Page 69 of The Bet
“I’m meant to be revising for tests,” she lied.
“I happened to hear that Savannah doesn’t need you so much, at the moment.”
She stared at him in disbelief. His choice of wording was interesting. “Why did you tell Savannah?”
“I honestly thought you might have mentioned it to her.”
“She only called me late on Friday, and it’s not something I would have discussed on the phone.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“I’m mad that you told her something that wasn’t your news to tell.” And she was mad that she had lost the hours, but to be fair, she would probably have lost them anyway. She was mad at him because it was easier to be mad at him than worry about where she was going to make up the shortfall in earnings.
“She told me she’d been worried about Jacob while she was away, and I tried to allay her fears. I casually mentioned the only thing the kid seemed to be down about—the stuff you told me. I never thought for a moment that she would stop you from working there.”
She was silent as she tried to find something to say. Something that would be neutral. But she couldn’t, and so the silence stretched uncomfortably.
It was Xavier who spoke first. “Savannah feels bad that she’s left you without any work, and for taking away your income.”
“So?” She had no idea what any of this had to do with him. “Did you call me so you could rub my face in it?”
“Hell, no. What kind of guy do you think I am?”
“I can never tell.”
“Savannah was trying to find something for you to do so that she could still keep you on, and then I had a solution.”
“You?” She flinched at his words.
“One of my virtual assistants had to take care of some personal stuff, and I have no idea when she’s coming back. In fact, I don’t think I want her back, but, I need someone to carry out a few administrative tasks for me, and to take care of some emails, check some of my spreadsheets, basic things.”
“If they’re basic things, why don’t you do them yourself?”
He angled his head, as if weighing up the amount of spite in her words. “Do you want the extra work or not?”
She didn’t want to say ‘Yes,’ because, for some reason she wasn’t sure of, she didn’t like the idea of letting him think he was right, or that she needed the work. “I could do with a few extra hours.”
“Okay. Well, I could do with some extra help. I’m busy running the businesses,” he said, “And Savannah mentioned you already did some stuff on the side. If you’re not interested, just say so. There’s plenty of other people I can find to fill my VA’s shoes.”
She jerked to attention at that, and while the last thing she wanted was to work for Xavier Stone, she didn’t have a better alternative.
It was waitressing back at the fast food place, or look for some other type of babysitting—but nobody would offer her the weekend only type of work that Savannah had. And Savannah had hinted she would need her after Christmas. If she could go back to her, and look after Jacob, and get paid that much for it, she wanted back in.
“How many hours?” she asked, testing the waters.
“As many as you want.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “You don’t have a fixed number of hours?”
“I go through a fair number of virtual assistants. This particular one was based in the city, and I trusted her with more than the basics. She kept an eye on my sales figures, and returns for my stores. The rest of the VAs are abroad. Now, you could do her work, which is about 5 to 10 hours’ worth of work a week, or, if you want more, I can give you some work from the other VAs.”
“I can only work weekends.”
“You can do the work when you want, and you don’t even have to turn up at my apartment, hence it being avirtual assistant.”
“At your apartment?”
“I have an office at home.” He eyed her suspiciously. “What did you think I did?”
