The Billionaire & The Barfly (Coming Home) (5 page)

Everyone turned to look at her. She flushed red but let them know she was fine and sat her bag down on the table closest to her before cleaning up the mess.

With a fresh cup in hand, and a much slower gait, she walked into Jenna’s office. The phone was pressed to her ear, and the look on her face told Aubrey it wasn’t a good phone call. There were a few ‘uh-huhs’ and a couple ‘yes sir’s before she hung the phone up. Then the look was trained on Aubrey.

“
You’re late.”

“
I’m sorry, there was—”

“
No, no excuses. Here is a list of everything I need done today. When you get back, I will have more.” Jenna held out a slip of paper, effectively cutting the conversation off.

“
Jenna, I really am sorry. Have I done something wrong?”

“
Why would you ask that? Doing errands is part of your job. I just haven’t utilized you in this way yet. I am paying you to assist me, and this is part of it. You are doing fine. Now, please get these done, and I will see you when you get back.”

Aubrey took the slip from her and walked out the door. When she was seated at her desk
, she opened the paper and wanted to cry. She had to walk Jenna’s dog, drop off her dry cleaning, and pick up a box of tampons. Last week she had been Jenna’s right hand. This week she was a damn dog walker.

It didn
’t matter. She would not fail at being a personal assistant after being so good at it for years. No, she would do as she was asked and not say another word about it. At least, not to Jenna.

~*~

Once Aubrey had left the building, she felt slightly better. When she drove to Jenna’s house to get the dog, she wasn’t so sure. Apparently Jenna’s puppy wasn’t exactly a puppy. No, the dog was a mastiff. A fucking dog almost as tall as she was.

Its crap piles were huge
, too. Worst day of work ever.

Once the
‘puppy’ was taken care of, she had to hunt through Jenna’s dirty clothes for three specific suits to take to the dry cleaners. The woman had piles and piles of dirty laundry. It looked like she had gone weeks without washing anything. But then again, her closet full of clean clothes was still overflowing. Perhaps she didn’t realize she needed to wash before everything was dirty? The thought made Aubrey giggle a little. At least something about the day was making her smile.

Aubrey locked up Jenna
’s house and drove away. Watching the house grow smaller in her mirror, Aubrey decided she would have a house that big one day. She would put up with every one of the bullshit errands just to prove to herself, and to everyone else too, that she could do what it takes to succeed at something. What better proof of success than her own house. A house that beautiful.? A horse. She would make sure to have enough land to own a horse. And a trainer. If she owned a horse she would need to learn to ride. But it didn’t matter. She would do it.

Lost in her thoughts about her hopeful future, Aubrey drove right passed the dry cleaners that Jenna wanted to use. Finding a place to make a U-turn took another ten minutes. When she finally got into the parking lot, the damn place was closed for lunch.

Aubrey looked at her watch, shocked that so much of the day was already gone. Instead of standing around and waiting for them to come back, she headed over to the store to pick up the tampons.

Henry was at the checkout. Fuck. Should she wander the store some and wait for him to leave, or just get in line and act
as if his presence meant nothing to her? If she wandered, she wasted more time, and Jenna wouldn’t be happy. But if she got in line and had to talk to him, she wouldn’t be happy.

With a deep breath, she moved forward. She needed Jenna to be happy if she
were ever going to get that damn horse.

She stood in line behind
him holding the light pink box. Only then did she realize that she would rather wait on the horse if it meant keeping Henry from seeing her carrying tampons. They weren’t even hers. How fucking embarrassing. If only she could just step back, slowly, quietly.

It would have worked if she hadn
’t tripped over a freaking basket someone left by the register instead of putting it away. Stupid lazy asshole. Aubrey fell backward and landed with a thud. Henry turned quickly, and as soon as his eyes landed on her, she could have sworn that they lit up just a bit.

She hoped it was because he was happy to see her and not because she was on her ass on the floor holding a stupid pink box of tampons.

“Let me help you,” he said, holding out a hand. She considered telling him no, that she could get up just fine on her own. But then she thought how this might be the only time she would feel his hands on her body again—even if it were just a simple hand hold to get her up.

Aubrey placed her hand in his. He gave her a tug and wrapped his other hand around her back when she lost her footing for the second time. She was never that klutzy. Never. It had to be his fault.

“Thanks,” she said, pulling her hand away. It was torture letting go of his touch. But she had to. He already took up too much of her mind. She had to find something about him to be irritated with, something to turn her off from him. She may have pulled her hand away, but she couldn’t move away. And he couldn’t stop looking at her.

Aubrey looked him up and down, looking for a flaw. He looked just as hot as he had the week prior. This time it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shoes. His sneakers had turtles on them. And he was rocking them. She couldn
’t even say his obsession with superheroes was a turn off. There was something about the sexy geek thing that made her smile.

“
Sir?” the cashier asked, breaking the spell between them. Henry spun back around quickly and paid for his things, waiting calmly while she paid for the damn tampons. At least he had the decency to look away and pretend to not see what she was buying.

The two walked out of the store in silence. Aubrey wanted him to say something, anything, to break the awkwardness floating between them. She had no idea what sent them to a crashing halt the other night. But it didn
’t matter. She had to just get over it, over him. She didn’t even know his last name, for crying out loud. There was no need to get all bent out of shape over someone who she didn’t even know their last name.

“
Aubrey, listen,” he started.

“
No, it’s fine, really. You have a good day and thanks again for your help back there.” Aubrey tried to walk away, but he reached out and grabbed her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles.

“
Wait,” he said. So she did. “Have dinner with me.”

“
I can’t.” She wanted to have him with dinner, but another date thing would just make it harder to walk away. It would be way too much like a date. Hell, he might even
consider
it a date. No, they were better off parting ways or jumping in the back seat of her car and going at it like bunnies before returning to work. That way they could have a smile in the middle of a bad day (at least her bad day), and they could get each other out of their systems. “But we could pick up where we left off the other night…”

Henry dropped her hand
, and his soft expression turned hard.

“
No, I don’t think so. You have a good day.” Then he walked off. Aubrey watched him go and was once again left feeling completely dejected.

~*~

Aubrey got back to the office in a fouler mood than when she left. She stalked into Jenna
’s office and placed the bag of tampons and the dry cleaning receipt on her very cluttered desk.

Aubrey laughed a little. She was gone for one afternoon, and Jenna
’s desk already looked like a war zone. She was lost without her. Maybe she will realize it and apologize for sending her out, or maybe buy her a coffee to thank her for everything she had done.

Probably not, but it was a nice thought.

Leaving the office, Aubrey noticed that most of the offices on her floor were empty. Glass walls were a wonderful thing at times. Bridgette came walking down the hall sipping her own drink. The bosses must be in a meeting that was expected to last a while.

“
Hey, Bridgette, when did you get back?” she asked as her friend got closer. She hadn’t seen her since the night at the club when she left with Henry.

“
Last night. Where have you been all day? Jenna was going nuts trying to find stuff without you. She told Mike that you never called, but half the office saw you break a cup or something? I let him know you were here before, but I didn’t know why you didn’t check in with Jenna.”

“
Are you fucking kidding me? She sent me on errands. I had to walk her dog and buy her tampons. Why would she do that?” Aubrey had never felt so betrayed. What had she done so wrong? She always did her best and made Jenna look good. Wasn’t that what she was supposed to do?

“
I don’t know what her issue is.” Bridgette wouldn’t look at her. She got like that when situations became intense. It wasn’t anything she did or didn’t do, but she hated any kind of conflict.

“
She told Mike that I screwed up in New York. She didn’t even have any meetings set up except the one that didn’t even bother to show. I got us three meetings in a matter of thirty minutes, all for the same day. I kept Leslie from throwing us out the minute we walked in. Leslie even told me how great I was doing. But no, she threw me under the damn bus to make herself look better. And apparently, she was doing it again today. I don’t know what the hell I did.”

“
I don’t know, but it isn’t right. I wouldn’t say anything if you need your job, though. Before you, Jenna went through assistant after assistant. Just know that you won’t be her PA forever.” Bridgette leaned in and hugged her before heading back to her own desk.

Knowing she was on thin ice for a reason she didn
’t understand, she thought it best to be busy when Jenna returned from her meeting.

By the time
the bosses were all walking back, Jenna’s desk was clean and organized, there was a list of names and numbers that needed to be called by her personally, a stack of messages of clients that Aubrey had called for little things that needed to be clarified, and a cup of hot coffee sitting on the desk. She was really proud of herself.

“
Aubrey, this looks wonderful, thank you. Now, here is the next list.” Jenna handed her a paper, and then walked right passed her, sitting at her now clean desk.

“
You’re welcome,” Aubrey replied before walking out the door. She had to keep it short and sweet, or she might not walk out with a job. The paper this time had a list of groceries, picking up the dry cleaning she dropped off, setting a doctor’s appointment for Jenna, a vet appointment for the dog, and picking up a package from the post office.

At least there was no dog shit involved.

Aubrey made the appointments first since that could be done at her desk and right away. Then she called to check on the dry cleaning. No sense in going down there if they hadn’t gotten to it yet. Once those were done, she grabbed her keys again and headed to the elevators.

“
Aubrey, wait!” Mike yelled as he jogged down the hall. Aubrey stopped walking and watched as he continued to run toward her when he no longer had to. She started in his direction thinking it rude not to. He was her boss’ boss, after all.

“
Is there something I can get for you, Mike?”

“
No, but there is something you can do for me. We have a huge meeting next week. I have asked that everyone push their travel meetings back a week. We need all hands on deck.”

“
Oh, Jenna didn’t tell me. I will change the meeting dates right away. The errands can wait a few minutes.”

“
No, no. Jenna can do that, or you can do it later. Either way, that’s not what I wanted to ask you. I need fresh eyes. This new client is some super genius high school kid who designed an entire video game in his basement and won some huge national award with it. Now he is shopping it around. We want it. Hell, we need it, to be honest. I need you to do some market research. Find the perfect target market and the data to support it. Think you can handle that?”

Aubrey couldn
’t believe what she was hearing. She wanted to jump up and down but thought that might be a little over the top. So instead she nodded vigorously with a big cheesy grin on her face. “Yes, yes, I can do that. Is there any way to get a summary of the game? Any information on the boy?”

“
Ah, see, gender stereotyping. It was a girl who developed the game. And Jenna has all of that. I will let her know that I asked for you to help. If all goes well, maybe we can get you to do more of this… that is if you want.”

“
Yes, yes. I want. I mean, yes, I would very much like that. Thank you.”

“
You are welcome. Get whatever you have to done now, but first thing tomorrow morning, I want to see you working on this market research. We’ll get a temp for Jenna.”