Pulse (7 page)

There was nothing else in the office. As I walked forward, my heels clicked against the marble and echoed through the small room. I could hear the sound of the spit shifting in my throat as I gulped. My heart was pounding so hard I swore that my shirt was bouncing off of my chest. I finally made the long journey from the door to the desk and stood there.

“Please, have a seat, Alice Pratt.”

I quickly did as I was told. The voice almost sounded familiar but I quickly shook the thought out of my head. I had to focus on impressing whomever it was sitting in that chair. I sat there patiently with my hands resting in my lap. As the chair slowly spun around, I looked forward at the man in his suit. My eyes worked their way up his tie and toward his face.

Our eyes met. We stared at one another in silence. I squinted my eyes the tiniest bit I could. I wasn’t sure I was seeing things correctly.

It was him. There was no mistaking it. The same man I had an encounter with twice this past week. I couldn’t forget a face like his. His hair was combed a little differently. There was less stubble on his chin. But it was him. I couldn’t forget his light brown eyes and how they were once filled with passion. And as I stared at him at this moment, I could see that he was feeling just as much disbelief as I was.

“Alice Pratt…”

“Rafael Barnett…”

What were the chances of this happening?

I didn’t know what else to say. I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up. I decided that I wouldn’t say anything if he didn’t. Regardless of whether or not he was a man I’d had sex with, that didn’t change anything. I was still here for a job. I was still here to start my career with the most prominent company in the city. Rafael made no indication that he was interested in talking about what happened between us earlier.

“I’ve been going over your resume,” he said. “It’s very impressive.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Please call me… Rafael.”

He almost smiled as he said it but caught himself. He placed the papers back down upon his desk then leaned back in his chair.

“You took a Psychology degree to go with your Business major. That’s a real good idea, Alice. That’s very smart. Most people don’t understand that you deal with people just as often as you deal with numbers. You probably should have put more of an emphasis on Psychology.”

“Knowing people is one thing,” I said. “But that’s no excuse to ignore the numbers.”

“Of course,” he smirked. “There are numbers involved. And when it comes to this company, there are
a lot
of numbers.”

He stood up from his chair. He straightened his tie and suit jacket then turned his back to me. I watched him as he looked out of the window and down into the city.

“Do you know how much this company is worth?”

“No, I don’t.”

“The estimates aren’t exact. But most people have put us at 47 billion dollars.”

I wasn’t sure why he was telling me this. The colossal number was more than enough to get me to understand the magnitude of this moment here with him but I’d already known it prior.

“And I’m the one in charge of all of it,” he said as he turned back around and looked at me. “I hold the fate of so many people in the palm of my hand. People I haven’t even met before. Do you know what my real goal is?”

“What’s that?”

“To make sure that everybody succeeds along with this business. This company has had a lot of success. I want to push us to even greater heights. And it’s going to start with people like you.”

He took a seat back in his chair. He scanned over the papers on his desk then looked at his computer monitor.

“I looked at everything you said to Estelle. I wasn’t there to hear it but I liked what she told me. You’re exactly what I’m looking for. I need people who are capable of giving me a different perspective on things. I need someone who’s fresh out of college with new ideas. I need someone who’s young. I need… Well, even just being a female is a refreshing change of pace.

“I know that Estelle told you exactly what you were getting into. Well, I’m here to tell you that she’s wrong. It’s even worse. These aren’t people you’re dealing with. They’re animals. They’re machines. These men you’re going to talk business with are robots capable of seeing things in their own way. You’ll be hard-pressed to try and sway their opinions. But I’m eager to see you try. It’s going to take all of your effort and a lot of hard work. This is
not
something you should take lightly. I’m talking about late nights at the office and taking your work home with you. There might even be times when you’ll have to work weekends, so you won’t have time to… indulge yourself.”

He stared hard at me. I swallowed then clenched my teeth. I didn’t know what to say. There was a seriousness in his face I hadn’t seen before. He may have been the same man I had sex with just a couple of nights ago but he didn’t look like it at this moment. The tension between us was different.

“Are you sure you want to work here, Alice?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ve waited my entire life for this opportunity. I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “That’s what I expected you to say. Very well…”

He wrote down some notes on his paper.

“Come in tomorrow morning,” he said. “The first meeting is scheduled at seven sharp. You won’t have to do much. Just get a feel for things and see how everything works. You’ll get your first assignment and all of the details e-mailed to you. All of your contact information is correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Good. I’ll have someone get an office ready for you. Somewhere on the 89th floor with the other board members. The boardroom is also there. Feel free to look around if you have nothing else to do. It’s empty at the moment. If you have any other questions, speak to Estelle. Her office is on the 88th floor. The room she was using earlier was just for interviews. Do you have any other questions about your job, Alice?”

“No, but… I
do
have the job?”

“Yes.”

He stared at me from his desk. I looked back at him, still unsure of what to think or say. There was something else between us. I had sex with him a few days earlier and now he was my boss. I couldn’t just ignore it.

“Rafael—”

“Alice, you’re qualified for this job, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“That’s why I hired you. That’s the
only
reason I hired you. You’re here to do a job and help Barnett Industries succeed and grow.”

I nodded to him.

“This is a
business
move. People might question my decisions. Don’t make them question this one. If you have no more
business
to discuss with me, then there’s nothing else for us to speak about. Agreed?”

“…Right. Of course. I… I understand completely.”

I nodded again then stood up from my chair. Even though we both knew what was obvious, I couldn’t say it out loud. He was right. Whatever happened between us was nothing more than two people looking for a good time. I couldn’t let how attracted I was to him physically stop me from doing my job to the best of my ability.

I turned my back to him and quickly left his office. As soon as I stepped outside, I sighed a deep breath. I got the job. I never imagined that I would be working for a man I had a one-night stand with just a few days ago but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t think any longer about the fling we had.

Chapter 8

I tried to relax when I got back to my apartment but I couldn’t. It felt like I was floating on air. I was too excited. My family was almost as excited as I was when I told them what happened. They had no clue what Barnett Industries was, so I didn’t bother explaining how big of a company it was. I told Danica that I got the job and she insisted on celebrating. I might have been tempted to take her up on the offer but I already had a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning. As hard as I worked in college, I knew that this was only the beginning.

If that weren’t enough, I had several files sent to me just like Rafael promised me. I sorted through everything and wondered if he actually expected me to get through all of it before the meeting tomorrow morning. There were profiles on so many different business. There were varying financial forecasts for every different way we could go. Despite the amount of money the company was worth, they couldn’t just invest this money in anything. There wasn’t enough to go around. This is why there was a board. This is why Rafael couldn’t make these decisions unilaterally. There was too much money at stake. There were too many lives that could be changed with a simple yes or no. And besides all of the businesses, there were people behind them. I learned about all of the men running the other companies. Rafael had several files sent to me that dealt with all of their personalities and tendencies. It was too much for me to absorb. For a split-second, I wondered if I was in over my head.

I spent the rest of the night in front of my computer, studying everything he had sent to me. I couldn’t stay up forever though. I needed a good night’s sleep as much as I needed to soak up all of this information.

I had trouble sleeping that night. I still had no idea what to expect. As I laid there in bed, my anxiety got the best of me. But it wasn’t just the work. I started thinking about Rafael himself. I had no clue that he was a man worth billions when I first met him. I almost felt embarrassed that he’d picked me out of all of the candidates he could have. I had just as many questions about him as I did about my new job.

He said he picked me because of my qualifications. But was that really the case? Was he really telling me the truth? The questions danced around inside of my head and I eventually drifted off to sleep.

* * *

I woke-up bright and early the next morning. I did my hair and put on my makeup. I didn’t have much to wear. I contemplated wearing the exact same outfit I wore twice already to the building but decided on something even more plain.

The building was crowded with so many different people. It all felt surreal. To think that I was fresh out of college and now among so many people responsible for so much money was unbelievable. And I was working with the man who was right at the top.

I went to Estelle’s office on the 88th floor. When I expressed my confusion to her, she chuckled at me then congratulated me. I felt embarrassed because of how lost I was but she explained that I wasn’t the only one. I headed one floor up toward the boardroom. There wasn’t much room for confusion. There were several smaller offices to the side but a set of double doors right at the center of the floor was my obvious destination.

There were two men standing next to the entrance. They looked young and nothing like the board members I was told about. They seemed similar. Everything from their height to the way they styled their hair to their suit was the same. One of them had hair that was darker than the other and the only other way I could tell them apart initially was their suits.

I walked up to one of them. His hair was jet black and his suit was a dark navy blue. He turned and looked at me with a smile.

“Hi,” he said. “You’re not a member of the board of directors, are you?”

“No,” I laughed. “I… I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“Oh. I see you were selected to be an intern to. My name’s Wesley.”

“Alice.”

“Nice to meet you, Alice. This here is Travis. He was hired yesterday.”

The brown-haired man nodded to me with a smile. Travis had these deep green eyes that made his face look even younger. I wondered if he even needed to shave this morning. His skin was smooth like a child’s without a single blemish on it.

“So, what’s going on?” I asked Wesley.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I think they’re just going over some preliminary reports. We were told to wait outside. We’re all early for the scheduled appointment anyway, so they can’t yell at us about that.”

“Yeah…”

I exhaled a sigh of relief. Knowing that I wasn’t alone eased some of the tension that I was feeling. There was something waiting for us behind those closed doors. Now it was just a matter of figuring it out.

As I stood there and waited for the time to pass, I looked at Wesley. While Travis was calm, his arms crossed behind his back and holding his briefcase, Wesley seemed to be pacing back and forth in place. I could see the stress rushing through his body. He reached his thumb up to his mouth and started biting his nails.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

“What?” he said, looking up. “Y-yeah, I’m fine.”

“It’s just the first day,” I told him. “They picked you for a reason. There’s no need to get stressed out over it.”

“Y-yeah, I know. I’m just… I just really want to get started. I’ve worked really hard to get here and I don’t want to screw up.”

“You won’t. If anybody does, it’ll probably be me.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, we’re going to find out pretty soon, aren’t we?”

The three of us began to chuckle, Wesley more nervous than Travis and me. Before our nerves could get the best of us, the doors opened. It was Rafael himself who opened the doors. He looked magnanimous as he stood there in his suit. It was especially noticeable standing next to two newcomers like Travis and Wesley.

Rafael looked at all of us. His stared lingered on me for just a moment before he smiled and held his arms out.

“Ah, the new hires,” he said with some excitement in his voice. “The people that are going to change the face of this company for the better. It’s a new day, everybody! Don’t be shy. Come in and make yourself comfortable. The board won’t bite.”

Rafael held his arms out and graciously welcomed us into the boardroom. When I stepped inside, I finally saw what the others were talking about. The large table was surrounded by a dozen men. They were all old men, the wrinkles on their faces from a combination of stress, hard work and all of the years that passed by. They all seemed to be frowning as they looked at us. Despite Rafael’s positive demeanor, it didn’t seem to have rubbed off on the rest of the men we were going to work with.