The Lakes

Chapter 1

The Lakes

1

Christine Miller stepped into the shiny clean lobby, looking pretty clean and shiny herself. On the outside she appeared to be totally together, utterly confident. The only indication of the nervousness she felt that might be apparent to the outside world was the way she ran her thumbs quickly over the back of each of her knuckles. This was a habit that she had never been able to break, or was even really cognizant of anymore, that had been a part of who she was since her father could remember.

It was the same nervous twitch that he had noticed in her mother, before she left.

"Chris," he used to say in anguish, "can you please stop that? It makes you look weak, unsettled. Do you want people to think that about you?"

"No, Daddy," she would say timidly.

She stopped her fingers immediately thinking back to that first day of her freshman year, the first day of school she'd had to face without her mother. She cleared her throat and walked up bravely to the front desk.

It was round, granite and brushed nickel. When she first approached she thought it was unoccupied. Great, she thought to herself, how long will I have to stand here waiting for Susie Secretary to get back? The last thing she wanted was to be late for her first day of her first real job since college.

She had graduated almost four years ago and had "wasted" the time since then working for a wealthy family as a live-in nanny. The Broadway's had treated her well and she truly loved Celeste and Michael, the two children who were in her care. However, she knew she had to get out of there. She couldn't be a glorified babysitter for the rest of her life. Besides that, she was tired of hearing her dad complain about the wasted tuition money.

When she had told Randall Broadway of her intentions to get a more grown-up job, he had immediately, to her surprise, put a call into his old college friend JacksonLake. Jackson, he said, had been very busy lately with the sudden reappearance of his long-lost son. He was in need of a go-to person, what she recognized as a well-paid assistant. She didn't care though, it was a real job, in a real company, and she was willing to work her way up.

The confidence she had felt talking to Mr. Broadway about it just three weeks ago was fading as she realized there was a leggy, Playboy Bunny-type crouching behind that expansive front desk.

She cleared her throat to get the woman's attention, who immediately jerked her head up looking irritated.

She stood up rather quickly and straightened out her black pencil skirt and red button up with her hands. This movement would've appeared to be caused by nerves if it had been performed by Chris, but not when Bunny did it.

She tucked a strand of loose platinum blonde hair behind her ear before saying snootily, "Can I help you?"

Chris cleared her throat again out of nervousness alone and said, "Chris...tine Miller. It's my first day..." she began to stutter.

Somewhat thankfully Bunny interrupted her, "Yes, Mr. Lake is expecting you. One moment."

She sat down on her large leather chair, a little too large, Chris thought, for the receptionist, and picked up her phone.

"Ms. Christine Miller." She nodded like the person on the other end could see her, then hung up.

"Take the elevator up to the 5th floor, when the doors open you'll see the reception area and Jocelyn." Bunny said this sentence as if she was telling her dentist she didn't want a root-canal.