Chapter 3 #2
I stopped dead, my eyes darting to the receiver situated neatly on the desk; the voice sounded extremely familiar.
This was a narrator I’d listened to before. I knew solely from the few words he’d spoken. Maybe I was going to be lucky after all.
“Ma’am, can you hear me? Ms. Lovelace?”
The voice crashed through my mind, snapping me from my thoughts. I jumped and knocked over the empty water glass on my left. “Fuck!” I yelled as I watched it clatter to the floor in slow motion, but thank god it didn’t break.
Shit, shit, shit. This was not going the way it needed to.
“Oh my god, Mr. Mitchell, I’m so sorry about that.
I just…just knocked over something. My sincere apologies.
” I rushed to move the conversation forward, hoping he wouldn’t say he no longer wanted to hire us.
“Um, let’s begin. Tell me about yourself. ”
I waited as he contemplated his answer. Maybe I could segue into asking what kind of voice work he did.
He finally spoke. “I don’t really know where to start. I’m a voice actor, and a project I worked on last year went viral, and I’ve been in high demand ever since.”
Project last year. Viral.
“It’s impossible,” I whispered.
“Uh, what?” Ryan asked.
I fumbled for words. “Oh, um, sorry Mr. Mitchell. Right. I have the profile that Mia put together from the intake call, and I see that you’re interested in the investment aspect of our services,” I said, trying to get back on track.
I had to focus on the task at hand. He confirmed what he was looking for, and as he was speaking my heart skipped.
Zander. Zander Kane.
There was no fucking way. Zander had a book go viral last year.
The same one I’d listened to at least three times.
Holy fuck. No way was I talking to Zander Kane.
His voice had occupied countless hours over the last six months or so.
One of my guilty pleasures was scrolling through social media short form videos to get more book recommendations, and that's how I found Zander.
Wait, it was Ryan. There was no mention anywhere online that Zander was an alias, but that had to be the case since I was definitely talking to a guy named Ryan who seemingly had Zander’s voice.
Fuck, Raven, pull it together! I shouted internally. Clasping my shaking hands together, I took a few deep breaths. I had to chill the fuck out and get through this call. Reciting my usual spiel to him, I focused on explaining what I knew best.
Fifteen minutes later, I was unsure if I understood what he told me. “So, correct me if I’m mistaken, but you want quick returns on investment? You realize we’re talking about the stock market, right?” I asked, assuming he couldn’t know much about investing from the conversation thus far.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said slowly in a voice that momentarily took my breath away. “I want to invest in case my popularity dies down in the future. Less demand means less income. I want to invest half of my savings to make plenty of money in addition to what I’m currently making.”
I almost spit the water Joanne had quietly brought in all over my desk and instead some went down my lungs.
“Half?” I sputtered. “You want to invest half of your net worth in high-risk small caps?” I tried to clear my throat while wrapping my head around his words.
“That's a substantial amount to invest.”
“I have no idea what you mean by high small caps, or whatever you said, but hopefully it works very quickly,” he said.
I shook my head, my hair swishing by my ears. “Mr. Mitchell, investments are meant to be invested and then left alone for forty years. Investing in high-risk stocks could make you a lot of money, but it could also lose you money.”
“Exactly why I’m not investing it all. Look, Ms…” His voice died away.
“Lovelace,” I supplied.
“Right, Ms. Lovelace.” The way he said my name so seductively had me shifting uncomfortably in my chair. I would melt into a puddle on the floor if he said it again.
“I’m booked out for a few months, and the requests keep rolling in. I don’t see this stopping anytime soon. Even if it did, I still have my other income. I suspect I’ll be great for the next five years, but after that, who knows. Are you able to help a guy out?”
Help him out. I might spontaneously combust in the process, but I was good at my job.
“Certainly, Mr. Mitchell. I’ll put together a portfolio for you, and then we’ll schedule another call.
Unless you would rather come into the office?
” I couldn’t help but to ask. I wanted to see the man this voice was attached to.
“Nah, phone call is fine. Thank you, Ms…Lovelace,” he said in a sultry voice, and I almost fell from my chair at how hot my name sounded coming from him. “Goodbye.”
He ended the call, and I turned to stare out the window, not seeing the buildings or streets outside.
I was in trouble. This client was going to be particularly difficult to work with because his voice was so distracting.
Eventually, I pulled myself out of my stupor and pushed Ryan Mitchell and Zander Kane from my mind. I had work to do.
A few hours later, I glanced at my reflection in the mirror of the black and white restroom in the office.
After the call, the afternoon went to hell, and I looked just as bad.
The shorter hair framing my face was wild from tangling my fingers in it when I couldn’t concentrate.
I could pass for Cousin It instead of my usual Morticia Addams.
Back in my office, I pondered the clock. It was only four on a Monday. Could I get away with leaving? That morning had been productive, a ten out of ten, whereas the afternoon had been a zero since the call.
My thoughts drifted back to Zander, or Ryan. I was definitely going to slip and mistakenly call him Zander at some point. The next call would be after I got his portfolio together. I couldn’t get his voice out of my head, and the way he said my name…
I groaned, and put my head on my desk like a teenager trying to catch some sleep in class. “Fuck it,” I said into the glass.
Shooting out of the chair, I grabbed my purse, not even bothering to shut down the computer.
I hurried past Mia’s door to avoid detection, but luckily she was on a call.
Once in the lobby I stopped at the chic white reception desk in the middle of the room surrounded by pewter walls.
The petite woman with salt and pepper chin length hair looked up from her computer where she had been typing.
“Hey Joanne.” I fidgeted with my purse on my arm, shifting uncomfortably on my feet. “I’m going to head home. I’ll work from there. Do you have it covered here?” I wasn’t going to work at home, especially since I left my briefcase in my office.
The brightest smile lit her face and she clasped her hands together.
“You’re leaving the office before six? Raven, that's wonderful! You should go home and just relax. No need to work. Everything is going well, and I just sent over the reports you did this morning. I copied you, but a response just came through from the client. They’re ecstatic with the numbers,” she gushed. “All of your hard work is paying off.”
I beamed back at Joanne. “Perfect! I’ll see you in the morning. Text me if you need anything.”
“Of course,” she said as I walked out the door to the elevators.
I pushed the button for the garage and counted my lucky stars that I had found Mia and Joanne.
Joanne was the same age as my mom, but she was one of my favorite people.
Caring and nurturing to the people she cared about, but when it came to work, she was the baddest bitch around.
Polished and refined, but would knock anyone on their ass with her words.
When I started the company, it was just Joanne and I.
I convinced her to leave our old financial firm with me to start my own.
She said she was ready for something new so I saved up enough money to pay her a decent salary.
The managing role had become stagnant for her so she agreed to be the receptionist and secretary until we got on our feet after a few years.
With the growth recently, I was happy I could finally hire a replacement for her position out front.
I smiled at the thought of her being freed up to run the office and made the decision to post the position on the job sites as soon as possible.
When I got home, I dropped my purse on the kitchen island and gazed around my apartment.
I was rarely here during the daylight hours, especially during the week, and the furniture looked a bit out of place in the sunlight.
Shaking off the strangeness, I ditched my heels in my bedroom and pulled on a black cashmere lounge set.
I drew the blinds in one of the spare bedrooms I had made into my home office, preferring a darkened vibe over the bright sunlight. After booting up my computer, I went into super sleuth mode. I scrounged the web for any mention of a Ryan Mitchell, a more in-depth search than I did on Friday.
After an hour with fifteen open tabs on both of my monitors, I was still at square one. My computer looked like I was a stalker, which, for this man’s voice, I wouldn’t say was too far from the truth.
Switching gears, I pulled up social media.
Navigating to the photo and short form video website, I noted how odd it looked on a computer as opposed to a phone.
I typed Zander Kane into the search bar and found what looked to be his account and pulled up the profile.
Dozens of black screened videos stared back at me.
What? Why would he post blank videos and photos?
Then I realized it might just be the thumbnail images.
I pulled up the most recent one posted a week ago and was met with, surprise, a black screen. It wasn’t just the video cover photo on his main page. The video itself was blank as well. What the fuck? I stared at the screen as the ten second video replayed over and over.
Fuck. Realization dawned on me. Voice actor. He was a voice actor so it was probably a video of just his voice. I shook my head at my cluelessness and reached for my speakers. Turning up the volume, I exited the video and clicked it again to make sure it started from the beginning.
My heart damn near stopped. Zander’s seductive baritone voice filled the room. “Baby girl,” he panted. “You do that so well.” His breaths came faster, and he moaned, “Your mouth is going to be the death of me.”
I rushed to stop the video before it could play again, worried someone might hear even though no neighbors bordered the walls of the room.
I sat back in my chair, jaw on the floor at what I’d just heard, heat rushing through my body.
Zander’s audiobooks were great, but he didn’t breathe like that when he narrated spicy scenes in them.
It seemed so realistic. My cheeks were on fire and I knew my face looked like a tomato against my usual pale complexion.
Snapping from my thoughts, I grabbed headphones from a drawer, powering them on and connecting them to the desktop. I reached for the mouse and clicked on the next video.