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BILLIONAIRES HOOK UP
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams
Chapter One
Tasha
My heart bounced up into my throat when the phone rang. The product launch had started slow, but the last I heard, the server had crashed. It was supposed to be good news—so many people bought the application that we'd been overwhelmed—but it was my responsibility to smooth everything out. I wasn't sure I could take one more wrinkle.
I pressed down the creases on my pencil skirt and answered the phone. "Tasha Nichols."
"Ms. Nichols, I'm Amy. I'm the assistant the temp agency sent over?" Her nervous voice ended everything on a high, shaky note.
I ground my teeth. Another junior executive had poached my assistant. Over the last two years, a pattern had emerged: I trained my assistants, made them capable and efficient, and then one of my male counterparts would entice them away. Now it seemed I had a new, temporary assistant every few weeks.
"Yes, Amy, is there something you need? I'm not due into the office for another thirty minutes," I said.
"Um, yeah, I mean, yes. Yes, Ms. Nichols. A Mr. Berger stopped by and dropped off two tickets to an exclusive wine tasting event up in Sonoma. It's tonight, so I thought you would want to know right away," Amy said.
So, Berger was the assistant-thief this time, I thought. He knew full well I didn't have the time for a wine tasting, but at least he'd made the effort to send a thank you.
"Wait, did you say Mr. Berger stopped by? He's already in the office?" I asked.
Amy paused, remembering my no-doubt dashing colleague. "I'm not sure he went home last night. He was wearing a tuxedo."
Of course he was. While I was sweating over the server crash and helping the tech managers organize their teams, the other junior executives had been representing our company at a Bay Area charity ball. A whole night of free champagne. No wonder he
was so free with his wine tasting tickets.
"Send the tickets to my tech manager," I told my temp assistant. "He deserves them for setting everything right at the eleventh hour."
I choked on my last sip of coffee as I heard Amy rummaging through piles of paper. She made nervous little sniffs as she searched. "Your tech manager?"
"There's a contacts roster inside your job description binder," I said.
I dumped out the rest of my coffee in the kitchen sink and glanced out the window. The San Francisco Bay was glittering in the bright spring sunshine. The Golden Gate Bridge was just emerging from a light layer of fog, and from my vantage point, San Francisco was shining like the inside of an abalone shell. The light cardigan I wore was enough for my sunny spot in the East Bay, but the city would be chilly despite the spring weather. I turned my back on the view and grabbed my tweed coat as I rushed to the door.
"Okay, I found the binder," Amy said, "but there's this big meeting this morning."
"I know, Amy; it'll be all right. I'm on my way now," I said.
I paused in the front door and took one more sweeping glance of my condominium. It was a small one-bedroom, but it was on the top floor. The view was amazing when I had time for it, but now all I could do was make sure I had my briefcase, reports, and work files. My sink was stacked high with dirty dishes, the dishwasher was full of forgotten clean ones, and I'd left two cupboards hanging open during my desperate search for breakfast. I took one step back inside to shut them, but stopped.
"Ms. Nichols, this binder has three hundred pages. Am I supposed to read it all?" Amy asked. "Everyone's rushing around for this big meeting and I don't even know where the restrooms are."
I shut the front door behind me and locked it. "Down the hall, take the first left. And after you get back, all you need to do is read the first section. I've outlined all your major responsibilities and created a suggested priority list. The rest of the binder is to be used as a reference."
"Wow. This is great. I wish every exec had a binder like this. Your last assistant must have been very organized," Amy said.