Chapter Two #2
He did not have a family. He never would, most likely.
The idea of love and marriage, of hearth and home, when he had never experienced it...
It was a blank space in his mind. He could not have conjured up an image of himself in it any more easily than he could fly.
Yes, he had seen it. Windows into it while watching TV, or worst of all, when he had been with good families in his years in foster care and he had sat down at dinner tables with parents who cared about their children, knowing that he would never be one of those children.
Knowing that it wasn’t a place that he would stay.
He would never hunger for something he could not have, not again.
This, this total dominion over his market, that he could achieve, and so he would.
He did not have to explain it to Verity, he decided.
She didn’t need to understand. She simply needed to collect her paycheck.
He nearly said it to her, but didn’t, because he needed her to look as sweet and rosy in the board meeting as she did right now.
“Because,” he said. “Because I am an ambitious man, and ambition only partly realized is nothing more than frustration.”
“We don’t want you to be frustrated.”
She sat perched on the edge of the couch now, and he couldn’t help but be amused by her London attire, gray wool and a check pattern which he had to admit was charming.
She was charming.
She had an effortlessness about her. A way of making others feel at ease. He didn’t like to admit that she did the same thing to him that she did to everyone else. That she seemed to have some sort of magical ability to appease him, like he was a beast who needed soothing.
But she did.
He’d known she was the one he’d hire the moment she walked into his office, and it was like the tension bled from his muscles.
Verity was all things good. He had never thought that about another person before.
Least of all Stavros, who was quite competent in his position, or he wouldn’t be working at the company, but he certainly didn’t seem good enough for her.
He didn’t say that either. Instead, he busied himself with work for the rest of the flight and when they touched down in London, he resumed watching Verity’s reaction to everything.
“I would love to come back here on a holiday,” she said wistfully as a town car swept them through the city streets, moving quickly to deliver them to the meeting.
“Then you will,” he said.
He would give her a bonus. Whatever she needed.
That was another thing he had learned in the formation of this company. If you paid people well enough, they would always stay. His personality didn’t seem to matter overmuch as long as they were well compensated.
He could pay people to stay with him.
That thought sat uncomfortably in the center of his chest.
He chose not to analyze it.
When they got out of the car, Verity paused near the entrance to a coffee shop, one that was next to the office building.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I think we should stop and get a box of sweets.”
He was about to protest, or ask her why, but she was charging ahead, her phone held aloft in front of her, and he could see the digital version of the company’s credit card gleaming on her screen.
She immediately charmed every employee in the place, and bought a box full of sweet treats—little cakes and scones and biscuits, which of course Verity called cookies. This did not seem to annoy the employees providing the baked goods; rather they seemed to find her effortlessly charming.
One of the workers behind the counter smiled at him, and he smiled back. The other person’s smile faded, and Alex wished that he had a mirror to check his expression because he had been certain that he was being friendly.
Verity was now holding a pink box filled with sweets, and he held the door open for her as she rounded out of the shop, blond curls bouncing against her back.
“And what is this?”
“I’m going to put everybody in a good mood from the beginning. A little bit of cake never hurts, and neither does the gesture.”
They walked into the building, where he was recognized on sight, and so they didn’t have to stop at registration. Rather they simply stepped into the elevator. “But we don’t even know if they’re hungry.”
“Of course not. But you don’t have to be hungry to eat cake.”
That was true.
“It’s like any gift,” she said. “It’s the thought that counts.”
They made the rest of the elevator ride in silence, and when the door swept open, Verity took the lead, and he watched her walk in the wrong direction, that pink box clutched tightly in her hands.
“Verity,” he said. “This way.”
She stopped and turned, and he tilted his head the other direction. Her cheeks went pink, and she scampered back toward him, and he took the lead, as it should be, the two of them headed into the meeting.
“Good morning,” he said as he stepped in.
“Good morning,” Verity said, the emphasis on the word somehow different, her voice wrapping around each syllable and making it seem warm. “I’ve brought some goodies to open things up. I’ll get everything laid out while Alex... Mr. Economides...begins the introduction.”
She set the box down in the center of the table and then left, presumably off to gather plates. Then Verity returned, and while he was speaking, she passed out plates and napkins. And took orders for coffee.
She turned the entire place into a café, and he found it irritating and distracting. Though none of the board members seemed to.
In fact, he had never spoken to such a charmed audience. It wasn’t simply that they were interested in what he had to say, though they were, but they seemed...softer. More receptive.
Maybe it was cake.
Maybe it was Verity.
She went off to fetch a second round of coffee, at which one of the board members tapped him on the forearm. “She is delightful.”
She was. She was delightful in a way he never could be. Never would be. In a way that seemed effortless.
She was relatable, to everyone somehow. She grounded the entire room. She was like a fairy, though he didn’t believe in such things, and had never particularly been fond of childish stories. But there was something magic about her.
The mere fact of her being near him seemed to make everyone react differently to him, as well. The assumption being, of course, that such a sweet, caring woman would never associate with a man who was monstrous.
He could see it, and the way these people who he had met with many times before reacted to him now.
And that was just with her here as his assistant. How could he do this?
How could he bring what Verity offered him here out into the public eye?
Oh. He had an idea. More than an idea—it would happen. All he needed to do was set the wheels in motion. And it would be easy enough. It could coincide with the product launch. It was perfect.
He had hired Verity to be his personal assistant, and he had finally figured out what he needed her for most of all.