Page 4 of Deal Breaker
“Did you arrange someone to cover for you while you’re away?” He leaned back in his chair, his hands steepling in front of him.
I sucked in my lips. He knew full well I had. I’d spoken with one of the other personal assistants to make sure she had capacity to deal with anything that might come up. I’d sent him a calendar invite with my vacation dates and even copied Laura in on all the relevant things. It was such a delight to hear he’d apparently ignored all of the work I’d put in for just two days’ vacation. Not wanting to let him see my frustration, I faked a smile. “Yes, Laura says she’s happy to pick anything up.”
“Hmm, Laura. Do I know her?”
Now he was being deliberately obtuse. Sure, Laura had only been with Tarrant, Young and Bland for less than three months, but she had been present at meetings with us. And I’d even introduced them properly last week mostly to make sure he knew what Laura looked like. Beneath the desk, my hands balled into fists. The nails I so desperately wanted to get done before this weekend dug into my skin. Given the pile of work, I might end up having to do them myself in the car on the drive.
“She’s part of Mrs. Bland’s team.” I gave a tight smile.
“Right. Good.” He nodded. There was a pause. “Perhaps she can help you get a handle on this?” He edged the pile closer to the edge of the desk. I leaped forward to stop it tumbling off and landing on the floor.
Fighting to hide my annoyance, I grabbed the folders and documents. “Is there anything else you need now? Because otherwise I’d like to make a start.”Professionalism, Sophie,I told myself. There seemed little point in getting upset about things, so I might as well just get on with them. The sooner I got started, the sooner I could finish.
Tim leaned forward and tapped his mouse to see whatever was on his screen. His eyes focused on that as he spoke, rather than looking at me. “Make sure you’ve done a full handover with Laura on Thursday.”
I wanted to point out I’d already put that in his calendar too. But I took a deep breath and rose above it. “Of course. I wouldn’t leave her in the dark about what’s going on.”
“Good, good.” He stared at his computer screen, already typing something, his attention no longer on me.
When I didn’t move, he slowly turned his gaze to look directly at me, a frown deepening his forehead. “You can go now.”
Biting my tongue, I gathered the work into my arms, grabbed my notepad and pen, then stood up. By the time I got to the door, he had one final request.
“Oh, and if you’re going to Starbucks, I’ll have a skinny macchiato.”
“Got it. One skinny macchiato coming right up.”
Muttering under my breath, I dumped all the paperwork onto my desk and fished in my purse for my wallet. Sometimes I wished I hadn’t taken this job. But personal assistant to a lawyer sounded so much better than unemployed.
Fifteen minutes later, I was back from the coffee shop with Tim’s usual and a treat for me: a grande cinnamon dolce creme. If I had to get through all this work, a sugar rush would help. I’d considered asking for Tim’s drink with full fat milk, just to piss him off, but instead I dumped a sachet of Sweet’N Low in the cup. Childish, I know, but I felt better for it. After I’d delivered his drink, I closed Tim’s door behind me, and I went back to my desk. My eyes glazed over as I reread my notes from our meeting. There really was a crap ton of work to do. Sometimes I think he hoarded up tasks, then landed them on me when I had the least amount of time to complete them.
Using the inter office messaging system, I fired off a message to Laura, asking if she had time to come around and help. Her status showed as “Do Not Disturb,” so I guessed Mrs. Bland had her working on something urgent. I tapped my fingers on my desk, sipping my creamy drink, psyching myself up to make a start.
Heaving a sigh, I tried to make sense of the things I needed to do. There was a heap of notes which needed checking over and attributing to the right case files, as well as some minutes from two meetings earlier in the week to type up. I decided to tackle the minutes first. As I’d taken them, they should at least make more sense.
As usual, the words swam in front of me. Why did all lawyers think that using long-ass phrases, with terms that a normal person couldn’t understand, made sense? Probably something to do with their hourly rate, I guessed. Seeing their invoices made me balk. Thank God I’d hopefully never need a legal person to represent me. I’d be bankrupt before I’d even start.
I felt my phone vibrate in my bag and shot a glance over towards Tim’s office.
He didn’t like me taking personal calls when I was in the office.
Whoever it was could wait. I’d call them back after work.
The vibrating ceased, and I turned my attention back to the minutes.
A couple of seconds later, it started again.
Apparently, it couldn’t wait.
Tim appeared engrossed in a call, his back to the window.
I bent over and reached down into my bag for the phone. Autumn’s name flashed up on the screen. I stabbed the accept button.
“What do you want?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down.
“Where are you? Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“I’m at work. You know it’s difficult to answer when he’s around.” From my half-bent over position, I tried to see if my boss could see me. If he came out and asked questions, I could always claim women’s problems, and this was the only way to soothe the cramps. That would send him scuttling back into his office without any further interrogation.
