Dirty Rich(2)

I shake my head and press the car door shut, straightening my spine. The  last thing I need to do is take a vacation. I haven't taken a vacation  in a year. With every day that goes by, it seems less and less likely  that I'll have the time. This just isn't that kind of job.

The empty elevator whisks me up to the sixth floor, where Basiqué has  its headquarters. The building takes up most of the block, so it's a  labyrinth. Now, at 7:30, most of the lights are still off, but as I  stride down the center aisle of the cubicles in the bullpen, the sharp  points of my high heels muffled by the carpet, it's clear that I'm not  the only one taking advantage of the only slow period of the morning. I  can't see who's here-probably at least two people from editorial,  they're always up against deadlines-but their fingers whirr against  keyboards, making changes, coming up with new copy, all with the goal of  pleasing Sandra.

I miss working in Editorial. The deadlines were tough, but this job …

Sandra rules Basiqué with an iron fist, and I am her right hand. Sounds  like some shit out of Game of Thrones, doesn't it? What they don't tell  you is that fashion is cutthroat in a way that that show doesn't touch.  Someday, when I'm in charge of my own offices-a publishing company, if  my wildest dreams are going to come true-it won't be like that.

Sandra's office suite is at the far end of the building. I hang a right  around the meeting rooms. My heart beats harder as I approach the double  glass doors that lead into her office. It hasn't happened recently, but  when I was first starting out at Basiqué, there were a couple of  occasions where she got here before me.

Disaster.

I pull open the door and the quality of the air, the silence of it, tells me she's not here.

Relief trickles down my spine, but the feeling only lasts a hot second  before it's replaced by an adrenaline-fueled focus. I do this job at a  high goddamn level, so high that I've outlasted ten other assistants  over the past year. Sandra usually has two, but the last girls have been  so ineffective-so easily broken by the job-that right now there's just  me.

I prefer it that way. The more control I have over Sandra's schedule and  everything else that comes across my desk, the less chance of error.  She hates errors, so I hate errors.

Stowing my bag in the closet behind my desk, I turn to survey the  office. Sandra's desk is beyond another set of doors, usually left open.  The morning light coming through the picture window behind her desk  bathes everything in a warm summer glow.

Outside the doors is a pair of desks facing one another. I have the  larger one, and though the smaller one sits empty, I dust it off every  Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sandra never notices. If she did, there  would be a problem.

First things first. I gather Sandra's daily magazines and stack them on  her desk in her preferred order, and then I call down to the coffee shop  on the ground floor. She likes her coffee black and at a drinkable  temperature, which I've found is best achieved by adding exactly one ice  cube to a fresh cup. Manuel, the guy who works the morning shift, is  one of my favorite people. He knows this shit is no laughing matter and  never lets me down.

"Hey, Cate," he says, the noise of the espresso grinder loud behind him. "The usual?"

I drink skinny lattes, extra hot. I used to get them flavored, but about  four months ago I woke up one morning completely unable to stand the  sickly aftertaste of the vanilla flavoring. Same goes for chocolate.  I've always loved sweets, but who has time to dwell on that kind of  thing? Tastes change. The most important part is the caffeine.  Obviously.

Since it's Monday, I pull out the feather duster and run it over  Sandra's modern glass desk and computer screen, paying special attention  to the keyboard, and then I do the same for my desk and the empty one.  Manuel will be up shortly with the coffees, which leaves me forty  minutes to start working through my email and confirming appointments  for the day. It doesn't matter that Sandra might cancel them all the  moment she walks through the door. God help me if they're not confirmed,  double-checked, in advance.         

     



 

My computer starts up with the softest whisper. It's sleek,  top-of-the-line, and syncing capabilities that keep everything-my phone,  the tablet I carry when I accompany Sandra to shoots and other events,  and all the information stored on the computer-in line.

Email is light for a Monday, so it only takes a few minutes to fire off  replies. I decline two interviews on Sandra's behalf-they're from  publications she's explicitly told me she will never entertain-and  answer three queries from editorial and a couple more from different  photographers on Basiqué's staff.

I'm just setting down the phone from the final confirmation call when an  alert pops up on my desktop. Manuel is here with the coffee, waiting  outside the double doors.

I take the drink carrier from him and hand over five dollars for a tip.

"You got any plans for tomorrow?" he asks.

I look at him, my forehead wrinkling. "Is there something special about tomorrow?"

His eyes go wide. "The Fourth of July! Only the biggest party holiday of  the month. Don't tell me you're spending it in the office!"

I hadn't thought about it.

I open my mouth to answer but from the corner of my eye I see a flurry down the hall, people rushing to get to their desks.

Sandra is here.





Chapter 2

Cate





"Thanks so much, Manuel!" I say, my heart already thrumming in my chest.  I only just catch the look he gives me as I spin around and head back  into the office. It's a look that wonders why I care so much that my  boss is in the building. But I have no time for Manuel and his looks  now. The coffee has to go on Sandra's desk and I need to be at the door  in thirty seconds at the most.

In three strides I'm at my desk, putting my coffee back behind my  computer monitor, and it's another step to the closet, where I tuck the  drink carrier into a recycling bin that looks like a high-end laundry  hamper. Sandra didn't want a plastic bin in the closet, even though she  has a separate one behind the second desk for her coats, so I spent a  Saturday finding the perfect alternative.

There's a full-length mirror on the wall next to the double doors, and I  take a moment to make sure that my appearance is on the sharpest point  imaginable. My ensemble today is Chanel. I picked it up from the dry  cleaner on Friday, along with the other pieces that will hopefully get  me though this week, as long as I don't have any food catastrophes. That  should be easily avoidable. Lunch breaks are an unnecessary  distraction.

My hair is piled on top of my head, impeccably dried and arranged in the  messy, carefree look that actually takes an hour to achieve. The only  thing I need to touch up is my lipstick. It's my signature shade-Rouge  D'Armani, No. 103-and I keep a tube of it in my desk at all times. I  swipe it on, the movement expert.

Outside the glass doors, people are materializing in the hallway.  They're slotted for the first meetings of the day. Some of them don't  have appointments until 9:30, an hour from now, but they find things to  do in the meeting rooms across the hall, poring over mockups, chatting  in low voices to each other over presentation boards.

One meeting room is taken up almost entirely by a group of five of the  hottest men you're likely to ever see in your entire goddamn life, and  they're dressed in outfits that look like a sexy twist on businesswear.  They're here to have Sandra approve the looks for the shoot on Thursday,  and two stylists flit around them, adjusting sleeve cuffs again and  again, making sure jackets hang just so. One look from Sandra and  they'll find themselves making frantic calls to the designers for  replacements. The only people who seem entirely at ease are the models.  They have the least to lose. Bryce, a blonde, blue-eyed model with  All-American looks, catches me looking through the doors and winks.

I give him a small smile. Bryce likes to stop at my desk after meetings  and chat, and if Sandra's tied up with a designer, he likes to bitch  about work and boys, tell me who stood him up for a date last weekend,  who turned out to be a terrible dancer and worse in bed. Those  conversations are like pressure valves for my day. I would have cracked  months ago if it weren't for him.

For just a second my mind wanders. Bryce has a once-in-a-lifetime body.  If he weren't gay, I'd like to take him back to my apartment and strip  off that shirt, tug down the charcoal pants, and slide my hand...         

     



 

Sandra's face on the other side of the glass startles me so much that I  jump. I can't believe she caught me off guard like this. I came to the  door to watch for the signs of her imminent arrival-the way people's  heads turn and then swivel back so they can pretend they weren't  watching her like a hawk as she came down the hall.

When my body leaps Sandra's eyes narrow, and then she pulls the door open with her free hand.