21. Pearl
Pearl
It was like a dream.
I could never have imagined us together this way, but somehow… we were making it work.
Even though I knew she'd probably hate it, I took her to a café I'd always wanted to visit. They specialized in those really fluffy Japanese-style pancakes, and I loved every single moment of it, but Emerson… She found it hard to find something to eat on the menu.
She was a little more than grumpy because of it, and she seemed worried, but I made sure to put some snacks on her desk as she worked.
Working as Emerson's assistant was better than any other job I had.
The people were so nice, and being able to spend all day with her was a bonus.
Plus, I was getting better at it. With all the nerves and inexperience before, I had let things slip.
After all, Emerson Blackwell was ruthless, and ever since she came back into my life, I had a violent urge to please her.
It blinded me. But now that we were getting closer, the veil had lifted just slightly, and I was able to save myself the embarrassment of messing up. Again.
The stalker hadn’t reached out to me again. I hadn’t changed my number because Emerson had mentioned it was better if we didn’t anger him further. School was fine. Midterms were almost here, and I was ready for them. And Emerson and I were…
I flushed a bit when I remembered the books, the flannel, and how she lost it when she saw me wearing it.
It was like everything I’d wanted for myself was actually happening.
Going to college and graduating meant being my own person with my own self-worth, not dependent on anyone else’s assessment. Doing what I wanted. Succeeding because I was worthy of it. My stalker had ruined that for me. I’d been forced to drop out. I’d lost my scholarship and my room on campus.
I’d been living in fear.
But Emerson was starting to make me feel like I didn’t have to be anymore. I was doing it. All of it.
I was looking over Emerson's emails when two men in suits walked in. They were on the younger side and greeted everyone in the room, including me.
Emerson was up and out of her seat in seconds, coming to meet them right at my desk.
“I could've walked down to—”
“No need to bother yourself, Emerson. We know our way around, don't we?” one of them asked and sent a wink to the other, who only responded with a smile.
Even though I didn't know who they were, I could tell they were important based on Emerson’s body language and how she interacted with them. She stood straight, her hands at her side, and she forced a smile like she was putting on an act.
They seemed friendly enough, but something was off.
She looked at me before saying, “Let's take them to the conference room, yes?”
I nodded, my mind quickly running through all the current meeting schedules, trying to remember if there was an open conference room.
I led them to the biggest, most private one at the back of the office, but my stomach dropped when I realized there were people inside in a Zoom call.
“Didn’t you look at the schedule?” Emerson asked, coming up to my side and dropping her voice.
Panic shot up my spine. Sweat gathered at my hairline.
No. Somehow, I had forgotten to look at the schedule the day before. I’d meant to do it when I got to the kitchen before we left for work, but then Emerson had already been there…
Shit.
I was the one in charge of her meetings and managing everyone else's meeting requests for her, but I had somehow missed the fact that she needed a conference room this morning.
“No worries, we can find a different one,” one of them said. “Maybe even in your office?”
I could feel the unhappiness radiating from Emerson, and I hated that I was disappointing her in front of two people who were clearly powerful enough for her to act the way she was.
She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. This conference room was the biggest and the most suitable, but she couldn’t just kick out her team, especially when they were in the middle of a client meeting.
I had made her look unprepared, and while the man had spoken in a light tone, I knew this didn't look good.
“My office it is, then. Pearl, get us some refreshments, will you?”
She took them back to her office and tinted the windows while it felt like my feet were frozen in place.
“Fuck,” I whispered as I finally headed to our snack kitchen. Cristian was there, and he attempted to talk to me, but all I could manage was a small smile.
I looked at the options and tried to think of something they would like. Muffins? Something savory, like a bagel? My inexperience was clearly showing.
Cristian handed me three cups, all filled with coffee.
“The one with the brown hair, his name is Henry, and he likes his coffee black. The other one, who looks like he belongs at a frat house, Derek—fitting name if I do say so myself—he likes it sweet as fuck. You know which one’s Emerson’s.”
“Thank you,” I whispered as he patted me on the back and left.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
It's not the end of the world. Yes, you should've been paying attention, but you can fix this now.
Raising my head high, I put the cups on a tray, along with a few muffins and cookies, and marched back into her office, opening the door with one hand. As a former waitress, handling a tray one-handed wasn’t hard.
“It would be good for the company,” the one I now knew was Derek said. “They're profitable, but they need to lay people off. No more than five hundred.”
I couldn't stop pausing as I set the coffee down in front of him. He looked me in the eye and sent me a carefree smile, as if he hadn’t just casually mentioned ruining a bunch of people’s lives for the sake of profit.
“I know you don't like layoffs,” Henry added. “But we're not the only ones asking. We’re the messengers.”
“Yeah, the messengers,” Derek said and grabbed a muffin straight from my tray and took a bite.
“Let me guess, Parker put you up to this?”
Both men looked at each other, neither of them seeming to want to speak up.
“Yeah, it’s her,” Henry replied with a sheepish look. “She is our biggest investor.”
I lowered the tray for him to grab a muffin and then quietly handed Emerson her coffee. She sent me a look I couldn't decipher before getting a muffin too.
“She's been on one of her binges recently. She says she loves how things are going but then keeps mentioning a layoff here, a layoff there, then reorg. She's just ready for some fast changes—”
Emerson’s eyes widened as she took a bite of her muffin, and then her gaze shot to Henry, who was strangely quiet. When I followed it, I realized his face was turning red.
Emerson shot up, interrupting Derek.
“EpiPen, now! Pearl, call 911!”
Derek scrambled to find Henry's EpiPen in his pocket while the man kept getting redder. He started gasping for air, and his choking sounds had me panicking.
I quickly dialed 911 on my phone as Emerson helped Henry to the floor, and Derek finally found an EpiPen and slammed it into Henry’s thigh.
I tried to answer the operator’s questions, but I couldn’t stop shaking and my voice was tight.
“He's having some sort of allergic reaction… I don't know… They have an EpiPen but… We need an ambulance immediately… The address is…”
Henry gasped for air, his hands grasping Emerson's suit as he tried to steady himself.
“I already administered the Epi, and the ambulance is on the way,” Emerson said reassuringly, without even waiting for my confirmation.
“Come on, let's get you somewhere more comfortable,” Derek said as he helped Henry back into his seat.
I watched helplessly as they kept him stable until the ambulance came.
How did this happen? How did everything go from great and dreamlike to—
My heart stopped in my chest when Emerson's eyes met mine. The first responders had come and had taken Henry and Derek down to the lobby. Emerson was getting her stuff so she could go with them, but not before she turned around and glared at me.
How did I fuck this up so horribly?
I fell into Henry's vacated seat, feeling like the world was crashing down on me.
“This wouldn't have happened if you would've just prepared for the meeting,” Emerson spat as soon as we got home. I hadn't even had time to close the door.
She’d been quiet after returning from the hospital, and then the silence in the car on the way here had been deafening. Even with Cristian and Leslie reassuring me that it would be alright, I could see the looks on everyone else’s faces.
If I were someone else, I’d have been fired on the spot.
It wasn’t hard to come to the conclusion that people at the office now knew what was going on between us, and I’d been beating myself up about it all day too.
“I'm sorry I just… I was busy with—”
“Not doing your job?” she asked, turning to look at me.
I slammed the door behind me, the sound sending us both into silence.
“Emerson, how was I supposed to know he had an allergy?”
“It's in the fucking notes, Pearl. The notes we have on all our clients and board members? Have you even looked at them once since you started?”
That shut me up really quick because I hadn't. I didn’t even know they existed.
“You should have walked me through it. A good manager would have—”
“It’s a simple fucking job, Pearl. Were the labeled folders not clear enough for you?”
“You’re being cruel,” I said, tears filling my eyes.
“A man almost died, Pearl. A man who is part of the board. You know, the group of people that makes decisions for the company? Did you know they could vote me out for something like this? Especially since some of them are misogynistic pigs to begin with?”
Her words shocked me into silence.
“I didn’t know…” I breathed. “And I apologize. I obviously didn’t mean for him to get hurt. But… I’m not just your assistant. You don’t need to—”
She let out a scoff.
“This is who I am, Pearl. You’ve known that from the beginning. If you were anyone else, you would've been fired long ago.”