Chapter 3
SOFIA
By the end of my first month at Vieri Holdings, I learn one very important truth.
Rich people can only function because of their assistants.
It isn’t just me. Every executive on our floor has someone who tells them where to go, prints out all their documents, and keeps a fresh suit hanging in the boss’s closet in case of an unexpected emergency.
I also happen to know that many of the executives have housekeepers and personal chefs. They literally can’t do anything without someone else helping them. It makes me think more fondly of my father who, by some miracle, has handled everything on his own.
Well, mostly on his own. There’s the matter of his insurmountable debt. Still, he’s never paid anyone to clean his apartment or raise his kid.
I’ve also learned that there are a lot of people who come into Dominic’s office unscheduled. They don’t leave their names, and for the most part, they don’t bother stopping in with me. It’s like I don’t even exist to them.
After meeting Dominic’s friend Rafe, I knew not to ask questions. I just pad Dominic’s schedule well enough to absorb all the unexpected meetings, and I keep busy so I don’t bother him.
I’m always watching, though. Men march in with their shoulders back and chests puffed like they own the room. They come out deflated, tails between their legs. Dominic specializes in making important men feel small. Then again, maybe they weren’t all that important to begin with.
There are two men who come in often who aren’t like the others.
The first, of course, is Rafe. He’s gotten a little better at saying hello to me, at least and he never stays more than a few minutes at a time.
Another assistant told me Rafe has an office in the building, but no one actually knows what he does.
His position is very vague and has nothing to do with hospitality.
The other man looks a lot like Dominic, only a little older. It takes me three weeks to find out he’s Dominic’s cousin.
Tomasso Vieri has sharp angles to his face. He’s always frowning when he walks in, and he never spares me a single glance. Sometimes he and Dominic get into shouting matches. The first time it happened, I thought about getting up to check on them, but my instinct told me to stay put.
After that first time, I was glad I had. Dominic and Tomasso’s communication style is shouting, and it happens almost every time Tomasso comes in. I tell myself it’s just because they’re Italian and passionate, and go about my business. My gut tells me that’s the smart way to handle it.
I must be right, because once I’ve crossed over a full month of employment, the assistants in the group chat all congratulate me. Apparently, no one else has lasted this long in years. That doesn’t surprise me. The job requires a high level of stress management.
Like when I walk in one morning and my desk is a disaster of folders dumped off by other departments.
Papers that need signatures, agendas for board meetings that need double-checking.
There’s a sticky note on one folder that reads CALL LEGAL?
?, underlined twice. Ever since I was hired, I’ve become the go-to for catching other people’s mistakes.
Another assistant named Nina stops by my desk with a hot coffee, my name written on the cup.
“For me?” I ask in surprise, touched by the gesture.
“I stopped by earlier and saw the mess,” she says sympathetically. “I knew you could use it. How’s everything going?”
“I’m living the dream.” I sigh sarcastically.
She laughs and nods sympathetically. “I heard Arthur Klein keeps harassing you,” she says darkly. “For that alone, you deserve your own personal coffee cart.”
Arthur Klein is the VP of one of our hotels. He thinks he deserves direct access to Dominic, which makes me the reluctant gatekeeper.
“He’s not so bad.” I shrug. “A lot nicer than some of the men who just barge in here.”
She nods with wide eyes, and I know she’s looking for more information. As kind as the gesture is, I realize too late that it’s come with strings attached.
Dominic is shrouded in mystery, and I’m the one who guards him. The other assistants are all desperate for gossip, but I know better than to put my job in jeopardy.
“Anyway,” I say, trying to organize the folders in some workable way. “Dominic has a meeting in five minutes. I’d better prepare. Thank you again so much for the coffee. It was really thoughtful.”
She nods and slinks off, disappointed. I grab my notebook and the folder prepped for this very meeting. I knock on Dominic’s door to remind him, and we end up walking over together.
We’re the last to the conference room, which is by design. Dominic likes to make an entrance. All the people waiting stand up when he enters. It gives me a weird little thrill. I start passing out all the packets, then take a seat in the corner to take notes.
A silver-haired woman kicks off the meeting. Vieri Holdings is acquiring a new company, and the people in this room are the power players. The amount of wealth and influence sitting around the table could run a small country.
I had to double- and triple-check all the packets for this meeting, so I’m very familiar with the information being shared. I scribble my notes efficiently and try not to roll my eyes at the thousand different opinions being shouted across the room.
At the end of the day, Dominic is the one who makes all the final decisions, but people need to feel heard. It makes these meetings extra-long, when they’re mostly formalities to begin with.
A man named Leonard Shaw taps one of the pages in his packet and says, “I have some concerns about these staffing numbers.”
I don’t like Leonard. He often stares at my legs too long.
He also asked me to get him coffee the first time I walked into a meeting.
Dominic had to step in and tell him that I was his assistant, and not in charge of coffee runs.
At this moment, what I like least about him is that he’s questioning my work.
Dominic looks up at Leonard, then immediately down at his packet. “Which ones specifically?” he asks.
“These,” Leonard answers, turning his packet toward Dominic to show him. “They don’t match the summary we were emailed last week.”
I crane my neck out of curiosity. He’s got the wrong tab open. Of course he does, the idiot. The silver-haired woman who started the meeting looks between his tab and hers and frowns.
Leonard just has to continue. “If this is the level of oversight our company is bringing into the deal, I think we need to slow down and have a more serious conversation about internal review.”
My pen stops moving and I have to bite the inside of my cheek. Don’t say anything, I repeat to myself over and over. It’s definitely not my place to correct him in front of all these people. I’m supposed to sit in the corner quietly and take notes.
Dominic leans back slightly in his chair and crosses his arms, staring at Leonard. The whole room goes quiet, except for the furious turning of pages. Leonard takes that as his cue to continue.
“Maybe someone from your office can explain how this got missed.”
Goddamnit, Leonard. He just had to goad me.
“It wasn’t missed,” I cut in.
The entire room turns toward me.
Leonard blinks at me with a smug look on his face. “Maybe you should focus on your notes,” he says petulantly.
I sit up straighter, telling myself that I’m in the middle of the storm now. I’d better walk into it confidently.
“You’re looking at the supplemental draft,” I tell him as kindly as I can manage. “You see the yellow tab in front of the page? The current numbers are under the blue tab.”
He looks down. So does everyone else. They’re all referencing the blue tab apart from Leonard. He flips more slowly than necessary to the blue tab and then clears his throat.
“Ah,” he says. “I see it now.”
A few people smirk or snicker under their breath, but I catch it all. The great Leonard Shaw has just been humbled by an assistant. They’re eating it up. I guess I’m not the only person he acts like an ass to.
Dominic shoots me a look I can’t decipher. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. At least I still hold the record.
The meeting continues without incident, but my nerves are shot. When everyone finally gets up to leave, I’m already mentally packing up my desk. The silver-haired woman passes by with a smile. “Nice job with the packets, Sofia.”
I haven’t met her yet, so I’m surprised she knows my name. Dominic shakes her hand and tells her he’ll call her later. Then he turns to me and my stomach does somersaults.
“It was a good catch,” he tells me quietly. “But in the future, you should be more careful about who you embarrass in this building. Type up the notes and send them out in the next hour.”
I nod and follow him back to his office, where I immediately sit down at my desk and type up the meeting notes. So, not fired. A little reprimanded, but I’ve definitely been through worse. If anything, I’m glad that he backed me up.
“You’re in a toxic workplace,” my best friend Maya tells me later when we meet for dinner.
We usually try to get together at least once a week, but since I started this job, I’ve barely had time to see her. It’s the first time we’ve met up in person since I started, though I’ve texted her every little thing.
“I don’t think it’s toxic,” I say defensively. “I really like the work.”
“For what they’re paying you, you better.” She laughs. “Then again, I don’t know if any amount of money would be enough for me to put up with that level of stress.”
“It’s really not bad,” I laugh. “Sure, there are some bad days, but I like it.”
“You’ve barely been there a month. There shouldn’t be bad days, plural,” she answers, stabbing her chicken with her fork.
“It’s a big company with a lot of strong personalities to manage,” I say. “There’s bound to be a few issues, but I don’t mind it.”
She raises her eyebrow at me. “Is it the work you don’t mind, or your hot-ass boss?”
I roll my eyes and throw a bread roll at her.