“In closing,” I added, noticing that Myra looked noticeably relieved, “I just want to say that I’ll miss you, Myra, very much. I don’t think I will ever fill your shoes, and I’m sure Roland Shepard will never let me forget that fact. So cheers to Myra, everyone. May she enjoy her retirement far away from this place and stop having to feel like she has to be a lifesaver for everyone here. Cheers!”
The answering calls for cheers were few and far between. Many people looked like they’d maybe had a bad piece of cake, though I didn’t know how that would be possible. It was great cake.
“I’d just like to say,” Myra cut in, “that I greatly enjoyed my time here, and I will miss it very much. I’ll miss most of all trying to save you from yourself, silly girl. Beauty, good luck. You’re going to need it.”
Everyone laughed, sounding relieved, and the phone at our desk jangled. I’d been so gung-ho in my speech, but now my heart sank. Roland had probably been watching—and listening—to the whole thing. There would be hell to pay.
“I’ll go get that,” Myra said quickly.
“No way,” I protested, stopping her. “This is your party. You enjoy it.”
“It’s probably the last time I’m going to see that man in my whole life,” she said, and I was taken aback to notice that her eyes were filled with tears.
“Myra, if I said something wrong, I’m sorry….”
She hugged me tightly. “Roland Shepard is a lot of things, Beauty,” she said. “And he’s not a perfect man. But you need to remember that he’s a good man, underneath it all. Roland Shepard is a good man who has experienced things no one should. Treat him well. He doesn’t deserve to suffer.”
And that was the last thing Myra said to me in the office, as she sped over to the desk to clean up one of my messes for the final time.
Chapter 7
The work wasn’t going to end, I realized, sending a well-worded curse upon Myra out into the universe. She’d told me everything she thought was necessary about this position, but the late hours hadn’t been included.
Who knew, really? Maybe she was able to power through all of the assignments she’d been tasked with in normal business hours. Maybe I’d get to that point, too, someday, when I finally learned the ins and outs of this place—or, at the very least, got my shit together.
It had been more than three weeks since her retirement party, and I missed her every day. Most of the time, I didn’t know what I was doing. I delivered messages I didn’t understand, relayed answers that were equally inscrutable, and tried my best to survive. Sam was becoming more and more of a friend, which I needed.
And Dan was becoming more of a distraction, finding reasons to come up to this floor, even though he’d apparently never frequented the office, according to Sam. His loaded flirtations made me cringe with both pleasure and embarrassment.
I rubbed my face with my hands. Sometimes, I felt completing the mindless tasks Roland demanded of me would be easier with a drink. It didn’t help that I’d been able to drink on the job during my last working stint. Now, any time the going got rough, I craved it.
I inhaled sharply and glanced quickly at the camera mounted in the corner by the ceiling. Stupid thing. It was always there, like a robotic eyeball watching my every move. I’d begun to seriously doubt that anyone was watching, and certainly not Roland. Didn’t the president of a huge company have better things to do with his time than spectate during the not-so-riveting minutia of office work? I figured it had more to do with liability and deterrence: liability if something went wrong, and deterrence to keep things from going wrong in the first place.
Right now, that camera was making me feel like I was being scrutinized, judged for being incompetent enough to be in the office this late, after everyone had long gone home…except for a certain reclusive billionaire.
The camera was also pretty good at compelling me to do my work—and have a little fucking urgency about it.
Something about the office this late gave me the chills. Without the tapping of keyboards and constant level of babble from my coworkers talking on the phone and among themselves, it was as quiet as a tomb. I longed for Sam to sidle over for a quick chat, or even for Myra to still be here so I could ask her a question—even if I already knew most of the answers.
For a girl who’d spent the better part of a year in utter solitude, rarely talking, I’d gotten quickly addicted to sound and noise and activity—and even having people around me all day.
I willed the scanner to hurry up, the shredder to follow suit, and for my hands to stop confusing the two. If only I’d saved this for tomorrow. I’d be in my warm, cozy apartment by now; I could play some music, if I wanted, to break the silence. I supposed that, if I really wanted to, I could play some music now, but it felt wrong. Like nothing was supposed to disrupt the atmosphere.
Like the entire building was waiting for something to happen to me.
“Beauty?”
I gasped and pushed myself away from the desk as my heart leapt into my throat in abject terror. I’d been too engrossed in my thoughts, in the goal of completing the task at hand, to notice the door to Roland’s office swing open. He stood there, the front of him cast in shadow from the gold light at his back.
I guess I should’ve been thankful that I didn’t scream.
“Um, Mr. Shepard,” I said, quickly standing up. Everything about this was wrong. Myra had told me that particular door never opened unless I was going in or coming out. She’d also told me that, in spite of everything—the disfigured face, the hot temper, the tendency to live life in the shadows—he was a good man. Would that also prove to be false? There was no one else here. I was stupid to stay in the office this late by myself. I should’ve just gone home and made excuses tomorrow when I came in, vowing to work extra hard to catch up.
“Please, call me Roland.”
Part of me wished I could see his face—hard to look at, though it was—so I could try and gauge his mood. Did he want me to call him Roland because he was warming up to me, or was it a warning? Myra had told me that the president’s assistant was supposed to get him anything and everything he asked for. What…what if he wanted something I wasn’t prepared to give him? Would he just take it? Did he think himself entitled enough to do so—as a billionaire? My heart pounded so hard that it rattled my ribcage. Did Dan tell him exactly what had transpired between us back at that bar, when I’d performed the personal dance for the vice president of Shepard Shipments?
Is that what Roland wanted? A taste for himself?
“Could I get you anything…sir?” I couldn’t call him Roland. I wasn’t as terrified of him as I had been the first time I’d seen him, but I wasn’t near being comfortable. Even Myra hadn’t seemed at ease during my training in the building where she’d worked for so many years. I couldn’t tell if it was because she had trepidation over entering the retired life, or if it was something more, some endless tension always present in this place.
A feeling of being watched. Watched, analyzed, and judged, constantly.
“Say it after me. Ro. Land.”
If only I could see whether that scarred face was quirking up into a smile to tell if he was joking. What would a smile even look like on that marred expanse of skin? Could he even manage the expression anymore? Was that why he was so impossibly gruff?
“Ro. Land,” I repeated, obedient.