As the personal assistant to Reid Hunter, I am compensated healthy to dress to impress. I am the final face before potential customers and clients meet with the man recently named one of Forbes Top Ten Business Men in the US Under the Age of Thirty-Five. I have a copy of the magazine safely stashed in my desk drawer that I like to pull out and tease Reid with on occasion.
Most of the money I’m paid goes first to pay my bills and second to make sure Natalia has everything she needs. The medication she’s on for her reflux isn’t the cheapest out there and can get rather pricey when I head to the pharmacy every month. What’s left of my paycheck is used to purchase end of season designer clothes at a discount. Well, except the “gifts” I receive regularly from my uncle. They’re some sort of peace offering from his older brother’s death when I was five years old. Plus, there’s the trust fund that I haven’t touched. Like clockwork every July first, a large sum of money is deposited in an offshore account in my name. I’ve been able to touch it since I turned twenty-five two years ago, but I have no desire to touch money that I deem tainted.
Knocking at my front door pulls me from my preparations. I grab the toddler from her restraint and head towards the front door.
“Hey, baby girl,” my mom says with a chipper smile.
“Morning, Mom,” I mumble through my yawn.
“Late night?” she asks, placing her purse on the small entry table by the doorway.
“She didn’t go down until midnight and then was up again around three for a bit,” I confirm. Nat is a night owl, sleeping soundly for long periods of time throughout the day. No matter how hard we try to switch her sleeping schedule, it seems to make her colic worse, to the point of unbearable. Her pediatrician believes it’s something that she’ll start to grow out of soon, so we just deal with it until that point finally comes along.
“Come here, pretty girl. Let Nana get you some breakfast while Mommy finishes getting ready,” Mom says as she takes the squirming toddler from my arms.
I run back to my bedroom and finish getting ready. With Mom here a little early, I’m able to style my hair in an up-do, and add a little mascara and blush to my pale complexion. After slipping on my favorite pumps, I hustle into the kitchen to kiss my daughter before heading out the door.
“I don’t think Reid has any late afternoon meetings, so I should be home at my usual time,” I say to my mom as I grab a NutriGrain bar from the cabinet.
“You’ll get home whenever you get here. Don’t you worry about us. We’ll be just fine,” she says as she feeds the suddenly happy baby a spoonful of rice cereal with cut up bananas.
After kissing my daughter on the top of the head, careful to avoid her messy fingers, I slip out the front door. I take the elevator down to the lobby, walk out to the parking lot, and head towards my car tucked securely in its parking spot.
I slide into the leather driver’s seat of my newer Jaguar XJ Supercharged. This wasn’t exactly the car I was looking to drive at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, but my uncle insisted that I have something stylish and comfortable to travel between home and work. This beauty replaced the coupe convertible version I was driving before I found out I was pregnant. Now, it’s a four-door sedan.
But don’t let the four doors fool you! This one is completely custom, with the sport and speed package consisting of every ounce of luxury technology Jaguar could add to a car. This baby has a front seat massager, the illumination package, and the biggest engine Jaguar can safely install in a luxury sedan. All for the everyday low price of $125,000. Yeah, not too bad for a personal assistant.
I use the drive to work to collect my thoughts, but it never takes very long for them to quickly turn to Blake. You know, the man I met two years ago, spent one night with, and ended up pregnant with his child? Of course, he has no idea he even has a daughter. When I woke that morning so long ago, I found my bed empty. Knowing that it was only one night, I still felt a loss by his absence. He was off to work his new job, wherever and whatever that is, not even giving me his last name. When our night was all said and done, I knew only a first name and that I would remember our meeting for the rest of my life.
When I reach the headquarters for Hunter Enterprises, I pull my car into my reserved parking space in the underground parking garage and head towards the private elevator in the rear of the glass-front building. Reid has successfully taken the small business he started from a three-room office in a crumbling building in a questionable neighborhood and transformed it into an empire. Buying and selling businesses–especially casinos–for a handsome profit. He’s done well over the past seven years, that’s for sure.