“Quite a few of them, yes.”
“Good. Come here. Now. I need someone to interview executive assistants for me.”
I can hear her blinking. “Can I—can I speak freely in front of Nikolay?” she whispers.
“No.”
She growls.
Begonia.
Begonia growls at me.
“What the hell kind of noise was that?” I ask.
“That’s me breathing very deeply before I don’t remind you that people like you don’t call people like me to do the things that you have other way more qualified people to do for you.”
“I don’t trust them.”
Fuck me.
That truly is the root of all of my problems.
I spin in my chair and peer out my top-floor window at downtown Albany. I can’t see The Egg, which is apparently exactly where Begonia is right at this minute, but I know roughly where it is and I can’t stop staring in that direction, hoping the buildings between us will disappear so that I can see her waving at me and telling me I’m being ridiculous.
And she’s right.
Powerful men from rich families don’t call the woman they found naked in their bathroom barely over a week ago and ask said woman to pick their new executive assistant.
“I don’t understand people,” I say slowly. “I don’t know if my temporary executive assistant is hitting on me or trying to annoy me, and I don’t know why everyone thinks getting married is some pinnacle event to be celebrated when it looks like shackles and chains to me. I know numbers. I was born and raised to be if not in this exact position for Razzle Dazzle, then damn close to it, and I know I can’t do my job without help, but I don’t know how to find the help, but you—you knock on doors and ask people for food not because we can’t afford it, but because you somehow know it would actually make other people happy to help. You know why people tick. You could probably tell me what Nikolay wants for Christmas, who his last girlfriend was, why they broke up, and if he has a favorite sports team, but I—”
“A ride in a hot air balloon, Sheila with the shoe collection, she didn’t like his hours, and the Copper Valley Thrusters, because he likes their mascot, just like me, but he said it first, for the record,” she whispers.
My heart squeezes.
When it comes to people, I get very, very little right.
With Begonia—I trust her.
And if she fucks this up, I’ll just fire whoever it is I hire on her advice, and I’ll start over from scratch.
With four applicants vetted by human resources, who will all be fired if they allow my waiting room to fill up like this again with applicants.
“Will you please come interview these hundred women who want to be my executive assistant? I’ll buy you diamonds and pearls and cancel Paris and take you somewhere else instead, and order you golden chocolates so that you can—I won’t finish that sentence, but I did listen to every word your sister said about it.”
“Hayes, you don’t have to buy me gifts for me to do the little things.”
“This is not a little thing.” I’m too old to crawl under my desk and hide, but I want to.
And wanting to is a bad, bad sign.
We should’ve stayed in Maine.
I could’ve done everything remotely.
I can still go back.
“Have you had lunch?” she asks softly.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your favorite meal?”
“Begonia—”
“Your job applicants aren’t going anywhere if they’re worthy of working for you, Hayes. Where are you?”
“Locked in my office.”
“Good. Stay there. I’ll be there in twenty—no, Nikolay says ten minutes, but we have to stop to get you a lunch that’ll taste good enough for you to remember it, so definitely twenty minutes, and then I’ll handle everything. Also, can I tell Hyacinth about this?”
“No.”
“Good gravy, I’ll leave out the part where you look human and vulnerable, okay? You’re really, really great at a lot of things, but asking you to interview a hundred women on your first day back in the office after a death in your family sounds like something your mother would dream up in a really bad Razzle Dazzle film.”
I freeze.
She’s fucking right.
And if not my mother, someone in my family set this up.
“Do not call your mother,” Begonia orders. “Let me.”
I stare harder in the direction of The Egg, and I picture Begonia straightening her spine and smearing on blood red lipstick—no, not blood red.