Black Gold

by Angelika Robinson

  “Oh, more like roommate and best bud,” Phil answers. “Couldn’t miss out on a chance to drive out to the airport, pick Shell up, pay obscene parking fees. You know? That’s what best buds do. Not all of us guys in this town is a multi-billionaire…”

  I bite my lip to avoid betraying any signs of being affected by his sarcastic dig at me. “That’s so sweet of you, Phil.”

  “Now, I see you guys have top-of-the-line Cadillacs waiting for you. I’m just driving a Mazda, sorry,” Phil shrugs. “But it was real nice meeting you girls! Come on over if you want to grab a pizza. Or play some Halo.”

  I laugh and follow Phil. “Seriously, that’s super sweet of you for coming out here.”

  “Thought after a week of working yourself to the bone for Richie Rich, you’d appreciate hanging out with a normie like me,” Phil suggests. “Damn, girl, you look tired as hell.”

  “Twenty hour flights tend to do that,” I answer nonchalantly. “I’m going to be so glad to be home. Actually asked Magnus for a day off after the flight. Had to ask him straightaway, because I just know that I wouldn’t be able to get away with a day off if another girl asked first. Boss’ girlfriend or not.”

  “Well, it’s natural that a small town girl like you can’t keep up with the jet-setting life of a billionaire,” Phil says as he helps me into his car, hauling my luggage into the boot. “Then again, I’d say you’re tougher than most. When we first met, you were working a string of fast food jobs. On your feet twelve hours a day, pulling crazy double shifts all the time too. Maybe sitting at a desk and preening before Mr Billionaire has made you soft, Shell!”

  I playfully punch his shoulder, settling into the passenger’s seat. “The plush life of an overworked secretary, huh? Super romantic.”

  “Well, go on, don’t wait until we get home. I wanna know the gossip. Anything go on with you and Magnus in Australia? Ride a kangaroo together?”

  My roommate has this innate ability to make me laugh, leaving me feeling easier about my day already, despite the jetlag and lack of sleep on the flight. “You know, everything is wonderful. Too good to be true, I feel like.”

  “What do you mean, girl?” Phil says, as I watch him narrow his eyes, even as he’s focusing on the road ahead.

  “I feel like men don’t — or at least shouldn’t — come as perfect as Magnus Boyd does. As good as things are, he’s got to have a flaw, right? He’s not the kind of man who sticks with someone. He can have any person he wants. Why me? I don’t get it,” I blurt out.

  The embarrassment that rushes to me as I reveal my innermost fears and anxieties is apparent on my face. As we wait at a light, Phil turns to face me. “You’re saying you don’t see a future together?”

  “God, no,” I shake my head. “Not that I don’t see a future together. It’s that I see so much of a future together. And I’m scared, Phil. I’m scared that all this, all this that I want so much, might just be false hope. That I’ll be blind to any of the personality traits of mine that’ll turn him off. And that’s just my personality. Me being me. Who knows what he’ll think of me when he knows I’m just some dirt-poor, runaway girl from a Georgia town with a murderous ex.”

  “He’s a billionaire,” Phil shrugs, resuming his jokey tone. “Maybe he can hire a bunch of ninja assassins.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Feeling freshened up by my day off, I return to the office with the confidence of a woman ready to take on the world. I pick my best blouse and pair it with my best work pants, a dark brown chiffon pair that highlights my legs. I massage the lines under my eyes away with all the product I can find, and it works. I look fresh-faced. I decide that this is meant to be a treat to Magnus: I want him to see me looking as good as the first time he saw me.

  What happens instead is I arrive at the office, clutching my tote bag in surprise when it seems like there’s nothing but chaos here.

  I see people running around, panicking. Jane runs past me, in tears, wiping at her face and ignoring me when I ask her if she’s okay.

  Cindy has her head in her hands, slumped over her desk at the reception. And Frances and Salma are standing, mute, just staring into the open inner office.

  Magnus is holding court, and executives from other divisions are filing out of his room quickly.

  “Shaleigh!” Cindy says as she finally looks up, seeing me right by the elevator. “Oh my God, Shaleigh, you need to be back in the inner office — Magnus just fired Jane after just a day. He’s just so irritable.”

  “What? I don’t get it,” I say, coolly trying to assess the situation.

  Chickens running around headless, that’s the situation.

  “What’s going on, Cindy?” I ask.

  I can hear Magnus bellow out to his subordinates, but I try to zone it all out. Frances and Salma slide away from their desks to join Cindy and me.

  “Jane’s out. Magnus didn’t find her very attentive as an inner office girl. And he’s taking it out on everyone — the Australia deal looks shaky now because a Chinese state-owned company waited until we were in the air to start making moves to hijack the deal. The Australians might be more inclined to work with the Chinese, because they’ve partnered together before,” Cindy explains, barely higher than a whisper.

  “Cindy! Bring the secretaries in here!” Magnus calls from his office, loudly, authoritatively… demandingly. He’s yelling.

  “At once, Mr Boyd,” Cindy quickly responds. “Damn it, girls, he gets in these moods, I know it was too much to hope that having you four, well, three now, would have helped calm him down for long. This is just part of the job. And Shaleigh, I’m sorry to have to say this, but Jane would probably still have a job if you hadn’t taken that day off yesterday.”

  Salma looks down to the floor but agrees with Cindy. “Things started unravelling when Magnus began dragging Jane to all the meetings to record all the ideas generated at the Australia talks. He’s just so used to the speed and conciseness that you work with, Shaleigh,” she says, looking upset. “I feel so sorry for Jane.”

  “Cindy!”

  Magnus calling again.

  We nod to Cindy. “Try your best, girls,” the seasoned executive assistant encourages us, pushing us to meet our boss.

  The billionaire is genuinely angry. I’ve never seen him like this: I’ve seen him stressed, I’ve seen him working nonstop, but I’ve never seen him angry. He’s definitely letting out a lot of steam.

  “This is a total disappointment,” he says coolly. A little too coolly. I was expecting the hairdryer treatment — I was expecting he’d turn into a dragon. “I don’t think this is working out. I expect all of you to do far better here. This Australia deal is absolutely critical to the long-term future of Boyd Industries. Maybe you girls think you can get cushier jobs as secretaries at smaller companies, but that doesn’t mean you get to slack off.”

  I have to actively resist talking back to him right now, knowing that I’m not speaking to him in the role of his girlfriend. Still, I feel as if he’s trying to tell me something else, like there’s some sort of underlying message.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Boyd,” we all quickly say.

  “From now on, I need far better assistance here at this office. And no, unlike what Cindy’s probably thinking, I have no intention of re-hiring Jane. She’s an idiot. Not good enough for this job.”

  Salma sneaks a scared look at me. Magnus continues his furious rant. “You know what? We’ll reconsider this whole structure altogether. I’m going to keep one inner office secretary, but I don’t want more than one of you in the outer office.”

  “Are you… going to fire another one of us?” Frances quickly asks, looking like she’s about to burst into tears. I immediately wrap an arm around her shoulder, trying to help support her.

  “That’s up to Cindy. It’s her job to assign the third secretary to some appropriate section. But you girls are wasting my time sitting together in the outer office and giggling among each other. The time for that is
over. I’m very disappointed. I thought the Australia trip would have been enough to tell you how important our work here is.”

  We take his cold rage quietly, and wait for him to be done.

  “Dismissed,” he says, sounding positively like a Marine when he speaks. “Shaleigh. I want to speak to you.”

  When I follow him into the inner office, I glance behind me to see the other secretaries gone. Nobody wants to be near Magnus when he’s on a rampage.

  I exhale slowly and look him right in the eye. I have a small dilemma here: I don’t want him taking everything out on me because I’m his girlfriend… but I also don’t want him giving me a more lenient treatment for the same reason.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” I say, standing still in front of him.

  “Shaleigh, like I said, this deal is all or nothing. Either we do it or we don’t. I can’t afford to not have my best staff on hand — and that best staff is you. I get that you’re not used to travel, but when you asked for a day off, I felt like you did it the wrong way. Even so, it’s in my nature to let you off easy, it seems.”

  “The wrong way?” I ask, frowning at him.

  “Cindy is your immediate supervisor. She wouldn’t have given you a day off, knowing just how busy we were going to be in the immediate aftermath of the first Australia plans.” Magnus paces around the room, trying to find something to focus his attention on. “By going over her head to speak to me… I feel like you’re taking advantage of our relationship.”

  My jaw drops. “Magnus, it’s not like that at all. You know it was just because you’re the guy at the top and I wanted you knowing first. Plus, I didn’t think things would turn out so… chaotic.”

  “But it did. And Shaleigh, like I said, you cannot do this. You know the commitments of this job. I can’t have you treating this like something you can enter and exit as you decide is convenient,” he sternly tells me.

  “Whoa there,” I quickly back away. “I could say the same about our relationship.”

  Now he’s the one with the arched eyebrow. “Really? This isn’t a great time for that. You want to dodge business by talking about our relationship?”

  He’s gone cold now.

  “I’ve been a hundred percent clear to you, from day one. Actually, from day zero. I’ve been honest to you even from the time you had that weird-ass interview, picking only the most beautiful — right, I get it, the best — girls from a line, as if we’re some sort of… takeout menu,” I say, letting him have it. “I’m not here to be at your beck and call. I told you that. I want a job, not a whole new life.”

  “But a relationship is a whole new life,” he points out.

  “Now who’s the one bringing up our relationship, Magnus?”

  I can tell he’s definitely furious inside, although the cold, constrained persona he’s depicting is him as Corporate Magnus: the businessman, the boss. As my partner, I can tell he’s frustrated beyond belief.

  So… I have that effect on men.

  “It’s great to be intimate with your boyfriend, but let’s be clear about something, okay?” Magnus says, choosing his words. I want to say he’s choosing them carefully, but nothing about it strikes me as careful — just emotional. “Don’t presume to be so familiar with your boss.”

  “You make it sound like you can just be boss or boyfriend, never both at the same time,” I defiantly say. He may be worth billions of dollars but that net worth isn’t going to buy out my sass.

  “Because I can’t be both, not at the office,” he immediately defends.

  “You have to be. You’re the one who chose to have it this way. You’re gonna have to do it right,” I challenge him, putting my hands on my hips. “This isn’t some romantic moment where you think we can have an argument and then have passionate make-up sex right after. This is real, Magnus. Our relationship is real. Both professional and romantic. And fights in real relationships don’t resolve so instantly. I know that, I’ve always known that. That’s why I’ve always stressed on keeping things… normal.”

  He looks bewildered. “What the hell does normal have to do with the Australia deal, with me needing my staff to be giving a hundred percent? Shaleigh, what are you even on about?”

  I shrug. “Just giving you the facts… boss.”

  Magnus shakes his head, taking a step forward. I reciprocate with a step backward. “Hey. Darling,” he tries.

  “Nope,” I swiftly reject. “That isn’t going to work.”

  “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

  “Because you know that’s who I am. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Magnus. I’m stubborn. Live with it. Deal with it. Work with me. You want me to work with you, I’m down to do that, but you gotta meet me halfway. Actually, scratch that. You’ve just plain got to meet me,” I say, playing all my cards.

  “I don’t even have the slightest clue what that means.”

  I open my mouth to pick the best possible words, while I have all the leverage here.

  But he shuts me down quickly, raising a hand. “That’ll be plenty for now, Shaleigh,” he says, cutting me off. “We’ll continue this conversation another time.”

  I blink, glancing over at the inner office desk. It’s presumptuous on my part, but if he means everything he’s been saying about wanting the best, then he’s got to want me working closely with him again, right?

  “Actually, I was thinking your team could wait for further instructions with Cindy. I did mention I was going to shake things up a little,” Magnus tells me firmly.

  I find myself surrendering and walking out of the inner office, sliding the door shut behind me. I want to cry, but I grit my teeth and decide I’m stronger than a single argument.

  Relationships involve arguments. That’s real. That’s proof that we’ve got something strong. We can iron things out.

  Cindy inhales sharply as she reads an email on her screen, while I rejoin Salma and Frances.

  Nobody’s talking.

  Not until Cindy breaks the ice. “Well, it looks like Frances will be in the inner office. Salma’s going to take outer office. As for you, Shaleigh, you’ll be assisting me with some administrative duties off this floor.”

  I shoot a glance over towards the inner office. Magnus thinks he can clear his head by pushing me aside? This isn’t how it works.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Every time I think nobody’s watching, I have my head buried in my hands. It’s draining. All this. And I feel like Magnus is taking it out on me — why? Because of the Australia deal? Because of me?

  I’m convinced he’s wrangling with a very serious dilemma. I think it’s got to do with us. He’s not able to reconcile Boss Magnus and Boyfriend Magnus, it’s one or the other. I mean, serves me right for choosing to date my own boss… but surely it’s not really my fault.

  How can it be my fault for choosing what my heart wants?

  The casualties of love are very real, though. Jane. Poor Jane. I know she didn’t deserve this. And Magnus was just so… ruthless. Maybe even cruel. Jane wasn’t an idiot. Maybe not the cleverest girl on the team, but I’ve always found her helpful.

  The problem is, even I can tell that trying to persuade Magnus — when he’s cooled down — to rehire her would be a mistake, I know that won’t work. He’d just freeze up like he did just now. Telling me I shouldn’t be so presumptuous.

  What the actual hell? I instantly started feeling like I didn’t know the guy. Like he was some sort of businessman who only saw numbers, not people. Efficiency and productivity being the only things he cares about.

  Damn. I’m so sorry, Jane.

  Cindy is particularly gentle with me today, even if she’s not saying a thing about this whole fiasco. Not the part about Jane, or anything involving me and Magnus, at least.

  “I think you’re the best person to liaise on the Australia deal managers. That’s on the fourteenth floor. It might be a great help to you to be able to be on your feet and work on this while… the storm�
�s still raging,” Cindy suggests. “But don’t for a second think I’m shelving you, or putting you to the side. You’re a valuable member of the team here at Boyd Industries, Shaleigh. No stress should take that away from you. Got it, girl?”

  The little touch at the end is almost unlike her — it’s her trying to add an edge to her den mother duties. I give her a smile and do as she says.

  It’s just the right thing to do. I end up being swamped with little tasks that require shuttling between departments, handing over documents Legal needs that Procurement has to sign off on, standing in meetings and noting down actionable tasks — actionable tasks! What a phrase — I’m asked to delegate to other members.

  Every so often, I send Cindy email updates. It’s only when I think about her and Magnus and everyone at the top team that I feel my heart sinking ever so slowly.

  Damn. Poor me.

  Despite the pain that’s in me right now, I’m also just as convinced I could be the one to make Magnus feel better. If only he could see the way my eyes shine when I’m with him. Or if he could be told about the way his shoulders seem to relax when I step close to him.

  I’m good for him. We’re good for each other.

  As it closes in on 6pm, I find myself eventually unable to resist. I text Magnus, ask him if he’d like to decompress together tonight. Even send him a smiley face.

  What I expected was stony silence. What I got instead was a polite but terse “No thank you. I have a lot on my mind.”

  He makes me frown here, and I can’t help but think that he’s going out of his way to make me feel responsible for this. Am I just being a fool?

  In the absence of being around Magnus, staying at work late into the evening doesn’t seem so tempting, so I collect my things and say bye to everyone, taking the elevator with everyone else who isn’t stuck with crazy deadlines to accommodate the Australia deal.

  “It’s insane, huh?” I comment, by way of small talk, to a middle manager whose name I can’t remember but whose face I’ve seen almost everywhere in the building.