8. Haelyn
EIGHT
HAELYN
The second I stepped foot inside the building I was going to work in from now on, a wave of nausea coursed through me. My mouth was as dry as sand and my first instinct was to swallow, even though that made it ten times worse.
I dragged my sweaty palms down my jeans, hoping to get rid of any evidence of the nervousness knotting tight in my stomach.
Why am I like this?
Was it because I was working my way out of the rat hole I’d been living in for years, finally finding myself a high-paid job? Or because of him ?
Just the thought of meeting the cold, unapproachable, and hot boss sent jolts all over my spine. When I told Chad I hoped I’d be placed far far away from his office, I wasn’t kidding.
Being close to Tristan Graves meant having him breathing loudly down my neck and following every move I made with those profound eyes of his.
“Miss Ross.” The bodyguard’s voice took me out of my thoughts.
I turned around, dragging a smile over my face. “Hi.”
“You are expected at the fiftieth floor,” he informed me, spine straight and eyes pointed ahead.
“Thank y?—”
“I’ll take care of her.” I felt a hand wrapping around my arm before my eyes landed on the source of the voice.
A woman a few years older than me dragged me away from the bodyguard, her heels clicking on the floor as she strode toward the elevator.
“I’m Sara Bennet, Mr. Graves’ assistant,” she explained in a sing-song voice, pushing a button before raising a hand to pat her stewardess-style bun.
Sara’s lips were colored a light shade of red, and heavy makeup rested on her face as tight and revealing clothes hugged her body. Her skirt was so short that all I needed to do to find out what was underneath was to take a few steps behind.
“I’m Haelyn, nice to meet you,” I said.
“Well, Haelyn, we’ll share the same office.” Sara pursed her lips, though her eyes brightened with enthusiasm.
I nodded my head and we both walked inside of the elevator. She engaged in a conversation with two of the girls who were already inside, pushing the button for the fiftieth floor without even looking at it.
My heart skipped a beat. I hoped the boss only wanted to see me, that our office was nowhere near his and that we belonged on the first floor.
When the small room cleared, Sara turned her attention back to me, her smile looking horribly forced. “You are going to love it here. Tristan treats his assistants very well.” She blinked at me.
I covered the roll of my eyes by acting like they were itchy, scratching them with the edge of my fingers.
The fact that she called him Tristan—and what she said—made me think there was much more between them than a simple boss-and-employee relationship.
So unprofessional of him .
“Does he want to see me or something?” I asked, playing with my cuticles.
Her head immediately snapped to me. “What? Why?”
I frowned, not understanding why she seemed so aggravated by the idea of him wanting to see me. “Um, we are going to the last floor and I thought the reason we are going there is because he wants to talk to me…?”
Sara’s features released any previous tension, her lips lifting into a smile once again. She patted my shoulder as the doors slid open in front of us with a ping . “No, silly. This is where my office is.”
We walked out of the elevator together and she stopped for a second to look at me. “I’ll let you talk to Lo over there.” She pointed at the woman at the reception. “And then you walk past Tristan’s office and enter the office on the left.” Sara smiled brightly.
“Thank you.” My lips stretched.
She turned around and swayed her hips all the way to the place I assumed our office was, disappearing from my view. There’s something about this girl I didn’t like, but I hoped my instincts were wrong this time. I could really use a friend in here.
“Hello, Miss Ross,” the woman greeted me. “Here’s your temporary badge.” She handed me a white name tag with a yellow line above my name and offered me a smile.
“Thank you.” I straightened my spine and walked with the intention of not throwing a curious glance into my boss’s office with the direct destination of my office, but I was interrupted when I hit something hard.
Stone hard.
I blinked and took a step back, rearranging my purse on my shoulder as a large hand gripped my waist gently. At the innocent touch, every hair on my head perked up to attention and every skin cell on my body tingled with awareness.
My left foot stepped back and I raised my eyes before his strong voice reached my ears.
“Are you all right?” Mr. Graves asked, his palm disappearing from my body the moment our gazes met. Somehow, my skin twitched as if his touch was still there.
“Yes, sorry for…” I gestured with my hand, looking everywhere but at him. “Bumping into you,” I continued.
He closed the door to his office, standing tall before me. His shadow over mine was able to erase any evidence that I was actually here.
“Where’s Sara? She’s supposed to show you around,” Mr. Graves talked with a grave tone, irritation rising to the surface.
Sara?
I frowned.
Oh, right. Sara, my office roommate.
“She’s waiting for me in the office,” I told him, my gaze slipping past him to the way she just left.
Mr. Graves hummed and the sound forced my eyes away from the doorframe hiding behind his hair to his face. He stared me down, the smallest hint of a squint resting on his face.
“What?” I dared to ask.
“If she causes you any trouble, I can move you to another office, or even mine since your presence is needed.”
Move in with him?
“No.” I was quick to reply.
His thick eyebrows furrowed. “No?”
The way he said it made it seem like more of a challenge, so I offered him a smile while I tried to smooth things out. “I meant no, she’s not causing me any trouble. I’m more than happy to share an office with her.”
My throat locked with an unreleased breath, and I prayed to God this conversation was going to be over before I passed out due to the lack of air. In his presence, breathing properly and having all your brain cells working was impossible.
Before I tried to avoid my gaze from landing on him, now I found myself unable to peel my eyes off the man standing in front of me. Mr. Graves’ stare held me hostage as I waited for him to say something, time slipping by.
“Right,” I spoke before he could. “I better get going.” I tipped my chin forward. “Thank you.” When I realized his lips wouldn’t form a ‘goodbye,’ I walked past him and headed directly to the office.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
Why did you have to chicken out in front of him?
He was just so… intimidating that I found it hard to know how to act around him. I’ve dealt with a lot of people over the years, but no one had ever made me want to crawl out of my skin just by the way they were looking at me.
When I opened the door to Sara’s office, I still felt his gaze burning my back. Yet as I stole a glance to where he was standing mere moments ago, there was no sign of him.
“Come in, don’t be shy,” Sara urged me to walk inside as my eyes lingered for too long in the hallway.
I did as she said and took a seat next to her, both of the chairs being placed under the same long desk. She opened my laptop and pointed her fingers at a white sticky note.
“Log in and then I’ll guide you through.” Sara let me input all the info and she went back to her own work, throwing a glance my way from time to time while I got used to the interface of the system.
Before I knew it, Sara showed me the minor tasks I had for the two weeks I’d be on probation and it didn’t take me long until I was caught up in work.
For now, all I had to do was send and reply to emails, check Mr. Graves’ schedule a bunch of times before setting up a meeting, and also had to make sure I chose the right partners for Graves Automobile Company and verify each company’s background.
It was nothing complicated or anything I couldn’t handle. If I thought about it, this was the easiest job I’d ever had. It didn’t involve drunk people, no poop or vomit cleaning, and definitely no old people with dementia.
My skin prickled at the memory of that one time when I used to work for an older woman. She was a sweet one, but when one of her episodes would hit, I’d leave her house covered in scratches with her screams still echoing in my ears. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t recognize me, but that was a job I couldn’t handle.
Something about her forgetting everything hurt me in the depths of my bones.
“You coming?” Sara asked, closing her laptop and standing up from her chair.
My brows furrowed as I lifted my eyes to her. “Coming where?”
She walked away, putting her brown coat on and taking the purse off the hanger. Sara dragged the hair that had been caught under the coat and put it in the front.
“We have a thirty-minute break and everyone goes out to eat,” she explained.
I took a look at the clock on the work laptop.
Twelve p.m.
Time passed so quickly I didn’t even feel like I'd been sitting in front of a monitor for hours. Instead of going out to eat, I could stay here and show how devoted I was to getting this job.
Plus, I wasn’t that hungry either.
“I’ll see you when you get back,” I said, and watched her eyes lower into a squint. However, she didn’t argue and walked out of the office without saying another word.