Something About Lorelei (4 page)

Lorelei

I took my sketchbook to Central Park and sat under the tree to sketch and eat my lunch. It was a beautiful September day and I needed to get out of the office. Between the spilt coffee and the condom buying, I was already exhausted and my day was only half over. I couldn’t stop thinking about Hope and how I wished I could be there after school to pick her up. Getting back into the work routine after being off for two months was hard. As I was sketching, my business phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Where are you?” Jack asked.

“I’m on lunch. I told you I was leaving.”

“That’s right. I forgot. On your way back, stop at Pickle Deli and pick me up a corned beef sandwich. Just tell them it’s for me. They know exactly how I like it.”

“Yes, Mr. Sutton.”

Click.

I took the phone from my ear and looked at it. He couldn’t say thank you or goodbye? This job was going to be challenging. Correction, Jack Sutton was going to be challenging, but I had no choice. I needed this job, especially if I was thinking about moving.

I arrived back at the office and set the brown paper bag on his desk.

“Thank you, Lorelei.” He smiled.

Hmm. Why was he being so nice? Maybe he was feeling bad about earlier, but I doubted it.

“You’re welcome.”

“How was your lunch?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“What did you do?”

“Went to Central Park.”

Why was he concerned what I did on my own time?

“And did what?”

“Ate my lunch.” I frowned.

“So you brought your own lunch?”

“Yes. Is there a rule against that?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I was just curious.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Now go back to your desk and let me eat.”

I walked out in confusion. He was the one who started asking me questions.

It was finally five o’clock and I couldn’t have been happier. I raced over to my mom’s house. The three of them had just sat down to dinner.

“Mommy!” Hope shouted as she got up from the table and ran over to me.

“Hi, baby. How was your day?”

“It was good. Grandma took me for ice cream after school.”

“She spoils you.” I smiled.

“Sit down and have some dinner,” Nick spoke to me.

I walked over, kissed his cheek, and then went over to my mom.

“You look tired, honey.”

“I am. It was a long first day.”

After finishing dinner, I took Hope home and put her in the bathtub. Once I read her a bedtime story, I kissed her good night and went to my room. After changing into my pajamas, I climbed into bed and thumbed through the Sutton Magazine I had bought on the way home. Suddenly, my phone dinged. I reached over and grabbed it from the nightstand.
Shit.
It was my business phone that went off. I got out of bed and reached into my purse. Pulling it out and climbing back into bed, I noticed a text message from Jack.

“Before you come in to the office tomorrow, in fact, make it every morning, I want you to stop at Starbucks and get me a Venti Americano with a triple shot of espresso. But make sure you’re at the office at eight sharp.”

“Yes, Mr. Sutton.”

“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Lorelei.”

“You too.”

“Try not to spill coffee on me tomorrow.”

He was never going to let that one go.

“Don’t invade my personal space and I won’t.”

Good. That remark shut him up. I’d had my fill of Mr. Jack Sutton for the day and all I wanted to do was go to sleep and forget about him.

****

Jack

I couldn’t help but smile when I saw her reply. She was the first of any one of my PAs to talk back to me and it turned me on. She wasn’t like the others. The numerous times I walked past her desk, she would smile at me. But I wasn’t quite sure if it was a genuine smile or a fuck-you smile. Even after yelling at her the way I did, she still smiled at me. She had a beautiful smile that matched her cute little nose and her beautiful face.

“Who, may I ask, are you texting?” my mother asked as she walked into the living room.

“My PA. I need to make sure she gets my coffee in the morning.”

“You better be nice to her,” Coco spoke as she followed behind my mother.

“Why does everyone keep telling me that? I am nice.”

“Ha. Not after what I saw today.”

“That was just a misunderstanding, sis.”

“Some misunderstanding when the entire floor heard you yelling at the poor girl. Franny was practically hiding under her desk.”

“Jesus, stop exaggerating. Anyway, I’m going to go.” I kissed Coco and my mother on their cheeks and met Tony outside.

****

The next morning, at approximately seven fifty-eight, I was sitting at my desk waiting for my coffee to be delivered. She had exactly two minutes or else. I left my office door open so she could just bring it in without knocking. It was eight o’clock when she pranced through the door.

“Good morning. Here’s your coffee.” She smiled as she set the cup down on my desk.

“I was starting to get worried that you’d be late.”

“Really? I’ve been here for at least ten minutes.”

I cocked my head at her and narrowed my eyes. “Where? You weren’t at your desk.”

“No, I wasn’t. You said to be here at eight sharp.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s eight sharp.” She smirked.

“Then where were you?” I asked with irritation.

“Around.”

“So you’ve been walking around with my coffee for the last ten minutes?”

“Yep.” She slowly nodded her head.

I pursed my lips together tightly and inhaled a sharp breath.

“It better not be cold, Lorelei.”

“It’s not.” She smiled as she walked out and shut the door behind her.

I was trying my best not to yell. I picked up my coffee and took a sip. It was still hot. Good thing for her it was.

Lorelei

As I was sitting at my desk looking over invitations for the launch, Coco walked over.

“How are things going with my brother?” she asked as she sat on the corner of my desk.

I gave a small smile. “Okay. He’s demanding, crude, rude, and a little demeaning, but nothing I can’t handle.”

She let out a light laugh. “I like you, Lorelei. Has Jack shown you the rest of what makes up Sutton Magazine?”

“No.” I shook my head.

“Come on, then. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

“But he’ll wonder where I am. What if he needs something?”

She waved her hand in front of her face, got up from my desk, and opened his office door.

“I can’t believe how rude you are not to have given Lorelei the grand tour. If you need something, you’ll have to do it yourself because I’m stealing her away for a while.” She shut the door before he had a chance to respond and smiled at me.

Sutton Magazine started on the tenth floor and went up all the way to the fifteenth floor. There was everything from the art department to photography. A floor filled with clothes and designs, a beauty salon, the finance department, and the editorial floor, which was located at the top where Jack’s mother had her office. I was enthralled by everything fashion and I was in heaven.

We approached a large office with glass doors, and on those doors, it read “Kit Sutton.”

“This is my mother’s office. Have you been introduced yet?”

“No.”

We stepped inside and Kit looked up at us.

“Mother, this is Lorelei Flynn, Jack’s new personal assistant.”

She got up from her seat and extended her hand, but not before looking me up and down.

“It’s nice to meet you. I hope you stick around a lot longer than the last fourteen.”

I gulped. I had no idea Jack had had that many assistants.

“I plan on it and it’s nice to meet you.” I smiled as I lightly shook her hand.

“I hope you enjoy working for us here at Sutton Magazine.”

“Thank you.”

I could tell Kit Sutton was not a force to be reckoned with. She was poised with high self-esteem and had a business manner like no one I’d ever met; well, except for her son. She stood about five feet eight inches tall with a voluptuous figure. Her blonde hair was cut into a bob that sported wavy ends and she had serious-looking brown eyes. I would be lying if I didn’t say she completely intimidated me. But we did have one thing in common; we both shared a love for Coco Chanel.

After the tour, Coco and I headed back to the twelfth floor. As I was walking back to my desk, Jack was standing in the doorway of his office.

“Do you need something?” I asked.

“Yes. I need you to come into my office.”

Stepping inside his office, I took a seat in the chair across from his desk.

“You haven’t told me if you secured a venue yet for the launch next month.”

“I have. It’ll be at the Lincoln Center starting at seven o’clock. I’m in the process of getting the invitations printed and the envelopes addressed to the people on the guest list.”

He narrowed his eyes at me as he leaned back in his chair. My God, he was sexy, and every time I looked at him, it felt like I got lost in his eyes. What the hell was the matter with me? He might have been something special to look at, but his overall mannerisms definitely sucked.

“You did all that without telling me?”

“Yes. You asked me to do something, so I did. Did you want me to bother you with all the little details? Do you not trust my ability to complete something you asked me to do?”

“To be honest, no, I don’t. I’ve had bad experiences with my previous PAs.”

“I see. Well, I can assure you, Mr. Sutton, that I won’t disappoint you. If you ask me to do something, I will do it with perfection. If I have a question, I will come to you and speak to you about it.”

The corners of his mouth slightly curved upwards. “Until I can totally trust you and your abilities, I want everything run by me first. Do you understand?”

“Completely.” My lips gave way to a forced smile. “Is there anything else?” I asked.

“No. That’ll be all.”

****

Jack

There was something about Lorelei Flynn that was driving me to want to get to know her better. Maybe it was how beautiful she was. Maybe it was what I envisioned she had underneath those clothes she wore. Maybe it was her Joe Malone scent that filtered through the air whenever she was near. I will give her credit; she did know how to pick her perfume. My last PA, Amber, always smelled like some cheap drugstore body spray. I shuddered every time she walked into my office. Whatever it was that made me have this aching need to get to know her better was getting the best of me, and it was driving me crazy. I shouldn’t have felt this way. She was my personal assistant but all I could think about was a thousand ways for her to personally assist me other than at the office. See, it was that kind of thinking that had to stop.

Later that night, I took a friend of mine, Jamie Walters, to dinner and then back to my place to fuck her. I never took the women I brought home upstairs to my bed. I had a spare bedroom on the first floor that I used and I never allowed them to spend the night. I wasn’t interested in cuddling, holding, stroking their hair; none of that romantic bullshit. The only thing I wanted was good sex that left me satisfied and then I sent them on their way. Some left crying and some left as pissed as hell. That was their problem, not mine.

Lorelei

Thank God it was Friday. My last day of work for two days and then I would be able to spend the entire weekend with my daughter. Jack wasn’t in the office most of the morning because he was in back-to-back meetings. It was finally lunchtime, so I grabbed my sketchbook, which was bound in a leather zipped case, my lunch, and headed to Central Park. Sitting under the same tree I had been, I worked on my sketches and ate my lunch. It wasn’t too long before my business phone dinged with a text message from Jack.

“I know you’re at lunch, but when you’re done, I need you to go to Banana Republic and pick up the outfits I had them put together. Call Tony when you have them and he’ll pick you up. Also, stop at Starbucks and get my coffee.”

“Yes, Mr. Sutton.”

When my lunch break was over, I did as Jack asked. After collecting the outfits and stopping at Starbucks, I walked into his office and set the cup on his desk.

“Hang the clothes on that rack over there.” He pointed.

He got up from his desk and took the plastic off each of the outfits.

“What the fuck?! This isn’t what I asked for,” he shouted. “Who the fuck put these outfits together?” He paced around the room in anger.

I stood and looked at the outfits and then walked over to them and changed a few things around.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“Rearranging a few things. I think it looks better this way.”

He stood back with his hands on his hips and stared at the outfits I put together and then looked at me.

“You think that looks better?”

“Yes,” I softly spoke.

“Well, I don’t.”

Coco walked into the office. “Oh, perfect. You got the outfits from Banana Republic. Looks good, Jack.” She smiled as she took the rack from his office.

I looked at him and shrugged. “Told you they looked good.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Get out of my office.”

I didn’t know what the hell his problem was, but he didn’t need to take it out on me. It was finally five o’clock. I grabbed my sketchbook and my purse and walked out of the building. As I was trying to hail a cab, my business phone rang. It was Jack. I cringed.

“Hello.”

“I need you to meet me for dinner tonight. I have some things I want to go over with you regarding the launch party.”

“It can’t wait until Monday?”

“No, Miss Flynn. It can’t. Meet me at The Four Seasons at eight o’clock sharp.”

“But, Mr.—”

“No buts, Lorelei. Be there or else.”
Click
.

I couldn’t believe this and the nerve of him. I quickly dialed Stella.

“Hello, best friend. What’s up?”

“I am so sorry to ask this, but do you think you and Sebastian can come over and babysit Hope tonight? My asshole boss is making me meet him for dinner at The Four Seasons.”

“Nice place. But why is he making you meet him on a Friday night?”

“He said he needs to go over some things with me regarding the launch party.” I finally hailed a cab and climbed in.

“Hmm. Sounds to me like he’s using that as an excuse to see you.”

“Oh, please. I just threw up in my mouth, I want you to know.”

She laughed. “Of course we’ll come babysit Hope. I’ll bring some board games. It’ll be fun.”

“Thanks. I owe you.”

“No, you don’t. What time do you want us there?”

“I have to meet him at eight sharp. So be at my place at seven fifteen.”

“Okay, sweetie. We’ll see you later.”

I picked up Hope from my mom’s house and waited until we got home to tell her about my dinner plans.

“Baby, I have to meet my boss for dinner tonight, but Auntie Stella and Uncle Sebastian are going to come over and stay with you.”

“Okay.” She looked down in disappointment. “Why are you meeting him?”

“He wants to go over some planning for an event his magazine is hosting.” I ran the back of my hand down her cheek.

“He sounds mean.”

“He is. But don’t worry. We have the whole weekend to ourselves.”

“Okay.”

“You understand, right?”

“Yeah. I know it’s your job.”

“Thanks, baby. I’ll make it up to you.”

She went and sat on my bed while I got ready for dinner. The Four Seasons was a fancy place and I needed to dress appropriately. I went to the back of my closet and pulled out a short black dress I had made a few months ago but never had the occasion to wear.

“What do you think?” I asked Hope as I held it up to me.

“I like it.” She smiled.

After slipping into the dress, I twisted my hair up in a clip and freshened up my makeup. I heard the front door open and Hope leaped off the bed to run and see Stella and Sebastian.

“Look at you, fancy girl.” Stella smiled as she walked into the bedroom. “Looking all hot for the boss.”

“Oh, please. You know The Four Seasons is fancy.”

“I know, but somehow, I have a feeling Mr. Sutton’s jaw is going to drop when you walk in.”

“Oh, it will drop, and I’m sure some yelling will be coming out when it does.”

She laughed and I put on my heels.

“Thanks again for coming over.”

I walked into the living room and Sebastian whistled when he saw me. I smacked him on the chest with a smile, kissed Hope goodbye, and headed to The Four Seasons.

When I arrived at the restaurant, the hostess led me to the table where Jack was already seated.

“Wow,” he spoke. “You look great. I like that dress. Where did you get it?”

“I made it,” I replied as I sat down in the seat across from him.

His eyes widened. “You made that?”

“Yes.”

He tilted his head. “Is there something I don’t know about you?”

I let out a light laugh. “What do you mean?”

“You rearranged the outfits in my office to make them look better and now you’re wearing a spectacular-looking dress that you yourself made.”

I picked up the glass of water that was in front of me and took a sip. “I studied at Parsons for a couple of years.”

“Interesting. You didn’t graduate?” he asked.

“No. I had to drop out due to a family emergency, so I lost my scholarship. I couldn’t afford to go back.”

“I see. How did I not know you were a fashion girl?”

“You never asked, I guess.”

“Then I’m going to have to start asking more questions.” He winked.

Narrowing my eye at him, I spoke, “You said you didn’t like the outfits I put together.”

“My sister did and that’s all that matters. And it’s not that I didn’t like them. I was pissed they weren’t exactly what I asked for.”