ELENA'S POV
The subway doors opened at New York Penn Station at 9:25 a.m., and I dashed through them, shoving other passengers uncaringly. I sprinted along the platform, pushing through the crowd, elbowing people as I rushed past, and resisting the urge to apologize.
I was beyond late for work. Ava had woken up with a runny nose that morning, which quickly turned into a cold, and nothing I did helped. I would have called in sick, but I had used up all my sick days. I had to scramble for a babysitter since her daycare wouldn't take her while she was sick. All that put me thirty minutes behind schedule.
It took me a while to get to the station entrance, given the throng of people commuting from New Jersey to Manhattan and vice versa. Overground, I began searching for a taxi.
Usually, I walked to my office building. The twenty-minute walk was the only constant exercise I got daily. But that day, the twenty minutes it would have taken me to walk stood between me and unemployment. The $45 cab fare didn't seem so costly right then.
I found a cab after five minutes but had to fight a finance bro for it. I had to get in and shut the door in his face as he wouldn't stop arguing.
It was 9:45 a.m. when I finally made it into my office building, New York traffic being what it was. I made a beeline for the only open elevator, yelling, "Hold it, please," to the occupants, but they didn't. They watched me as I ran and let the elevator doors close a second before I reached them.
"Shit!" I cursed under my breath.
This was not good. Not good at all.
I had just been promoted to the President's assistant, the most important and dare I say best paying job of my life, and this was my first day working alone. For the past three months, I had been shadowing his former assistant, who was retiring, basically working as her assistant as I learned the ropes. Just my shitty luck that on my first actual day of the job, I was 45 minutes late.
47 minutes now.
I looked towards the stairs a few feet away from the elevators and debated using them. But I was going up to the 13th floor, and my legs would give out before I made it a quarter of the way there. They weren't made for endurance sports, never had been, and definitely weren't after birthing a child.
So instead, I waited, anxiously watching the seconds go by on my watch while pacing. Five minutes into my wait, another elevator arrived, and people poured out as soon as the doors opened. As soon as the last person walked out, I rushed in and tapped the button for the 13th floor repeatedly. I saw a man heading towards me to get on the elevator, and usually, I would have held it, but not that day.
"Sorry," I mouthed as the doors shut, betrayal and annoyance the last expressions on the man's face before he was cut away.
The elevator began its climb up, and I started saying a quiet but fervent prayer that no one else would stop it. My prayers must have been answered, as we ascended without interruption until the 8h floor when an older, bespectacled man got on, then got off on the 12th floor.
It dinged to a stop on the 13th floor, and the doors opened noiselessly. I dashed out and turned the corner onto the 13th floor hallway, and instantly, the energy felt different.
Unlike the ground floor, which was filled with people on their way to work or already hard at work, it was silent. There wasn't a sound to be heard. Not even the soft sound of fingers on keyboards. Soundproof doors and frosted glass walls for privacy obstructed any prying eyes and ears. Lush carpet lined the hall, swallowing any sounds of shoeless sticking the floors.
These were the offices of executives—the CEO, president, CFO, etc. There were also a few conference rooms. Hansons had a hierarchy system, and each floor was ranked higher than the one below it. I never imagined I would be working up here, especially not so soon.
I walked down the hall, feeling like a kid getting sent to the principal's office and resisting the urge to tiptoe. Most of the urgency had left my body and had been replaced with trepidation. I stopped at the very last door at the end of the hall and took a deep breath. There was no nameplate on the door or wall. Nothing to inform you of the occupant. You either knew where you were going or you got lost.
It was now or never. I righted my clothes and smoothed my hair, then moved to open the door, but just as my hand touched the doorknob, the door opened from the inside, and I almost fell through. I scrambled to break my fall—I could already see myself with a split skull, blood pooling around me, and Ava crying in the distance. Somehow, I stretched my hands out, and they collided with a wall. A human wall.
I slowly raised my eyes and met the eyes of my boss, Nic Hanson, the president of Hansons staring down at me.
His eyes! I had never been close enough to him to notice before, but they were mossy green with brown flecks in them, like the woods and the earth after a downpour. They were so intense, and they were looking at me with curiosity.
No. He wasn't staring at me—he was glaring at me. His eyes flicked down, and my own followed, and I finally noticed where my hands were—splayed across his chest.
In a flash, my hands were behind my back, and they burned like they had been in fire. My cheeks heated as well, and I was thankful for my tan complexion that hid any color on my skin.
"I am so sorry," I stuttered. "I didn't mean to… to… place my hands on your… I was opening the—"
The words died in my throat at the scowl he leveled at me, and I wished the earth would open up to swallow me.
Instead of responding, he asked, "Who are you?" his voice gruff.
"Elena Torres, your assistant." At the confusion on his face, I added, "I am taking over from Gretchen. She has been training me for the past three months."
Comprehension finally dawned on him. "It's you," he said. He looked down at the Rolex on his wrist, then said, "You are an hour late on your first day."
He didn't look at me as he spoke, but after a moment, he looked up, as if to gauge my reaction. I struggled to wipe the fear away from my face as he stared pointedly at me.
"I am so sorry. It will never happen again," I pleaded, sounding and feeling remorseful.
"I told Gretchen I didn't want an idiot. I have no tolerance for lazy people, and she assured me you are the best one here. Is this you being your best?" His tone was condescending, as though speaking to a child, but I couldn't even be mad. I was at fault.
"I assure you I am as good as she said I am. My daughter became ill this morning and I had to find a sitter for her as her preschool wouldn't take—"
"I don't care for your excuses. I run a business not a charity. You are being paid to do a job and part of that job is showing up on time, and I expect you to do it. No excuses." His glower transformed into a full blown snarl. "Am I understood?"
"Yes." I bit out. I was pissed at the way he's talking down at me but I held my tongue. "It won't happen again."
"For your sake, it better not."
With his face still in a frown, he pushed past me and stalked down the hallway.
I stood shell shocked outside the door, not fully comprehending the last five minutes.
I got off easy, to be honest. I thought I would be fired that day. One hour late! Nic had a reputation for being brutal and unforgiving. He was arrogant with a sharp tongue and had a perpetual scowl on his face that was only replaced with a look of disappointment . In short, he was an ass and impossible to work with. But being his assistant paid really well, and I was more than willing to put up with his temperament for the money.
"Why are you still standing there?" I heard him say.
I turned around, and he was facing me halfway down the hall. That's when I noticed the MacBook in his hand, and I remembered he had a meeting scheduled for 10 a.m.
Cursing quietly, I hurried toward him. A few feet away from him, he said, "I assume we pay you enough to afford cologne," then turned and continued down the hall.
I stood befuddled, then sniffed at my blouse and then my hair. Sure enough, I smelled subtly of vomit. I guessed some must have gotten on my hair.
I shook it off and followed him. Today was off to a bad start.