was going to kick me out of the office, and my dreams of getting the job would be dashed. Time did slow down at that moment for me. It didn't help that his face was unreadable as well. Once again, my leg started to rattle beneath the table. The hard part about that was trying to ensure that the rest of my body didn't shake in front of him. It was one thing to talk about, but if he saw that I was nervous,
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. I was no expert on body language, but that did not seem good to me. I was waiting for him to just kick me out of the room. Hell, I was even waiting for him to lift the gun to my head and ask me if I was being serious.
" You're right. I don't like yes-men. I don't like people who are going to kiss my ass. And I don't think you're that type of person. I think you're quirky. I wonder whether or not you'd be good with all the clerical stuff." He paused, and it made me feel as though that was my turn to reassure him that I was good with clerical stuff.
" I'm going to find you attractive. I mean doing clerical work. I'm really good at doing clerical work." What in the absolute fuck. Did I really just say that? Did I really just say that I found him attractive? I literally wanted to pee myself. I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks with how red they were turning. And as I looked at the beautiful man before me and at the other end of that table, he was holding back a smirk. His eyes drifted towards my lips. Not only was I embarrassed, but I was slightly turned on. I only used the word slightly because I couldn't find it in myself to be fully turned on in a moment where I was mortified. Call me crazy."
" All right, I won't beat around the bush anymore. You have the job. You can start Monday. If that's okay with you."
That last part of this sentence was just him being sarcastic. But I did enjoy the fact that he brushed it over the part of my rant that I'd most definitely known he heard. I forced a smile because that felt like the right thing to do and said," thank you. You won't regret it."
