WEAK Part One

Chapter Two

I didn’t want to pick up that phone. Not while he was standing there with the unbearably smug grin on his handsome face. On the other hand, I didn’t want to ruin this latest gig. It might only be temporary reception work but there was always the chance that a job like that could go permanent and I knew that this particular building was owned by a large, highly innovative venture capital firm.

Medici Investments.

Medici. Investments.

Medici.

….

It hit me like a cold wet fish in the kisser.

I looked at the sculptured GQ face in front of me.

Vincent Medici.

Oh Crap.

My head began to spin. I felt off balance.

That's what happens when someone who never drinks gets lured into quaffing Champagne with her decadent, well-paid and much more successful friends.

Utter confusion, idiocy, embarrassment. All the opposite of who I really am, but this man would never believe that now.

My desk phone was ringing.

Saved by the bell. I picked it up and the voice on the other end of the line was Carmen Villegas, head of Medici HR. She had been kind enough to give me a walk-through of the company the day before. It was a lot more courtesy than I usually got as a lowly temp starting in a new assignment.

"Hello Victoria, has Vincent come through reception yet?"

"He'll be with you shortly Carmen." She had insisted on a first name basis even though I was only scheduled for a three week slot on her payroll.

"Thanks Victoria. It's about time. Oh, and Victoria?"

"Yes Carmen?"

"Vince will be here for the whole day. Try not get in his way, he's a little on the uh, intense side."

"I'll do my best."

"And one more thing."

"Yes?"

"If he misbehaves himself in anyway,  you just let me know, okay?"

If he misbehaves himself?

"Thank you Carmen."

"Was that Villegas?" He asked.

My brain was reeling. I was still dizzy and now physically sick. I heard his words but they didn't register in any meaningful way.

"Victoria. Hello? Victoria." He leaned his beautiful head in and stared right at me with those intense blue eyes of his. Another slap in the face only this time not with a wet fish. He was possibly the most gorgeous man I had ever seen, he owned the building I was working in, he owned the company I was desperate to pitch to, and worst of all, he owned a picture of me behaving like a spoiled, drunken sorority brat waving a pair of my worn panties around and promising to….

Oh God, I couldn’t bear to think about it.

"Mr. Medici." My voice sounded weak. He smiled. Smug asshole.

"That is me."

I was officially speechless.

"You haven't been here long Victoria, have you?"

I shook my head. There was nowhere to run, no rock to crawl under, no gaping hole in the earth to jump into.

"I'll go on up now." He said. I nodded my head and his beautiful face swam around in my vision like a mask in a dream.

"Of course Mr. Medici. Go right up."

"Why thank you. But before I go, I still need that answer from you."

I was lost. So totally lost.

"What answer Mr. Medici?"

"Tonight. Dinner. And of course, this." He held up his phone. That damn picture. That damn text.

"I don’t want to go to dinner with you." I heard the words come out of my mouth like I was a puppet with someone else pulling the strings, however, it was the truth. If it’s one thing I've never been afraid of, it's speaking my mind.

Maybe it's something I should learn to be afraid of. 

Only ten minutes earlier I would have dived headlong at the opportunity to have dinner with this man - the infamous Vincent Medici.  Infamous in the geeky world of penniless inventors looking for financial backing.  This was the mid-town venture capitalist with all of the expertise in precisely the kind of patents that I spend every waking moment of time trying to develop when I'm not playing gypsy receptionist all over Manhattan island.

I'd have killed to spend time with him.

I still would, but not like this. If one of my patents had been a time machine I would have used it to go back and start all over again - back to the day before we met.

"Okay." He said. "Don’t worry. I'll delete this little indiscretion of yours, but I do want to know how you got this number. We'll do lunch. Today. When are you free?"

That's right, he was my boss so he could say things like that. He also had possession of my slutty, drunken image and of my obscene text. Was there any way I could have said no?

"I'm free from 12.00."

"Great. I'm in the building all day. I'll come get you. Don’t go anywhere in the meantime."

He looked very, very serious about that. It dawned on me that he might not be exactly over the moon about this either despite him seemingly having me over a barrel. I still had no idea how that picture got onto his phone from my number. It had all been a silly drunken joke between girls. Nothing like this was ever meant to happen and of all people, why him?

Jesus Christ, I wanted to die.

I watched him walk away and noticed how tall he was, how confident. Of course he was. I didn’t know that much about Vincent Medici, his public life wasn't as open as some other attention seeking CEOs but I did know that despite being barely thirty years old and that he had had more success in his life already than most people ever would. More than me at least and I was nearly his age too. I wasn't looking forward to the big three o at all.

The expensive suit he was wearing hung perfectly on his muscular frame. I noticed that as well.

He stepped into the lift and raised his eyes to me just as the doors slid shut.

I darted mine away instantly but it was just long enough for something weird to happen between us. Or maybe it only happened to me. I can’t describe it any other way than to say that… No. I can’t put it in words. Not yet.

I backed down in the chair and begin to play back in my mind exactly what had happened the night before. How in the hell it could all have left my mind that morning as though it had never taken place I will never know.