This Is War - Chapter 12 - Mr. Frost
“It’s going to be fine,” said Chastity as we stood outside the BIMG office building. “Xander Frost probably doesn’t even remember you.”
I stared at her.
“I mean…it was a busy day. He met tons of people.”
“And how many of those people do you think grabbed his ass while sticking their face in his crotch?” I cringed at the memory of inadvertently molesting my new boss.
“Probably just you…”
I nodded. “I rest my case.”
“Okay, fine. He’ll definitely remember you. But what does that matter? I bet he liked it.”
This is going to be a disaster.
But somehow, it wasn’t. At least…not right away.
For some reason I had been expecting Xander to greet us the second we stepped off the elevator.
Or maybe have security waiting by my desk to escort me out.
But neither of those things happened. Because that wasn’t how new bosses worked.
His job was to go out and land big clients, not micromanage all of his employees.
In the short time that I’d worked for Bee, I’d only had a handful of face-to-face conversations with her. The same would probably be true with Xander.
I relaxed and got to work prepping for my noon meeting with a prospective client.
The first hour flew by. But then Chastity poked me.
“What?” I hissed. I had been in the zone.
“What do you think is going on?” she asked, pointing to Xander’s office. He was having a meeting with a guy that I vaguely recognized as being from one of the other marketing teams.
“It looks like a meeting to me.” I turned back to my notes, but Chastity kept talking.
“That’s the eighth meeting he’s had this morning. Each one lasts a few minutes and then they send the next person in.”
I watched for a second. Just as Chastity had said, the meeting ended after a minute. The guy walked out, tapped another person on the shoulder, and pointed to Xander’s office.
So much for not having any face-to-face conversations with the new boss.
I tried to get back to work, but I couldn’t focus. I kept looking up every five minutes to see how close I was to being summoned to his office. But there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the order in which he was calling people.
“Should I apologize for molesting him?” I asked. That had been the question plaguing my mind ever since I’d face-planted his crotch.
“Definitely not. Just don’t bring it up.”
“But what if he brings it up?”
“He won’t.” She sounded so confident.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. But if he does, just say you fell. And then give him a saucy wink.”
“A saucy wink?” What the hell is that?
“Yeah. You know. Like this.” Chastity bit her lip slightly and gave me a wink. It was a good thing that Madison was working on-site with a client today, because if she had been here to see that wink, she would have gotten a total lady boner.
“So like…this?” I bit my lip way too hard and scowled in pain.
“Uh, no.”
“Let me try again.” I did it again with a more appropriate amount of lip-biting.
“Better. But try to smile a little bit.”
I tried again. And again. And again. I was so close to getting it right. I could feel it. This next one was going to be perfect.
Just as I executed the perfect saucy wink, Chastity bent down to grab something off the floor. Which left a clear line of sight between me and Xander’s office. He locked eyes with me as I winked.
“Fuck!” I whisper-yelled. “Why did you duck?!”
“What?” asked Chastity, brushing off the pen she’d dropped.
“I just gave Xander the sauciest of winks.”
Chastity raised her eyebrows. “Ohhh…you naughty minx. I didn’t know you were so into him.”
“I’m not! It was an accident. I was just practicing and then you ducked and he and I locked eyes, but by then it was already too late! I couldn’t just stop mid-wink. It would have looked like I was having a stroke.”
“Suuuure.”
“I’m serious!”
The guy meeting with Xander got up and walked out of the office.
Please don’t talk to me next. Please don’t talk to me next. I repeated it over and over in my head, but it didn’t stop the inevitable. The guy came directly for me.
“Ashley?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Frost would like to speak with you in his office.”
No!
“Good luck,” said Chastity. “And remember…everyone can see right into his office. So don’t do anything too crazy.”
“I’ll try to control myself.” I got up and took a deep breath.
Here we go. When I was halfway to his office, I strongly considered just making a sharp left turn, getting on the elevator, and never coming back.
But then I’d be unemployed again. And while I’d been able to save up some money over the past few months, it wasn’t nearly enough to go for any length of time in NYC with no job.
If only Monopoly money was real currency.
So I walked into Xander’s office.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked.
Xander looked up from his laptop. “Please take a seat.”
I sat down. On my hands for some reason. Is this how normal people sit? Why could I no longer remember how seats worked? Should I get up and pop a squat on the armrest instead? That seemed better… But he started talking so I just sat there on my hands staring at him.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Miss Cooper.”
Does that mean he remembers me? Damn it! “Same to you, Xander.”
“Call me Mr. Frost.”
“Uh, okay.” Weird. “So what did you want to talk to me about?” Please don’t mention the molestation. Or the saucy wink.
He leaned back in his big leather chair. “I was hoping you could bring me up to speed on the accounts you handle.”
Thank God. “Well, I’m the account manager for Mills Winery, and…”
“That’s the Wineflix and Chill brand, right?”
“Yup. I was actually the one that came up with that idea for rebranding.”
Mr. Frost nodded. “Is that why everyone thought that you should have gotten this job instead of me?”
“Yeah,” I said without thinking. Shit! Why did I say that?
“And what do you think?” His icy blue eyes bore into my soul.
“No, I… I just…” I couldn’t find the right words.
“You just what? Think you’re better than me?”
I had no idea how to respond to that. I was sure I was moments away from getting fired.
And now my hands were starting to sweat.
I pulled them out from underneath of me and the chair made a weird noise.
Almost like a tiny fart. Did he hear that?
I felt my face turning red. Now he probably thought I was farting and that I thought I was better than him.
But then his piercing stare turned into a surprisingly warm smile. “I’m just messing with you. You only have what…like six months experience? Of course they weren’t going to promote you to VP.” He laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.
I forced myself to laugh too.
“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get down to business. I took a look at your accounts and came up with a few new ideas. Nothing major. Just a few tweaks here and there of things that I thought we could improve.” He handed me a thick binder.
Who uses binders anymore?
“That’ll be all for now. Can you send in…let’s see…” He glanced at his screen. “Winston Powell.”
“Sure.” I got up to leave. When I was halfway out the door, he stopped me.
“I’m looking forward to your presentation today for Masquerade Records. Make sure you check out my notes on that.” He gestured to the binder.
I nodded and went back to my desk, stopping along the way to give Winston his summons.
“How’d it go?” asked Chastity.
“He hates me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He knows I wanted that promotion. So he thinks I’m gunning for his job. But hey, I didn’t get fired. So there’s that.”
Chastity shrugged. “Nothing to worry about. After you sleep with him, he won’t be able to fire you. And if he does, you can sue him for sexual harassment. Oldest trick in the book.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Never say never.”
“I didn’t…”
Chastity’s eyes lit up. “So you might sleep with him?”
“You’re impossible.”
I was about to start looking through the weird binder that he’d given me when Chastity spun her laptop around to show me some sort of spreadsheet.
“Check this out,” she said.
I scooted my chair over to get a closer look. “What am I looking at here?”
“As your wing woman, it’s my duty to keep track of all your lovers.”
“I don’t have any lovers. I’ve been celibate since the divorce.” Despite the fact that I was in a sex club. And despite the fact that I’d had a boyfriend for a bit there. Fine, a day. I’d had a boyfriend for a day. If I ever saw Tanner again I was going to punch him.
“And if I do my job right, then you won’t be for much longer. The only question is…who will be the lucky man to break your dry spell? Will it be Tanner?” She pointed to a blurry picture in column A. Under it was a list of pros and cons.
PROS
- Billionaire
- Super Hot
CONS
- Total Asshole
That about sums it up. “You should also add that he has a flaming genie penis that melts anything it touches. So I’m guessing he won’t be the one to break my dry spell.”
Chastity laughed but didn’t add it to the list of cons. You know…because it was made up. Because everything Tanner said was a lie.
“Okay,” said Chastity. “Moving on to suitor #2: Cole the handsome liftman.”
“I’ve known him for three days and he’s already tried to fuck me in front of an entire casino and tricked me into flashing a bunch of teens. He’s a real keeper.” So why does thinking about him make me feel all giddy?
“Exactly. He’s the perfect candidate for some great rebound sex. It’s at least worth considering his pros and cons.”
PROS
- Tattoos
- Definitely into you
- Super Hot
- Bad Boy Vibes
CONS
- Total Asshole
“I’m seeing a theme here,” I said. Is there something I’m doing to attract super hot assholes?”
“In my experience, those two things generally go together. Except for with your third suitor…”
Column C had a picture of Dr. Lyons at the top.
PROS
- Nine Inch Penis
- Doctor
- Veteran
- Super Hot
- Nice
Well that order says a lot about Chastity’s priorities…
CONS
- None
“No cons? Really? You do remember that I tried to rape him. And that we both cheated on each other with each other and then I ghosted him, right? Oh, and then there was the time that I threw up all over him!” I needed to give her a printout of all my incidents.
“Yes, but I have a feeling he might still be interested.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he was willing to pull some strings to get us invited to Club Onyx on the one condition that I do everything in my power to set you two up on another date.”
“Say what now?”
She waved my question aside. “I’ll work out the details later. But first we need to discuss your 4 th and final suitor…” She scrolled over to reveal a picture of Mr. Frost.
I shook my head emphatically. “Why is he on the list?”
“Just keeping your options open…”
Before I could see what she listed as the pros and cons for him, I saw Mr. Frost approaching out of the corner of my eye.
I slammed her laptop shut just as he walked up. Did he see her list?
“I’m surprised you’re still here,” he said.
“Why?”
He picked up the binder and opened it to the first page. It was an hourly breakdown of everything I was supposed to do today, including a line item for 10:30 to leave and go pick up lunch from some place called The Sausage King. And it was almost 11.
“Better hurry if you don’t want to be late for your meeting with Masquerade Records,” said Mr. Frost.
“Why? Our meeting isn’t until noon. And can’t we just get it delivered?” I wasn’t his assistant. Didn’t he have someone else who could go fetch him food?
“They don’t deliver.”
“Let’s just order from somewhere else then. Gochujang Palace is pretty great.” I immediately regretted what I’d said. Mr. Frost’s gaze made me want to crawl under the desk. “Actually, I’ll just go pick up lunch from The Sausage King.”
“Good,” growled Mr. Frost. “I already placed the order under your name.” He spun on his heel and left.
I pulled out my phone to see where this Sausage King place was.
Wherever it was, I definitely didn’t need to leave at 10:30 to pick up food for a noon meeting.
That was the craziest… SHIT! Google maps said that The Sausage King was 24 minutes away based on current traffic.
It was almost 11. I’d only have a few minutes to spare if traffic stayed the same, but it was almost lunchtime and there would surely be an accident.
Why had Mr. Frost just let me sit here when he could see me through his office window?
I officially had the worst boss ever.