Is he always like this?
Bennett continues to look down at me for a few more seconds before he speaks again. This time taking me by surprise again, but this time for a whole different reason.
“Which department are you working in?” he asks, sliding his hands into his pant pockets, all the while taking a step back.
“Um.” I scramble to grab my phone out of the only acceptable for the office tote that we had in the apartment and look for the answer to his question. It takes me a full minute to pull up the email that Linda had sent me yesterday with all the instructions for today. You would think with how many times I read through the email, I would have it memorized by now. “It doesn’t say,” I finally tell him as I read through the email for what feels like the hundredth time since I got it. “I was just told to come here, head up to the eighth floor and report to Linda.”
I look back at Bennett and give him a small smile and surprisingly I get one back. A really small smile, but I’m taking it as a win.
“What’s the position?” He asks with curiosity in his voice.
“Oh, I’m just coming on as an assistant. Nothing important.”
For some reason, the smile of his starts to disappear as the seconds go by, making me think that this guy doesn’t think that assistants are important either.
But he doesn’t come out right and say that. He just takes another second to look me up and down, almost like he assessing me with those blue, almost green eyes of his.
Not being able to take the scrutiny, I look away from him, because I can already feel his judgment of me passing through his expressing, No need to experience it first hand.
Instead of looking up at his face, I take in what he in wearing.
A designer suit that fits his body beautifully. It probably costs more than my rent and it’s probably one of a few hundred that were made specifically for the man wearing it. It’s almost like a glove, that was molded specifically for his body. The expensive fabric stretches over his build perfectly.
“Can I give you a piece of advice?” he asks me, taking me out of my exploration of his suit covered form.
Without second thought, completely embarrassed about my perusing of him, I look back up at his face.
“Yes. Absolutely.”
I should have told him no.
He’s probably going to tell me that working for a company like Lane Enterprises is going to destroy me. That I should probably reconsider and go look for a job somewhere else.
“Don’t sell yourself short. It doesn’t matter if you’re working here as a security guard, a mail recipient, an executive or an assistant. Your job is important. You are important.”
It takes me a second to register what he says and when I do I’m at a lost for words. Again.
Here is someone who is a millionaire, or something greater than that, who is someone important, especially when I look behind him and see what look to be not one, but two security guards standing close by, ready to ponce in case they need to, standing outside, in the middle of the morning, telling me not to sell myself short. He probably has other important things that he was has to go do, but here he is.
It takes me a second to collect my thought process before I’m able to respond. “Do you say that to everyone or just the individuals that you find outside the building, trying to talk up the courage to walk inside.”
That makes him laugh and oh my god does it do something to my insides.
This is not the time to get butterflies, Ella. Or for blushing. Or holding your thighs tighter. Control yourself.
“I try to say that to everyone.”
“Gee and here I thought I was special.”
That earns me another laugh, but this one is a bit more throaty and a lot fuller than the last one and again, it does something to me.
Great. My first day on the job and I already have a crush on someone who may not be my boss but my boss’s boss and who I’m possibly going to see every day.
“You’re definitely something.” The words come out of his mouth and it takes both of us by surprise.
I try to ignore the words all together, but it becomes a little difficult when the fact that hearing those words just heightens whatever I’m feeling even more.
But nonetheless, I push the words out of my mind and whatever I’m feeling down and act like I didn’t hear what he said and just give him a small smile. “I should head in,” I say waving toward the front door of the building. “My work day is about to start and I can’t be late”