Climbing the Ladder (Assistants of Alarie Inc. #1)

Chapter 1

The sun had barely started to rise in the sky, golden hues blending with deep cerulean, but life thrummed within the sprawling corporate headquarters of Alarie Inc. Mornings started early here. “Seize the day”, was the idea. It was part of a favorite saying of Louie Alarie, founder of Alarie Inc.

Seize the day, or the morrow will not come willingly.

Encouraging on paper and embossed on plaques around the campus, cannibalistic in practice. But what else could be expected from Southern California’s leading Consultancy Firm?

But not the executive assistants.

If you were arriving by 5:45 AM, you were already late.

5:30 AM was pushing it.

After seven years in his role, Connor Hayes knew he liked to start his mornings right at 5 AM.

It meant he was arriving just as the janitorial staff was leaving.

That left plenty of time to grab a cup of instant coffee before he started tidying up his executive’s office.

After all, the janitorial staff never did it to his liking.

Then the day’s work would begin.

He’d steal an available seat wherever he could in his executive’s office suite and start organizing their calendar and incoming communications.

Once that was finished, Connor would move on to setting up the day’s agenda, finally preparing any necessary deliverables requested by their investors.

And those were just his morning duties. Well, his usual morning duties.

Like every job description, Connor’s came with one hell of an “other duties as needed” addendum.

His role often had him playing personal travel agent, butler, DoorDasher, drug dealer, fixer, wingman, entertainer for his boss, on top of whatever else was added to his massive pile of things to do day after day.

But that had just been for his last executive. The last director of Investor Relations.

Curtis Devore.

A devilishly handsome older man with a long career in financial consulting, Devore had one of those impossibly magnetic personalities, the kind that clients were unequivocally drawn to. Connor as well.

Devore could talk investors into signing the kinds of impossible deals Connor could only dream of negotiating himself, all while never breaking a sweat, never dropping that too-suave smile of his, grey eyes shining so brightly you’d never think it was an act. And it almost always was.

Then again, such candor was often accompanied by all manner of vices in their line of work. As with any vice, there were only two possible outcomes–you either learned to coexist with them or risked losing yourself along the way.

Connor learned to live just fine with his own vices, maintaining a functional divide between his in-office sobriety and the substances he enjoyed.

Devore, meanwhile, had been forced into early retirement by the Board of Directors only a few weeks prior.

No one had ever expected that someone in Devore’s position would be pushed out of Alarie Inc.

entirely, least not Connor. But a lengthy ethics investigation had ultimately ended Devore’s career.

Fortunately for him, he made it out on top in the end. He always did.

With the stock options offered to him as his severance, Devore was probably off in the Hamptons somewhere, reclining on a beach with a young lifeguard on his arm while drinking a martini at 8:25 in the morning.

But Connor was still here. When all eyes were on him, he’d fallen in line and made himself appear small, non-threatening, not worth the trouble of replacing when he had so much institutional knowledge.

Like a doe hiding in tall grass, Connor knew how to avoid being spotted by C-Suite execs on the hunt for a scapegoat. He’d survived two executives, and today, he was about to be assigned to his third.

“New hire, he’ll be starting tomorrow.” That was what Linda, their Executive HR Admin had told him the day before. Connor had been reporting to her office most mornings in the leadup to this assignment, but this news came as a pleasant surprise.

Linda’s office was a lovely second floor suite hugging a southern window, with just enough light for her snake plants.

That was where Connor had sat each morning before being briefed about his daily assignment.

He’d bounced around different offices in the time since Devore had been separated, even applying for a few roles himself, but he hadn’t heard anything encouraging.

More the opposite, but Connor had tried not to let himself get too caught up in that.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with him,” Connor had only told Linda, smiling politely as he did.

“Looks like a permanent move. You’ll be staying in investor relations, too. Won’t that be nice?”

“Of course.”

Investor Relations was familiar territory to Connor. He knew how to survive here.

All that mattered to Connor was that he survived, that he kept surviving against all odds.

No way was he going back to Ohio. Not after spending his childhood trapped in corn fields, small towns, and the land that time left behind. He’d sacrificed too much to get to California to look back.

So his own frustrations aside - his own failed aspirations relegated to the back of his mind, Connor could only be grateful that he still had a job.

Not every assistant was so lucky to outlast a scandalous executive, after all.

So when Connor was told where his new director’s office would be located, he got right to work.

He spent the rest of that day preparing the 6th floor south corner office.

That meant coordinating furniture deliveries, stocking supplies, and handling the onboarding work associated with setting up the incoming director’s personal computer.

A brand new Macbook was connected to an external screen that Connor carefully polished and angled to promote ideal ergonomic conditions.

He added a high backed leather office chair, the kind he knew from personal experience felt heavenly after a long day on his feet.

Finally, some finishing touches. Fresh flowers for the desk, new curtains and a new rug to hide the fact that this had once been another executive’s office.

He even found a carafe for water and polished the glass until it was spotless.

The result was something straight out of a magazine, and Connor left that night with his head held high.

All was as he had left it when he arrived the next morning, all in perfect condition to make a good impression on his new director.

The man’s name was Nathan Santos, MBA. That information wasn’t hard to come by–Connor was the one who ordered the nameplate for his desk, triple checking that the order form included his credentials. But he didn’t know much else. Maybe that would have rattled Connor a few years ago.

But not now.

Now, it was just part of the package that he came to expect from Alarie Inc. You never did get the full picture from them–only glimpses of what they wanted you to know. Even so, Connor had little reason to be pessimistic about this placement.

After all, he still had a job. Despite every attempt to leave him with nothing, Devore had not managed to bring Connor down with him.

He’d won–at least, he’d won the war. What came next needed to be peace, calm, and stability so that Connor could rebuild his reputation.

But perhaps this executive would finally give him the opportunity he’d been waiting for–seeing his potential, raising him up out of his role, taking an active interest in his career.

Or, maybe Santos would be just like Devore, a carnivore looking to feast on an easy meal.

Connor needed this time to be different.

A knock at the heavy wooden door startled him, but he didn't let it show. His body language was as controlled as the mask he wore, a neutral expression guarding his anxieties.

“Come in,” he said pleasantly.

Nothing amiss, nothing out of place. Nothing ever was when Connor was at the helm.

The door opened just a crack, then a little bit wider as a blonde woman poked her head in.

“Coast clear?” She asked in a whisper.

It was Junie, another assistant to an Alarie executive. The same role as him, although Junie came from the Marketing and Public Relations department.

They had come up together, a pair of fresh-faced new-hires who endured their baptism-by-fire onboarding through little more than sheer will and stubbornness.

In a place like Alarie Inc., her warm smile was typically a welcome sight. But not today. Connor was feeling far too on edge to play along, his mask cracking at the edges.

“You’ve got a minute, maybe,” Connor said, smile fading, jerking his head for her to get inside before someone saw. He didn’t actually know when Santos would be arriving, but sending Junie away early was safer than risking being caught with her.

Officially, the assistants of Alarie executives weren’t supposed to be cavorting like this. Executives were a private, paranoid sort and as the ones throwing their assorted skeletons into a myriad of closets, their assistants gossiping amongst each other had long been a concern.

Unofficially, most assistants tended to find a way around that rule. Or at least, Connor and Junie did.

You wouldn’t survive long at Alarie without allies.

June slipped inside without a second word, carefully closing the door behind her and taking in the suite–and Connor–with a cautious smile.

“Looks really nice in here. When’s he arriving, do you know?” Junie asked, smoothing a hand against her blue pencil skirt as she leaned back against the door.

“Any minute now,” Connor replied, fiddling with his sleeves. He should have given this shirt a second pressing. Every time he glanced towards the window, he’d catch sight of his own reflection. The bags under his eyes that never seemed to fade, the simple gray suit he wore.

God, he could have at least tried to class it up and grab something more tailored.

“Up until 8, right?” Junie asked, tilting her head a little as she did. She was studying him, reading what Connor wasn’t even aware he was putting down.

She’d always been good at that.