Losing Herself: Surrender (4 page)

Emily
nodded, and headed over to the 32
nd
floor, where she was meant to meet Jim, the head of HR. It worried her that they’d hired two interns – as if they expected one of them to fail. She also didn’t like the idea of three people being hired directly as employees. Maybe her mother was right, maybe being an intern was just about working for free. When they hired employees, they hired them directly.

***

Just before 8:30, the three new recruits showed up. Emily felt relieved to learn that Jessie, Michael and Aaron were network security experts and were being brought on the help increase server security at Alpha.

A few minutes later, the other intern showed up. He seemed friendly, smart and hard-working, and Emily had no doubt that he’d be a great employee. Unfortunately, his name was
Brandon, and Emily understood what Nate had meant by his off-hand comment in the elevator. Brandon and Emily were both liberal arts majors, and would work in the investment analysis department.

Jim arrived just before nine. “You
guys’re making me look bad,” he joked, and ushered them all into a small conference room. He introduced them to a junior HR executive, Stacey, who’d be in charge of their orientation.

A few hours later,
the five new recruits had sat through a brief presentation on Alpha, and a presentation on client profiles. They’d had their photos taken for ID cards, and then they’d been given a tour of the office. Alpha Investments occupied six floors of the building, and Stacey introduced them to a bunch of people whose names Emily promptly forgot.

After lunch, they were given folders to read, and Stacey left them alone in the tiny conference room. The five of them chatted about their lives instead of reading the boring material in the folders, and just after four o’clock, Stacey reappeared with their brand new ID cards.

“You may as well go home,” Stacey said, “It’s probably the only day as an Alpha employee that you’ll get to leave early. Emily, Brandon, go meet John Byrne on the 35
th
floor tomorrow morning – you’ll report to him for the next couple of months. Jessie, Michael, Aaron, you’ll be reporting to Vikrant Patel tomorrow morning, and he’ll show you over our existing server situation. Ok then, guys – see ya.”

***

The next day, Emily and Brandon met John Byrne, who was an Investment Analyst. John explained to them that this year, Alpha Investments had decided to recruit intern analysts from non-quantitative backgrounds, to get a different approach to investment decisions. He then gave them about five years’ worth of investment reports and analysis to read through over the next couple of days, and went back to his own work.

Emily
found the reports incredibly boring and quite dependent on accounting spreadsheets. But she slogged through them anyway. Most nights, she would take the files home and stay up to finish going through them.

Despite the fact that she was staying up late to finish her reading,
Emily found herself heading off to work early. She always tried to get to the atrium by seven, and sat there for a while, reading through the reports, and waiting.

She tried not to wonder why she was waiting for Nate. She was scared of the answer, and didn’t want to think
about it. Nate walked through her floor once or twice a day to meet other employees and go to meetings, and it always gave her a thrill to see him from the distance. He never looked at her or walked directly past her cubicle, but Emily hoped he knew she was there.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Nate must have arrived late to work.
Emily didn’t see him, and headed up to her floor by 8:30. On Friday morning, Emily’s heart leapt as she saw Nate heading towards the elevator at 7:15. But she stayed rooted to her seat, too nervous to go to the elevator. Her eyes caught Nate’s as the doors closed, and she thought he looked pleased to see her.

The next
Monday morning, Emily saw Nate heading towards the elevators at 7:30. She walked quickly and joined him, but two other people stepped on at the same time. Nate stood against the wall opposite her, and when their eyes met, Emily blushed, and glanced down at the floor. The other people who’d gotten on with them stepped off on the 11
th
floor, and Nate and Emily were silent as the elevator rode up to the 41
st
floor. When the doors opened, Nate stepped out wordlessly, and Emily headed down to her cubicle on the 35
th
floor.

***

Another week passed by.

Emily
and Brandon were given the “responsibility” of critiquing new investment decision reports. Emily thought it was a bit of a difficult position – the investment decision had already been made, and she was just being asked to make some intelligent comments without offending anybody. John told her and Brandon to email him the critiques, and to cc Nate on the emails.

Emily
had made some changes to her office routine. She’d stopped coming in to work so early; she decided that it was strange to try to run into her boss in the elevator. That last “chance” encounter had felt strangely awkward and electric at the same time. She admitted to herself that she had a crush on Nate, and decided to be professional about it – by ignoring it.

She’d also started having lunch with Jessie and two other girls from the IT department. They’d all meet up in the 39
th
floor canteen, and the lunch hour went by quickly. Alpha Investments turned out to be a fairly gossipy place – there were numerous employees and numerous departments, and office affairs and jealousies seemed to be quite common. The girls gossiped about the other employees, and Emily complained about how boring her job was.

“At least it’s not like my internship at
C4 Software,” said Simone, one of the IT girls. “I was basically a glorified secretary and spent all day on coffee runs and photocopying. No-one knew I code!”

“Speaking of secretaries,” said
Emily, “Does anyone know that blonde secretary who works for Nate?”

“Oh, that bitch,” said Sharon
. She’d been working at Alpha for the past six months, and was friendly, outgoing and knew almost everyone there. “Tiffany. Everyone hates her. There’s a rumor she’s sleeping with Nate, and that’s why she’s so mean to all the other girls who work here. The prettier you are, the meaner she is.”

Emily
felt her stomach constrict painfully. “Is she really sleeping with Nate?”

“Nah.”
Simone rolled her eyes. “I think she started the rumor herself. She just wishes she was.”

The four of them laughed, and
Emily felt a bit better. The topic soon turned to Sharon’s new boyfriend, who wasn’t really her boyfriend, and soon lunch was over.

The next Monday,
Emily arrived at her cubicle just before nine, and stopped by Brandon’s cubicle to say “hi”.

“Oh my God,
Emily,” Brandon gushed when he saw her. “You’ll never guess who I ran into on the elevator today!”

Emily
put on a politely curious expression.

“Nate Steel!” Brandon’s eyes were
glittering with excitement. “I got here a bit too early, but when I got to the elevator, Nate was there. He asked me how I liked the work, and I asked him what he thought of the Mets. It was great!”

Emily
forced herself to smile and said, “That’s exciting, I’m sure he liked talking to you too.”

She headed back to her cubicle, groaning inside. She had to get over her stupid attraction to Nate. If Brandon and Nate became too buddy-buddy, maybe Brandon would be hired for the full-time position, and she’d be out looking for a job from scratch. It was time to be
more aggressive, and get face time with the boss.

But then she remembered the way Nate’s eyes glinted
when he looked at her, and the shivers she felt running up her arms. If she was stuck in the elevator with Nate one more time, she’d wind up saying or doing something very stupid, and that would definitely cost her the job. It was better to avoid Nate as much as possible, and focus on doing her work.

Chapter Four

The weeks went by, and Emily stayed busy with work. She hardly ever saw Nate, except from the distance, when he came to attend meetings on their floor. On the weekends, she met up with Serena and Shirley, and she made sure she called her parents regularly.

Then, one Tuesday afternoon, John called
Emily into his office. When she got there, John had a puzzled look on his face.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked him, suddenly worried that she was going to get fired from the internship.

“I don’t think so,” John said slowly. “Nate wants to see you up in his office. In five minutes.”

Emily
couldn’t hide her dismay. She felt sure that something was wrong. “Did he say why?” she asked John, but he merely shook his head.

“You’ll know when you know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, and
Emily left the room feeling confused.

She made a pit-stop at the bathroom to make sure there wasn’t anything stuck on her teeth, ran her fingers through her hair, and headed upstairs.

As Emily walked through the tiny lobby in front of Nate’s office, Tiffany, his blonde secretary, turned her head at stare at her. But this time Emily knew better than to say anything to the woman. Instead, she walked straight up to the door and knocked loudly.

“Come in,” Nate called, and she walked in with a confidence that she didn’t really feel.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked, smiling slightly. It was good to see Nate again. He’d taken off his suit jacket and was sitting at his desk in rolled-up shirtsleeves. There were papers spread out on the desk before him, and he seemed pleased to see her.

“Sit down,” he said, “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Emily wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. “Well, I guess my cubicle’s a bit out of the way,” she said.

Nate smiled in response, but didn’t say anything. He was staring at her, his eyes locked on hers, and
Emily could feel tiny goosebumps travelling up her arms. She sat down and crossed her legs demurely.

“You’re wondering why I called you here,” he said finally.

Emily nodded.

“There’s a company I’m wondering about, and you’re in its demographic. It’s a family-owned chain of 24-hour ‘cafes’ which serve coffee and cake. What do you think?”

“Where is it located?”

“They have one store in Chicago and one in Orange County. I’m not sure how scalable it is.”

“It won’t work in New York,” Emily said slowly, “There are too many 24/7 places here already. They might do well in small college towns, and most other big cities. I haven’t seen the financials, but it sounds like a good concept.”

Nate nodded and came around to the other side of the desk. He was standing dangerously close,
Emily thought, and she wondered how it would feel to reach out and stroke his arm. How would he respond, would he reach out and pull her close to him –

“What do you think?”

Emily found herself being jolted out of her daydream. “I’m sorry sir, I missed that.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed and
Emily felt herself growing pale.

“I asked you not to call me sir,” he said darkly, and
Emily stared at the tips of her shoes.

“I’m sorry, I – it won’t happen again.”

“Are you sure?” Nate’s body was radiating anger. “Because I feel like you’re just pushing me. You know what you’re doing, and you want me to punish you.”

Emily
blushed. Hearing him talk about punishment was turning her on, and she felt her panties grow moist. But that wouldn’t do – she needed him to be happy about her work.

“I’m sorry sir,” she said, “I
ju– ”

“There you again.”

Emily glanced up, mortified. She must be tripping herself up subconsciously. But she had to admit, even his anger was attractive, and she loved seeing the way his eyes darkened. There was a hunger there, an intensity that scared her but left her wanting to see more.

Nate leaned against the desk and relaxed. Lowering his voice, he said, “
Only call me ‘sir’ if you want me to strip off your clothes and punish you hard. Is that what you want?”

Emily
glanced up, and then down again, unable to hold Nate’s glance. She couldn’t read his expression, and she didn’t understand the loud thumping in her chest.

Although she was fully dressed, she
felt vulnerable and as though every part of her body was exposed for Nate. She felt her blush travelling downwards, and her nipples began hardening as she imagined what he could do to “punish” her.

She looked into Nate’s eyes again, and said softly, “No, sir.”

Nate chuckled, and Emily wanted to sink into the ground. “Nate – ” she started, but he interrupted her.

“It’s
ok, just don’t call me sir again.” He jerked his head towards the door. “You better get going, I have a meeting in five.”