Chapter One: The New Boss

I hadn't been this nervous to go to works in years. I've had this job for nearly three years now and I knew how to do it blind folded. In fact, I was really good at my job, well, much better than thought I would be. See, getting a job in New York was not easy, especially one that was going to help me pay for college. So I applied to at least thirty jobs and got an interview for at least half of them but they all turned me down because they believed I was unqualified, and I probably was, but to be qualified I needed someone to give me a chance, and I didn't think anyone would. That was until I met Henry Watson.

Henry Watson was the CEO of Watson International, a co-operate finance company, and a pretty successful one too, which is why it was so unbelievable that he hired me as his assistant, well one of his assistants. He already had an assistant, Karen, who had been working with him for twenty-five years, but now she needed some time off, so he needed another assistant to fill in those days, which was perfect for me, because it didn't interfere with college, but he was also more than happy to cater around that. In fact, he was so nice he didn't care it took me a while to learn the job or that I might be late because a class ran overtime. Henry Watson turned out to be the nicest person in the world and I couldn't believe how lucky I was to get this job.

Unfortunately, in an instant everything changed. After two and a half years of working there I got a call from Karen, and it was some of the worst news I had ever gotten. She told me that Henry had died. They put it down to a heart attack, and she said the paramedics couldn't revive him. It was awful. I looked up to Henry, he looked after me like a father, and he had died, and he was only sixty-five.

It was painful to realise I could never talk to that man ever again, hear him laugh, hear him tell me a dad-joke, and he was good at them too. It got worse though, when I realised that his death had affected his company. That man lived for his company, he built it from the ground up, cared for it, cherished it, and because his death had been so sudden, the company went into freefall.

For a few weeks, it was bad. No one really knew how to stop the company losing money, with the stock prices falling and no one willing to sell to them without a CEO, one had to be appointed. Whilst most of his staff attended his funeral the topic of who would take over came up often, but the day after the funeral things changed- and someone was appointed the new CEO. That someone also happened to be my new boss.

"Why the hell do I only have one black heel?"

I yelled out from bedroom. I walked out, holding one of my black high heels while I searched for the other. I felt like I had to be on time today, I wanted to make a good impression with my new boss, and now, it wasn't looking so good.

"What are you talking about, Rory?" my roommate yelled back from the kitchen. "You have like ten pairs of black heels, you're going to have to be a little more specific."

I groaned a little and walked into the kitchen where Ava, my roommate, was sitting on one of the stools near the kitchen bench, eating her breakfast. She like me, was getting ready for work and was half dressed at this point. She had pulled her long blonde hair back into a bun, and put her make up on to cover her fading freckles and highlight her tan and blue eyes, and wore a tight tank top that showed of her body, but she still had to put her work shirt on.

I held up my heel to show her which ones I meant and her eyes immediately turned from mine. Ava was often the reason my clothes went missing because she borrowed them all the time. See, we had quite a different wardrobe. My job required me to wear smart, business like clothes. Like a pencil skirt, and blouses, and pencil dresses, and jackets, and heels. Whereas Ava worked as a cleaner in hotels, so she had a set uniform, but she also liked to wear my clothes out. It was convenient we were the same size.

"Oh," Ava said under her breath.

"You know I don't mind you borrowing my stuff, I just need you to put it back," I told her.

"I know, I know," Ava said, sitting up straight, "and in my defence I did attempt to put them back. I was pretty drunk though, so I guess I only put one back."

"So the other one is…?" I asked her slowly.

"I don't know. Under my bed maybe," she guessed.

I sighed and walking out of the kitchen and went into her bedroom. Unlike me, she wasn't so big on keeping her bedroom tidy, and had clothes all over the floor, and papers lying around. Her room was colourful though, I had to give her that.

"Can't you wear a different pair?" Ava asked me, just yelling from the kitchen.

"I wish," I yelled back, getting to the ground to look under the bed. "These go best with this outfit and they are my nicest pair."

"Well, I could buy you new ones?" Ava suggested as she came to the bedroom door.

"Ah, no need," I said, as I spotted the shoe and pulled it out to show her. "Now, I'm going to be late."

"God, you're not nervous, are you?" she asked me, suddenly realising why I had been so anxious over the shoes.

"Why would I be nervous?" I asked, walking out and putting my shoes on at the same time.

"Because it's the first day you have to work for Clarke Watson."

Clarke Watson was the newly appointed CEO, and as the name suggested he was related to Henry. Clarke was Henry's only blood child, his treasured son, well he was for a little while anyway. As Clarke got older he become Henry's problem son. Clarke become a typical rich white boy. He partied a lot, got drunk in public, got in fights, travelled around the world, always with a different girl, and he a got arrested a few times. He was in the news a lot because he dated celebrities and models, and there was a lot of rumours about him. Henry tried to rein him in, but Clarke never listened, so Henry just gave up trying to stop him. As long as Henry spoke to Clarke every now and again to make sure he was alive, he could deal with it. Now, as Henry's only heir, Clarke was CEO, and if I was worried before about the company dying with no CEO, I was more worried it would die with Clarke as CEO.

"Look, I can't imagine this guy is qualified to run a company," I told her, now stepping into the lounge room and grabbing my bag, "but he's my boss, so I'll do my job, and if I don't leave now I'll be late for his first day."

"Go," Ava sighed, "I'm sure I'll hear all about it tonight when you get home tonight."

"Probably," I agreed, opening the front door.

Usually I caught the subway uptown to the office, but today the subway would put me behind another half an hour, and I didn't have another half an hour. So I had no choice but to flag down a cab, and in my part of town, that could be hard. Ava and I lived in an apartment that was located in between the upper west side and hell's kitchen. The location had become a compromise between my two lives, work, and studying to be a lawyer at Columbia University. Well I wasn't technically studying to be a lawyer yet because you can't do that in college, but you can do classes that help you get into law school, which is what I was currently doing, and I was in my last year of college, so I was hoping to get accepted into a decent law school next year.

After my long and expensive cab ride, I arrived to the office approximately seven minutes late. It wasn't bad considering I thought it would be longer with New York traffic. I took the lift up to the 50th floor, and unsurprisingly was one of the only people left as it finally got to the top. Like most businesses, Watson International didn't own the whole building, but they owned a couple of floors, and Clarke's office was on the top floor.

"Oh, good morning, Rory."

"Good morning, Tina." I was greeted by one of the two receptionists at the front desk. Unlike me they reported to everyone here, I only reported to...well, I guess its Clarke now. "I've got to get to my office-."

"You know he's not here yet, right?" she asked me before I could finish.

"What?" I frowned.

She shrugged. "I thought he'd be here too, but he's not. Oh, and he changed offices."

"What do you mean, he changed offices?" I asked her.

"Well, he took the window office," she explained.

We called it the 'window office' kind of ironically actually. See, this place went under renovations a while back and all the offices got glass walls put in so you could see right in, expect one of the offices which still had small blind windows that could be closed off, so there becomes the irony to it.

"Guess, he didn't want to same office as his father. So your stuff got moved to the desk there, and they swapped out all the filing cabinets and stuff, so it's still all in order," she shrugged.

"Well, at least that's something," I muttered, realising I needed to add another thing to my to do list. "Does anyone know when he'll get here?"

"Not a clue," she shook her head.

I sighed glancing at my watch. "Well, he's got a meeting in ten."

"Better hope he gets here in ten then," she shrugged.

"Something tells me he won't," I said, as I started to walk towards my new office.

"Good luck then," Tina called after me.

"Thanks," I responded. "I think I'll need it."

Today the office had a different feel to it. Usually it was alive, people were talking and laughing, and smiling. Today however it felt completely different. I swear, all I could hear was the phones ringing, there was no laughing, and barely any talking Everyone was apprehensive about Clarke I guess, and I didn't blame them.

Henry's old office was quite open, I mean literally. His door was usually open, so seeing this closed off office space just didn't feel right. There had been a downside to where Henry's office was though, my old desk had been squished into a cubical so I could be close to Henry and there was never too much space in that. In Clarke's new office my desk was on its own pedestal, well the whole section of my desk and his was anyway. I walked up a few stairs to get to the section that was my desk which was in this open kind of open floor area right next to the wall of Clarke's office. The desk was near the front and around the back was a nice open window and my filing cabinets, as promised. My stuff from my other desk was in a box on thethe new desk. I sighed because I had to unpack it all and organise it, and because Karen and I shared a desk over the week, we had system in place, and I had to make that system worked. It also reminded me I had another thing to add to my to-do list, remind Karen our desk had moved.

I sat down at my chair and looked over to my left. Currently the blinds in the small windows we're open but I didn't think that would last long. I couldn't see much inside, the desk seemed to be empty, and the conference desk in the corner empty... in fact there wasn't even a single personal touch in sight.

I decided to ignore it. If Clarke wanted to be late, then that was up to him. I realised I also didn't have his number to harass him to get here. Although after nearly two hours, I was starting to wish I could harass him. That's right, nearly two hours later he still hadn't showed up, and whilst it gave me time to get my desk sorted, I had also answered at least four calls, rescheduling meetings. I was annoyed, really annoyed.

A noise,-after two and a half hours of nothing- suddenly made me look up and that's when I saw him. My first thought, was at least he's wearing a suit. He had dark brown hair which it looked like he attempted to smooth his hair, or style it or something, but it wasn't great. He kind of looked like his father, I noticed it in his eyes, they both had light brown eyes, and strong straight jawlines. Clarke was however taller than I think Henry was, and definitely more muscular. I expected Clarke to look at me or talk to me, but he just walked straight into his office.

"You've got to be kidding me."

I was already pissed off, but now I was furious. I stood up and I walked straight into his office as he flopped himself down into his chair.

"You could have some common decency, you know," I retorted angrily.

He looked up at me, with a confused, and tired look on his face, like he really hadn't even seen me.

"Sorry?" he frowned.

"You walked straight past me. No sorry, no nothing for being late," I told him.

"I'm late?" he asked me, still no emotion from him.

"You're kidding me," I breathed out. "You're two hours late."

"I didn't realised I was on the clock," he shrugged. "I thought I was my own boss."

I rolled my eyes. "Doesn't mean you decide when to show up. You know how many meetings I've rescheduled today? So many that you don't have time to have lunch anymore."

"What are you talking about, red?"

I had to breathe out to calm myself down. The boy didn't even know my name so now he had nicknamed me, and used the colour of my hair. When I was younger I had bright red hair, but as I've gotten older it had faded, to a bit more of a strawberry blonde, but it was still red, still noticeably too actually.

"The name is Rory," I corrected him angrily. "And you've had meetings all morning because it's your first day. Did you think you could just waltz on in here and have it all? Not even close, buddy. You have a lot of people to impress to keep this business going, and you've missed four meetings, you have one in five which I don't even know if you should go too, and then you had the guts to ignore me. By the way, I am your assistant, I worked for your father for years, and I know what I'm talking about. Is there anything you'd like me to repeat?"

He took a moment, I saw it. He opened his mouth to speak then shut it again before he breathed out heavily. He stood up and straightened his jacket, then cleared his throat.

"Right, well, I guess I'm sorry for being late, and making your day hard," he told me, but it didn't feel like he meant it. "I heard you loud and clear, and if I heard you correctly I had a meeting to get to."

"A meeting you're not prepared for," I told him, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Even if that's the case, I should probably attend regardless," he said, walking out from behind his desk. "Which is where?

"Down the hall in conference room B. Do you have a laptop?" I asked him, looking at his empty desk.

"Ah... a home one," he answered slowly.

I rolled my eyes, out of annoyance. "You need one here for your schedule, so you can learn it, I'll get you one I guess. For now give me your phone so I can sync it, and so I can call you to tell you when you're late."

"Kind of getting the feeling I shouldn't argue with you today," he said, slowly walking up to me and handing me the phone.

"You've got that right," I answered him.

"I'm Clarke W-," he started to introduce himself nicely.

"I know who you are," I interrupted him with a sigh, "just get to that meeting."

He gave me a look before he nodded slightly and started to walk out the door.

"And straighten your tie," I yelled after him.

He turned around once more and gave me this cheeky look, which told me he didn't care. He reached up for his tie and instead of straightening it, he made it worse. I sighed heavily and lent on my desk as I saw him disappear down the hall. I used to love my job, I used to look forward to coming here and working, but it had only been ten minutes for working with Clarke and I already felt dread in my stomach. Something told me that I wasn't going to like working for Clarke Watson.