Mirage (A Chris Brown Story)

Chapter Nineteen.

Arielle's P.O.V.

I've always been a hot tempered person. I've gone off on many people throughout my life and said things that I instantly regretted.

However, unintentially insulting and bashing the guy who is interviewing me for a job that I desperately need takes the cake for one of the stupidest things that I've ever done. I expect for him to yell at me and tell me that there is no way that he would hire someone as disrespectful as me, but he surprises me again by staying calm.

"I'm sorry."

Now those are his words not mine. The man that I just called a boneheaded jackass is apologizing to me.

"What?"

He gives an impatient sigh before answering, "I'm sorry, for your shirt."

The initial shock of him apologizing wears off and before I can stop them the words just flow out of my mouth, "And for making me wait for hours out there in that damn waiting room."

He winces, as if just realizing how much of an ass he is, "Yeah and for ragging on you for my mistakes."

"You don't have to give me this job. I'm not into being a charity case so if by any means you think that I owe you something because you're doing this for me then I'll leave right now."

Again with the verbal diahrea. What the fuck am I even saying? Where the hell is my filter?

"No it's nothing like that, you said it yourself, that receptionist is a handful. I can't have my clients dealing directly with her so I need someone to help me out around here, that's where you come in."

I take this time to give him a once over. Let me tell you this, the dude is real easy on the eyes! What with his caramel skin, light curly hair and hazel green eyes. He's built too! Not in the way where you questioned if he was on steroids but enough so that you knew that working out wasn't a foreign concept.

I don't know why, but suddenly I wanted to know more about him.

"Uhm, how old are you?"

"I'm twenty-two."

In that moment I decided that I wouldn't mind working for Noah. Anyone who was that young and running their own company deserved my respect. As I thought about all of the sacrifices he had to make to be in the position that he's in today I knew that this is where I belong.

***

"So with you only being seventeen we're going to have to do things a little differently." Noah says, reaching into his desk. From where I sit, in a plush seat positioned in front of his desk, I can see his leg bounce up and down as one of his hands drum along on his knee. I decide not to mention his excessive movement because it's honestly none of my business.

"What do you mean?"

He sets a light stack of papers in front of me before replying, "Well, these papers here are for an unpaid internship, because technically you can't officially work here until you turn eighteen."

"So I'm not going to get paid?"

What the hell am I doing here if I'm not going to get paid?

"No- I mean yes. You're going to get paid. You're going to be getting paid just as much as that receptionist is out there. It's just on paper it's going to say that you're not. I'll draw up some more paperwork that'll be between us so that you know that I am in no way trying to scam you or something."

"Okay." I shrug and reach across the desk to grab a pen so that I can fill out the papers.

I fill in all of the required information and then notice a spot that I missed at the top of the page.