Falling Into You (Geek to Chic) (10 page)

Sunday had
come and gone.
 
Roni had spent the day
between the gym, getting ready for the work week and texting Derek.
 
He was working, of course, but that didn’t
stop her from harassing him from time to time.
 
Now she was standing out front her new office building, temporary office
building.
 
She was nervous.
 
After seeing all of the icons and software on
the computer on her desk, she felt very overwhelmed.
 
Roni took a deep breath and walked into the
building.
 
She was greeted at the
security desk by an older lady with black hair tied back into a tight bun. She
had a scowl that reminded Roni of all the mean school teachers in the
movies.
 
“Roni, I presume?
 
I’m Linda, from HR.
 
Come with me we will fill out your paperwork
and get you an ID.” Linda said with open disgust in her voice. Linda walked
away, Roni doubled her pace to keep up with her. “He had to hire someone new.
He couldn’t just have one of the other assistants, cover for the few weeks.”
 
Roni swore she heard Linda mutter.
 

Thirty minutes
later, Roni had told the ever more irritated Linda every single detail about
herself, signed her life away on a million different legal documents all
telling her never to talk about her job and now she had a shiny new ID badge to
show for her time.
 
She left Linda’s
office and headed straight for the eleventh floor.
 
When the doors of the elevator opened she was
encountered by a much different environment than she had been on Friday.
 
Friday was typically a work at home day so
many of the cubes had been empty.
 
Those
cubes that were filled on Friday, were occupied by programmers in their casual
clothes.
 
Today, every cube had an
occupant, dressed in a professional.
 
Employees were running off to meetings, laptops in hand.
  
Still, she noticed that even with every cube
filled the only noises that could be heard were those of keystrokes and
footsteps.
 

She continued
on through the maze of desks, no one seemed to even acknowledge her
arrival.
 
Derek’s door was closed, so she
knocked gently.
 
“Come in.”
 
He shouted.
 
Once again, she found herself needing to take a deep breath before
entering his office.

Derek sat at
his desk behind what looked like a wall of monitors.
 
He still had not even looked up from his
work.
 
She cleared her throat to gain his
attention.
 
Finally, his head slowly came
up so that he was looking at her. “Roni!”
 
His face lit up.
 
She smiled,
liking that she had that effect on him.
 
“Did you get through all the HR red tape?”
 
He strolled toward her, buttoning his jacket
as he spoke.
 
His gray pinstripe suit
hanging perfectly on his large frame.
 
It
was true what they say, a tailored suit on a man has the same effect on women
as a woman in lingerie has on men. She wanted to sigh at the sight of him.
 

“Yes, all
done.
 
I’m all yours.”

He smiled
mischievously.
 
“Oh is that so?”
 
He was now standing directly in front of
her.
 
He leaned down to whisper in her
ear.
 
“Too bad you left the door open or
I would see exactly what you mean by that statement.” Derek kissed her quickly
on the cheek before he straightened to his full height.
 

He took her
injured hand in his.
 
Examining the
stitches.
 
“Does it still hurt?”
 
He asked with great concern in his voice.
 

A small shiver
ran through her body in reaction to the brief contact.
 
“No, it feels much better.
 
Stitches will be out soon and I will have a
cool scar.” Between the way he looked and the way he smelled, it would be a
miracle is she was able to keep her hands to herself for the duration of the
day.
 
“So where would you like me to
start?”
 
Her voice was not a steady as
she had hoped.
 

His smile
widened.
 
“Since we can’t start where I
truly want to, I guess we should get to work.”
 
Derek sauntered back to his desk picking up a large folder.
 
“I figured that since you were having
difficulty finding the task lists, schedule, etc.
 
I would print them for you.”
 

It was her
turn to smile. “Why thank you for not making me sit out there all day
attempting to find a schedule on the NASA computer.”
  
She began to walk toward him to grab the
file, when her heel slipped off her right foot causing her to fall
forward.
 
Derek dropped the file on the
floor in an attempt to catch her.
 
His
reaction was not fast enough and she fell on her knees. “Ouch!”
 
She squeaked as her knees hit the carpeted
floor.
 
She looked up to see Derek’s face
contorted into a worried look.
 
She
looked down to see papers scattered around his feet.
 
She quickly crawled over to his feet, picking
up the papers.
 
Thankfully, she was in
dress pants today as she was crawling around his feet on all fours.
 
Had she been wearing one of her skirts the
whole world would have seen her pink thong.
 

“Are you
ok?”
 
Derek asked, sounding less worried
and more amused.
 

She laughed as
she finished crawling around picking up the papers, noticing that he had not
made a move to help her clean up the mess. As she sat on her knees, she held
the folders up to him. “Nice of you to help.”
 
Roni said, raising an eyebrow.

“Sorry I was
enjoying the view.”
 
His voice was low
and husky.
 
Even from her position on the
floor she could see that his eyes were completely dilated.

She smiled and
licked her lips.
 
She opened her mouth to
speak when from behind her, she heard footsteps. Then she heard laughter.
 
“Wow, sorry man, didn’t mean to
interrupt.
 
Looks like she was about to
perform a duty well outside her job description.”
 
Alex declared through laughter.
 

“Jealous your
assistance doesn’t go above and beyond.”
 
Was all Derek had time to respond before she flew off her knees and smacked
him in the arm.
 

Alex gave a
fake shiver and a grimace. “No, thank God she doesn’t. Not even Mr. Frostberry
wants to see Mrs.
 
Frostberry on her
knees at this point.”
 

“I fell,
knocking the papers out of his hands.
 
I
was only picking up my mess, not…” Roni waved her hand in front of Derek’s
pants which only made the boys laugh more. Rolling her eyes at their immature
behavior. She decided she needed to change the subject before they asphyxiated
from laughing too hard. “Who is Mrs. Frostberry?”

Struggling to
gain his breath, Alex answered.
 
“Mrs.
 
Frostberry is my
administrative assistant.
 
In fact, she
used to work for my dad.
 
When he
retired, I stole her away.
 
She is old as
dirt and a total pain in the ass most of the time, but she is incredibly
organized and keeps me focused.”
 
He
smiled at the end showing how much he truly appreciated his assistant.
 

“I can’t wait
to meet her if she can keep a dumb ass like you focused maybe she can explain
some of what Jemma needs me to do.” Roni said hopefully.
 

“Jemma and she
have very different approaches to their jobs, but I am sure she can at least
help get you get started. Come by when you are done here.”
 
He wiggled his eyebrows at her, then turned
his attention to Derek.
 
“Jemma was
working on the costing and client estimate for the Maddox Corporation
contract.
 
I know she only had the
completed information for a day or so before she had to take off, did she email
anything to you?”

“No, she
didn’t even mention it to me to be honest.
 
Jemma was going to check in throughout the week, I will ask her when she
does.”
 
Derek and Alex were both all
business now.
 
When they spoke about
business their entire demeanor changed.
 
They both stood tall, arms crossed over their broad chests.
 
Their voices held no amusement, only
ambition.
 

“I can help
with that.”
 
The two alpha businessmen
turned to her.
 
Looking at her as though
she had grown a second head or something. Sure, she didn’t know crap about
computers, but numbers, numbers she knew.
 
“I was a mathematics major with an accounting minor.”
 
She shrugged.
 
“I can piece it together or at least get the backbone completed and
Jemma can clean it up upon her return.”
 
She was really hoping they would let her do this small project.
 
The rest of Jemma’s tasks, the ones she had
seen on Friday anyway, seemed daunting.
 

“If your
background is math and accounting you will be able to have it completed by
Friday.”
 
Alex spoke with authority.
 
Authority she wanted to take seriously, but
she was struggling to do so.
 
“I will
have Mrs. Frostberry send you the information on the contract and an example of
the way I prefer the estimate and costing be presented.” Alex turned back to
Derek.
 
“My financial team wants to go
over the current hours billed with you and your team this week. We will need to
set up a meeting.
 
IM me later when you
get a better grip on how your week is going to play out.”
 
Derek nodded in response and Alex strolled
out of the office with a purpose.
 

“Before you
begin working on what Alex is sending over, review the schedule and task
list.
 
Move any task that are not
imperative to either next week or save for Jemma.
 
Clear an hour or so out of my schedule for
the financial team no later than tomorrow.
 
I also need to speak with Jim and Craig.
 
Send them a meeting invite for 2:00 in my office.
 
Lastly, call the head of the legal
department, Vivian.
 
Set up a meeting for
today, preferably at 5:00, to discuss folding Collin’s company under the CPST
umbrella.”
 
Without as much as a
dismissive look he sat behind his monitors once again.
 
His hands already moving across the
keyboard.
 

Roni stood
there for a moment, hoping she would remember everything he had told her.
 
“Ok, off to work I go.”
 
That got her nothing so she left his office
closing the door behind herself.
 
She sat
at her desk, keyed in her long, complicated assigned password.
 
Her super computer came alive.
 
She exhaled a long breath and began working
through her list of tasks.
 

***

A few hours
later, Derek’s IM popped up on his screen.
 
Derek was in the zone, he had finally figured out his error in a line of
code that was preventing the drone security system from initializing the
sending of the data backup prior to implementing the self-destruction component
of the security system.
  
This was the
last line of defense if a hacker was able to gain control of the drones.
 
Derek ignored the IM deciding that if it was
important someone would come get him.
 

Seconds later,
his IM popped up again.
 
Figuring that he
better deal with whatever the issue was now so that he could move on with his
code, he opened the message.
 

Alex:
 
You my friend are the dumbest man on Earth.
 

Derek didn’t
want to take the bait, he wanted to be a better person and close the IM and go
back to his coding.
 
However, he always
took the bait from Alex and this was no exception.
 

Derek:
 
What the fuck are you talking about?

Alex:
 
Hiring Clumsy Barbie. Big mistake!

Derek:
 
Why she seems to be qualified enough to do this job for two weeks.
 

Alex:
 
Not the point.
 
You will fuck this
up with her having to deal with you being a moody visionary eight or more hours
a day.
 
Should have kept her on the shelf
until this contract was over.
 

Derek:
 
Kept her on the shelf?
 
She’s not
a doll asshole.