Chapter 30 AT WORK

For the brief time that I worked for Charles as his secretary, the sparks between us arose. I even had a better idea by now about the way that he felt for me after I saw the painting of me in his room which he was still to finish.

But that wasn’t holding me down or anything. It wouldn’t have been right to assume that he loved me and wanted me just because he was making a painting of me. So, I decided to keep it very casual with him.

When we left home and reached the Gucci store, I was amazed at the beauty of it. I couldn’t have ever been able to afford shopping there. But even though Charles had taken me to that store, I felt overwhelmed.

That was not the plan; I didn’t want to work for him to get new and expensive clothes from him. My intentions were very clear, and I only wanted to help him get unburdened, but I also felt burdened as we walked into such an expensive store with him.

He didn’t even ask me my size and neither did he give me an option to select the dresses that I wanted to try, he just picked out more than just a few dresses and asked the store manager to bill all of them. That left me shocked beyond imagination.

Having a lot of money was one thing, but spending it all in such a manner couldn’t have had a justification. But because I was not so rich at that time, I would say that I wasn't aware of one's convenience and saving time superseding the value of money.

As I looked at Charles in utter shock for having so many dresses billed for which I wouldn’t have ever been able to pay back to him unless I won a lottery, but he looked away to give her his black card. It took us less than ten minutes at the store to buy dresses for me which I didn’t even know if they would fit me because I hadn’t tried any of them.

On getting back in the car, he got busy on his phone. Having spent so much money on me made no impact on him. He was as normal as otherwise, and it was difficult for me to believe that someone could spend so much money on me. Had I been his girlfriend, it would have still been easy to understand, but maybe he was fine because he already had some kind of feeling for me, and that is why he had been drawing a painting of me.

In the painting, I looked a little different than the way I was normally. I don’t know if it is correct for me to say that he made me look rich and slightly more matured, as if I belonged to his financial status. That is why my smile was subtle in the painting and the jewellery on me also added to making me look rich.

We reached the office, and before we got out of the car, he asked me to be with him for the whole day and to notice things that he would do. So, I made sure I had a pen and a little notepad with me to list the things that I needed to remember which Charles would do in the office or things which I would need more explanation on so that I could understand them better and avoid mistakes in the future.

It was going to be a hell of a challenge for me to learn the work that he would require me to do because, first, I was not only going to be new to this field, but also I would be working for the richest man in town. And by rich I didn’t mean a few million dollars but definitely a billionaire. I would be working for him, and I didn’t want to upset him at all.

Secondly, I had to learn everything from scratch; dressing sense, talking etiquettes, walking posture, and every other little thing because the level of people which Charles dealt with were obviously expected to be up to his level, and I did not want to let him down. Rather, I wanted him to be impressed by the ways I displayed at work, and that could have made it easier for him to confess his feelings to me, I thought.

When we walked into a very big building, I wondered which floor his office would be on as the façade of the building was highly impressive. But the minute we entered, everyone started greeting him, and when we entered the elevator which had a transparent door, the way he did gestures to the people that were walking by the elevator on the floor, it became evident to me that the entire building was his office.

The elevator finally stopped on a floor which must have been the topmost floor of the building. Before the doors of it were opening, and Charles stepped out of it, he looked at me and said, “Remember, I am your friend at home, but I am your boss at work.”

“Yes, Sir,” I responded, and for him to know that I have understood the thing he told me very well, I also added on, “I will not go overboard, and I will behave myself, Sir”

Just when I told him that, I saw him hiding his smirk which puzzled me.

“Good,” he said and warned, “No questions.”

Walking out of the elevator with him boosted up my confidence, which must have shown in the way that I walked. While following him to his office, I was looking in front and not down on the floor. That is when something caught my foot, it seemed, and I tripped over my own feet. Right when I was about to fall down..