The Inc Affair (Pty) Ltd

1. First Encounter

6 a.m. is the usual time my alarm wakes me up, but that morning excitement woke me up at about 5 minutes before it rang. The anticipation of my alarm had me staring at the ceiling with a huge smile on my face.

I smacked the sound right off it when time came and jumped out of bed. I had my usual breakfast: toast with eggs, and sliced fruit. That morning I had pineapple- I only had those when I had a particularly good morning.

Listening to my favorite playlist had me feeling at home as I played it that morning- having had to move for job opportunities.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist

I sang along with it on my way to work being guided by my GPS.

I stared at the tall building in front of me, took a deep breath in and let it out with a happy sigh. I had a cheerful personality. I've known that from a very young age, and have learned to embrace it.

I greeted people with a warm smile all the way to the elevator. "Hold it," a man called out, coming towards me.

I found it rude that he didn't thank me, but it wasn't a big deal. I was elated.

"Good morning," I greeted with one of my sweetest voices. Instead of returning the gesture, the guy got on his phone and started texting. Rude much? "I'm new here," I tried again to make an acquaintance.

"And a circle is round," he said and got out with the elevator stopped.

With all that arrogance, I knew he had to be the boss. I was a little disheartened to learn that I'd be a jerk's PA.

"Good morning. Could you be a doll and show me to Mr Watson's office?"

For a moment the lady looked at me with no particular look on her face, and then smiled.

"Don't think of me as creepy, doll, you're new. I had to check you out," she said, as if that was justifiable. "You're on the wrong floor. Mr Watson is on the floor above us."

"Thanks."

"Wait. Let me get another look at that," she said. What does HR have to say about this? Even with her being female, it is classified as harassment. "Mm-hmm, you'll fit in just fine. Good luck."

Glad that that jerk I sorta met wasn't going to be my boss, I stepped out onto the right floor and headed to Mr Watson's office after being directed by Linda, an intern.

"Come in," I heard him call after I knocked softly on his door.

"Good morning, I'm-"

"Emily Harris," he stood up, and took my hand. "You came highly recommended. Don't disappoint."

"I'll try-"

"Don't try. Trying is for losers. I didn't get where I am by being unsure of myself, nor by hiring people who weren't sure of themselves. Am I to look for another PA?"

"No, sir. I won't disappoint you," I said with determination.

Compared to the guy at the elevator, Mr Watson was such a gentleman. He offered me a seat, then some water, but I wasn't thirsty.
We talked about things that weren't covered by my interviewer, including my benefits, unusual work hours and earning my own office outside his.

"Right now Riley, my current PA, is working towards the end of her contract. She has her own office. It may be yours, or one of the interns' office when they're officially hired," he said. It had me wondering why her contract wasn't renewed if she was good enough to get her own office.

"Did she get promoted?"

"No. We fired her," he said. What on earth would an apparently brilliant personal assistant be fired for? And what did he mean by we?

"If I may ask, what was she fired for?"

"No, you mayn't," he said, and then showed me to my desk. He gave me some papers to edit, "Riley's doing most of them."

I sat in my desk, looked at everything in front of me. I couldn't help but wonder why Riley was fired. I wondered why Mr Watson was so mysterious about it, and if he was really the gentleman he played out to be. He couldn't be the boss, and be this humble, while the elevator guy acted like he owned the place.

"Ms Harris, I want those printed by the end of the day, so it'd be great if you started now."

"Yes, sorry." I was so deep in my thoughts that I hadn't realized that Mr Watson was watching me being idle on my first day. "By the way, you can call me Emily, my friends call me Em."

He just looked at me with disinterest until his door opened a second after my embarrassing statement.

"Jay, the m- oh, I thought she was one of the interns," the elevator guy had entered the room.
I usually liked people- whatever the personality. I'd usually find a way to get through to them, but I found him irksome.

"Ms Harris, this is Nik Bychkov. Judging by the look on your face I believe you have met."

"We have," I bluntly said.

"That's adorable. She's being cute," he said, not looking at me, but crookedly pointing in my direction. "Brian Lewis Inc wants to meet outside work hours. I was thinking Georgia with the history and all, but I thought it was typical."

"Yea, maybe we can finish the deal off with that," Mr Watson said, "for now, we can stick to golfing. But you'll be playing, I'm a little rusty."

"I see you had your homework done- so have I. I asked Walter to join us for a match this Friday, so we can kill two birds with one stone- are you writing this down, sweetheart?" Mr Bychkov asked.

I raised my head from the computer to find them both looking at me expectantly. I could see that Mr Bychkov expected me to make a fool out of myself, but I wasn't sure what Mr Watson expected of me.

"I-"

"Can you stroke a dick while sucking it?"

"Excuse me?" Do these people in this building have no regards for being reported to HR and being sued for harassment?

"You heard-"

"Nik is a bit crude, think of it as his work jargon. What he means is: can you multi-task?" Mr Watson jumped in. I guess he didn't want things to escalate- not that I would.

In my business course, I learned a lot about HR and what to do in any behavior related to misconduct. But the best I could do would be to angrily walk out of the room, and possibly quit.

"So can you?" Mr Bychkov asked.

"Yes," I forced the word out, looking at him. "You were talking about Brian Lewis Inc, and someone named Walter. You wanted to sweeten the deal with golfing. To kill to birds with one stone, but Mr Watson's golfing is a little rusty."

Mr Watson and Mr Bychkov looked at each other and chuckled. I wasn't sure what was so funny, but if one thing was for sure: I knew how to do my job, and if not. I'm a quick learner.

"I went to Yale school of management," I added, "I don't need jerks like you undermining my skills. I know how to do my job."

"Good. Then do it," Mr Watson said. His tone and facial expression had me thinking that I had gone too far with my new-found sass. The last thing I wanted was being on my boss's bad side after he did his best to make me feel welcomed.

A/N
I don't know why the chapters are jumbled, but they are. I've tried to fix it, but it stays the same after saving. So please use the chapter numbers to navigate through the story.