The Personal Assistant

Five: Joanna

As I neared our table, Andriy was watching me intently. To be honest, he looked uncomfortable.

"You okay?" I asked.
"Yes. I'm fine." He said, his voice hard like a stone.
"Okay. Just uh, let me know if there's something wrong." I smiled.

Something changed with him in the first few weeks of my working for him. The next time I went to get him lunch, the host apologized to me. There were times when Andriy came with me to go get lunch. We started to eat lunch together more often. Daily almost. He even insisted I call him Andriy and he began to call me Joanna. I had no clue what was going on with this intimidating man. Part of me wanted to discover every physical, mental and emotional part of him, yet after the way the host at Secrets looked at me and apologized, part of me feared him. I could tell Andriy was a powerful man, even in Canada. Women gawked at him, and men respected or feared him.

The waiter brought out our dinners in haste. He set them on their respective sides and left promptly. I noticed then that Andriy had ordered wine and poured each of us a glass.

"Italians like red wine with their pasta, right?" He smirked at me.
"Yes, but Jamaicans drink rum at any hour." I teased him. His lips curled into a smile.
"Save that for next time."
"'Next time'?" I raised a groomed eyebrow. He winked at me and took a sip of his wine.
"Grace." He whispered, ignoring my question.

Andriy began to cut his steak, and I chucked to myself. "You remembered." He swallowed a piece of steak. "Yes, I have a good memory."

"Hm. Want to prove it another way?" I asked, mixing my pasta.
"How?"
"What colour are my eyes."
"What?"
"I saw this in a JLo movie. Thrill me."
"Okay. Well it all depends on the lighting and the angle. Right now, they look dark brown because the lighting is shitty. But in the office when I first met you, they were a brown-green. But outside in good sunlight, they look hazel, green and blue. But they look the best when complemented by your smile." He stated nonchalantly as if he was the expert of my eyes.

I was not expecting an answer like that. Either he has seen Monster in Law or he spent most of his time studying my eyes. I had stopped eating and stared at him.

"What?" He asked with total confusion.
"Most people would have just said brown." I whispered.
"Joanna, I'm not most people."

The combination of hearing my name roll off his tongue and his dramatic description of my eyes, had me swooning. The hell you aren't! I thought.

"Did you know everyone else was going to cancel tonight?" I demanded.
"How could I possibly have known?"
"I would have said yes if you had just asked me out. You know, like most people. But then again you aren't most people."
"If I had asked you out, like most people there was still that chance you'd say no. If I made it out to be a business occasion, you would've had to come."

From the moment he told me everyone was running late, I had a feeling that he set it up. Turns out I was right.

"You couldn't gurantee that."
"You're right, but it was still a better option then asking you out."
"So why go to dinner with me. We've had lunch together pretty much every day for the past month. I'm pretty sure I'm the only female employee you eat with."
"I wanted to get to know you. Lunch is business and public. Dinner is private and intimate."

I thought about what he said. My head was stuck on the word intimate, and of course my insecurities had to come uninvited.

"So why me? You have an entire building full of beautiful, petite Russian blondes." Andriy looked at me like I was crazy.

"If I wanted to go out with one of them I would have."
"That doesn't really answer my question. Why not Marta?" Andriy sighed and put down his cutlery.
"Would you rather Marta be here than you?" He demanded.
"No, not really."
"Then please, stop talking about her and the other receptionists. Also do not compare yourself to them. It's an insult to you."
"You must be blind then." I scoffed.