by J. J. Bella
She stared at the car’s engine, rain drops falling steadily but casually on her shoulders and head, and the world blurred as the tears came. She tried to hold them back, but it was all too much. She’d been holding on for so long, trying to keep things together, trying to keep moving forward, but with all that had happened this month, this week, it was too much.
As her tears became sobs, the rain became a downpour. She barely got back into her car in time to watch the rain wash away all her hopes and dreams.
Sebastian
Sebastian Farrelli cruised down the road, annoyed that the weather alert had made him keep the top up on his convertible today. He much preferred to feel the warm sun and have the air blow through his hair as he drove. He focused on enjoying the sights instead.
The grass and leaves were bright green from all the recent rain. The sky looked gray, though, and it gave everything a dampened look. Maybe music would help. He turned up the volume, and a car at the side of the road caught his eye as the first rain drops started.
He glanced over and saw a piece of junk and a woman standing in front of it. Smoke poured from the hood and she was crying. Her dress clung to her, and her dark hair framed her face. Well, he had no time for charity today. Except that the rain was getting worse. He drove another few minutes, but the rain was so loud, he couldn’t think of anything else except that woman.
If she hadn’t been so beautiful, he might not have bothered. But she was beautiful, and she seemed to be alone. He turned around and pulled over near her car.
It was still pouring, and now she was inside the car. He pulled up beside her so he could put the window down and not get wet.
“Hey there,” he shouted.
She lowered window—crank style no less. How old was her car?
“Do you need any help?”
She stared back at him, wide-eyed, her dark hair in wet strands around her face. Her mouth hung open, but she said nothing.
“Are you okay?” He was starting to get annoyed now. He didn’t have time for this. This was what he got for being nice. This was why he didn’t bother most of the time.
“You’re—you’re—”
“Sebastian Farrelli.”
She nodded.
“I know. So, can I call someone for you? Is someone on their way?”
“No. There’s no one.”
“Do you have some kind of roadside assistance?”
She shook her head. “I, umm… Can’t really afford anything like that. I was on my way to a job interview, but I probably missed it now.”
Her chin quivered when she said it. She was obviously very upset about missing the interview. She gained a little respect in his eyes. He hated when people refused to work and just played the system. She might be poor, but she was getting out there and trying to make her life better. Nothing wrong with that. And that, he might be able to help with better than he could with her car. He knew tons of business people in this city and had more influence than most.
“Who was the interview with?” he asked.
“Actually…” She looked down and her cheeks grew pink. “Your company.”
“Really? What position?”
“Accounting.”
He knew that if she had gotten an interview, she had either the right experience or the right education. Farrelli Company didn’t make a habit of giving out interviews unless they were sure the candidate could do the job well. Getting the interview was almost as difficult as getting the job, and that’s the way he wanted it for all positions.
He picked up his phone and called Jacob, the head of the accounting department.
“Hi Mr. Farrelli,” Jacob said, “What can I do for you, sir?”
“You had an interview today with a miss…” He looked at her for an answer.
“Amelia Foley,” she said.
“Amelia. Foley. I’m sitting with her on the side of the road, waiting for her car to be towed. I’d like you to make time to interview her whenever she gets there. Could be hours from now.”
“Absolutely. No problem, sir.”
“Thanks Jacob.” He ended the call. “That takes care of that. No what do you want to do about the car?”
She gasped. “I still have the interview?”
“That was the head of the department I just talked to. He’ll interview you whenever you get there. Who is your mechanic? I’ll call a tow truck.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. You’ve done so much for me already. Thank you.”
He blew out a breath, annoyed. Clearly, this woman could not afford any serious repairs, and judging by the look of her car, it would likely be expensive to fix.
He first called for a car to pick her up and take her to his office for her interview, then he called his personal mechanic.
“Hey Scott, I have a car I need you to look at.” He gave their location. “It’ll need a tow. Get the car in the best working shape you can and put everything on my tab. Fix anything you find.”
“Will, do, Mr. Farrelli.”
By the time he looked back at Amelia, she was crying again. “Thank you, thank you. You didn’t have to do any of this. Thank you so much.”
“No problem. The car should be here soon. You okay to wait alone?”
“Oh, yes. Thank you. I don’t want to keep you from wherever you were going. Thank you. Really, I can’t tell you what this means to me.”
“It’s no problem. I try to do a good deed every now and then, and you clearly needed it. Good luck.”
“Thank you!” she called as he drove off.
Even with her hair wet, and maybe because of it, she was hot. He wondered if she was seeing anyone. She wasn’t wearing a ring. No. He shook his head. She wasn’t his type at all. He needed his girlfriends to have at least some sense of his world. Whoever he spent his time with had to be classy and know how to be discreet. Someone like Amelia, while beautiful and obviously intelligent enough to get an interview with his company, would probably hang on to this encounter for months, telling everyone she knew. It’d be all over Facebook before she got out of the car.
Well, that’s fine. Let it be known that he was charitable enough to stop and help a poor woman stranded on the side of the road. He couldn’t pay for PR that good. Maybe they should have taken a selfie together so she could have Instagrammed it.
At least he’d managed to make someone’s day. Even if his own was going to crap. She just might be the highlight of his whole week.
Amelia
Amelia felt like a star being driven around in such a nice car. Her mind still whirred at her encounter. What were the chances that, of all people who might stop to help her, it would be the Sebastian Farrelli, the most gorgeous billionaire in the city, and the man who she was hoping would be her future boss. Whatever luck had run out when her car died, was regained when he stopped to help her.
Now he’d saved the interview, had gotten her a ride, and was paying to fix her car? How could this be possible? She was a damsel in distress and he was her knight in shining armor, come to save the day.
She looked terrible. As she stood in the bathroom at Farrelli Company, trying to fix her hair and retouch her makeup, she noticed that she had calmed down a lot. Not being frantic over the car, and knowing her timing didn’t matter, had allowed her relax considerably. Maybe running into Sebastian would even give her a little advantage when it came to them choosing who would get the position.
She gave her name at the receptionist desk and said she was there to see Jacob in accounting. She expected to wait since he had no idea when she was arriving, but she was called up a short time later.
She talked to Jacob for several minutes about her experience and why she’d be qualified for the job.
“I have to say,” Jacob said, holding her resume. “Your experience looks great, but it helps that Mr. Farrelli was impressed with you.”
“He was?” How was that possible? All she’d done was cry and blubber in front of him.
He nodded. “He called m
e back to tell me to offer you the job unless you were horribly unqualified.”
Did that mean he was going to or that he considered her unqualified?
“Mr. Farrelli takes his work seriously and he expects his employees to, as well. I guess he found it telling that you were so upset to miss an interview and so grateful to have a second chance.”
“Yes, I was. I am. Very grateful. This is a wonderful company. Of course, you know that.” She laughed nervously. “It was difficult just to get an interview. I felt like I’d missed the opportunity of a lifetime until Mr. Farrelli showed up and saved the day.”
“He doesn’t do that sort of thing often.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She was even more grateful that for whatever reason, whatever fates had aligned to make him stop to help her, had.
“So, will we see you tomorrow?”
She gasped. “You’re offering me the job?”
“Well, yes. I told you what Mr. Farrelli said.”
“Right. But you didn’t say whether you’d found me to be qualified or not.”
Jacob smiled. “True. Good catch.” He stuck out his hand to shake hers. “Tomorrow. We work 8-5.”
“I’ll see you then.”
“Oh. I just need to have you fill this out. Basic paperwork.”
He handed her an employee information sheet. She started to fill it out, but when she came to the part where it asked for her phone number and address, she froze. She considered putting down her mother’s information, but thought that having an address and number so far away might raise questions. It wasn’t like he would need to call her, and what was the address for except paperwork? She’d update it when she had a more permanent address to use. She scribbled in some fake information and finished with the sheet.
She handed it back, smiled and thanked him again, then went out to the waiting car. She had the driver drop her off a few blocks from where she was staying. Everything would be okay now. Her horrible situation would be taken care of as soon as she got her first paycheck. She’d be able to start looking for apartments soon.
Sebastian
Sebastian couldn’t remember the last time a woman got under his skin like this Amelia had. High school maybe? Since before the days when he wanted relationships without the emotion. It had been a long time. And he didn’t think he much liked it. But she was on his mind, the images of her wet with rain, her dress clinging to her, her grateful eyes full of tears, thanking him, her desperation to get to an interview that she thought might change her life.
When he got to the office in the morning, he called down to accounting. “Jacob. How’d it go yesterday with Miss Foley?”
“She started this morning.”
“She’s qualified enough?”
“I’d say. I would have hired her even if you hadn’t recommended her.”
Sebastian ignored the jolt of excitement he felt at this news. Of course, if he wanted her to be hired, she would have been, but he’d been sure to tell Jacob only to hire her if she was qualified. He wasn’t going to create a situation for his employees where they were stuck with a sub-par employee for his own desires. If she wasn’t good enough, he could have her other ways, if he still wanted to. But she was good enough to make the cut. And that made it even better.
“Perfect. Thank you.”
“Though, there is one small thing,” Jacob said.
“What’s that?”
“She gave a fake address and phone number.”
Sebastian leaned back in his chair, not sure what to make of this. “Send me her file, please.”
“Right away, sir.”
Jacob was fast, and it wasn’t long until Amelia’s file appeared in Sebastian’s inbox. He glanced over it, but nothing jumped out at him as odd.
He called his assistant next. “I need you to look into someone for me.”
“Sure thing. Name?” Craig asked.
Sebastian sent him her file and mentioned the fake address and phone number. He also gave him her car’s license plate number, which he’d taken note of the day before.
“I’m on it.”
Sebastian went on with his day, making calls, answering emails, attending meetings. He tried not to think too much about Amelia, but now she was something of a mystery to him on top of everything else. Why the fake information? What did it mean?
His best guess was that she was hiding something. Maybe she lived with someone he knew. Maybe she had something to hide at her home. Drugs? Criminal activity? But that didn’t seem like her. Everything he came up with seemed much too immoral for the innocent woman he’d met on the side of the road. Every time his phone rang or there was a knock at his door, he hoped it was Craig with news.
It was almost the end of his day by the time Craig came in to see him.
“It’s a little… strange,” Craig said, setting the folder down on Sebastian’s desk.
“How so?”
“It seems that she doesn’t have phone service. When I tracked down her phone information, I found that the number she gave was correct, but the service had been terminated on it months ago due to non-payment. And the address…”
He looked down at the floor and shifted his weight. This was the part that had Sebastian most concerned all day. Why a fake address?
“Did you find where she really lives?” he asked.
“Yes. Well, where’s she’s staying.”
“Where?”
“The women’s shelter in the city.”
Sebastian took a second to process this. “The homeless shelter.”
“Yes. The address she wrote down was fake, but it was next to the shelter. Her car is registered to an address in the next state, her mother’s address. I followed her when she left work and saw her park and go inside the shelter. I pulled some information on the shelter and found her name in the roster. She’s been staying there about a month.”
Sebastian put his hand to his mouth and turned to look out the window. This was much worse than anything he could have imagined. He turned back to Craig. “She’s there now, then?”
“She was there an hour ago. I would presume she’s there for the night.”
“Thank you.”
When Craig left, Sebastian got up and paced his office. He had two real options when it came down to it. He could do nothing. She was his employee and that meant she’d be paid well, would have a decent benefits package, and could soon afford to move on from the shelter.
Or, he could get involved. Everything about him said not to. To leave her alone, let her do her own thing without trying to get in the way. But when he pictured her again at the side of the road, the way she was so grateful to him for helping her, his heart tightened. He could save her again. He could get her out of that place and take care of her.
Of course, doing that was dangerous. He already thought about her too much and having her so close would be difficult. He might be tempted to take advantage of that situation. And being an employee, he could do nothing that might taken in an unethical way. He also didn’t want to become any more emotionally invested in her than he already was. He didn’t have the time or energy for that sort of thing. He had work to do, and that was his focus.
This was why he always choose women in his class to spend time with. They understood that emotions couldn’t always be allowed to become part of the equation. And he made it clear with each of them that there would be no longterm future. Most were fine with it and happy to have him for a time, to be able to say they were his once, and then to move on to the next billionaire. But Amelia wasn’t like that. She wasn’t raised in money, and she certainly didn’t have it now. She wouldn’t understand, so he would have to proceed very carefully.
But the more he thought about his options, the more he knew he’d never be able to sleep tonight if he left her there. He got in his car and drove over to the shelter.
Amelia
Amelia was settling in for the night, thinking over her first day of her new job. She had a
lot to learn about the system at Farrelli and how they functioned as a team, but it had gone well. She felt confident that she’d fit in and be able to do well. And she was more than relieved to know that a paycheck was coming her way. A very nicely sized paycheck at that. She’d be out of this awful shelter soon. But not soon enough.
It wasn’t a bad place in itself. It was somewhat clean and safe. But it was crowded and there was no privacy. It was often loud and children ran around screaming and causing chaos. She didn’t sleep well here and she never felt completely comfortable. The food was okay, but she wished she could cook for herself rather than eat the heated packaged food that was for every meal.
She was grateful for the place, though. It wasn’t the easiest place to get in, and for women who didn’t have children, there was a waiting list. She’d had to take a pregnancy to prove to them that she really was with child, just not showing yet. But the baby had been her ticket in. The first good thing that had come of her pregnancy. She put her hand to her stomach as she thought of it. Now, for the first time, she thought they might be okay.
“Amelia?” The shelter director stuck her head in the room. “Someone is here to see you.”
Amelia stood from her bed and pulled her eyebrows together. “Me?”
The director nodded, then left the room.
The other women in the room looked at her. Each of them were also sitting on their beds. Anita combed her daughter’s hair, Mikaela read a magazine, Dina painted her nails.
“Oooo,” Anita said. “You got yourself into some trouble? Cops coming to pick you up.”
She hadn’t been thinking along those lines, but now she worried. Was it the cops coming to get her? But what had she done wrong? Could you get arrested for being too far in debt?
