Serendipity: A Modern Marriage Of Convenience

2

Chapter 2

I walk into the office to find Charles shouting at someone. I sigh inwardly and shake my head. I pity the fool that managed to get in his way. Charles has endless patience when it comes to explaining concepts, but he has a zero tolerance policy for mistakes. Errors have gotten more than one person fired and I’m pretty sure I’ll be signing a severance cheque later.

“How the hell could you miss such a monumental mistake? You put an extra f*****g zero on that slide. At a client meeting. What kind of rookie error is that? Who the hell allowed you to work on client deliverables anyway?”

I sigh and check my meeting schedule for the day. It’s only ten and I’m already tired. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to do some damage control with the client now and I really can’t be bothered with that.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I freeze. I know that voice. I look up to find Alyssa standing in front of her father. She’s trembling as he chews her out and my heart f*****g drops. She looks f*****g devastated. What the hell even happened? I didn’t ask her to work on a client presentation, so why the f**k is she being blamed for this? She hasn’t made a single mistake in the three months she’s been working with me, so how could this have happened?

I glance around the room to find Christian hiding behind his screen. He’s the one that was meant to make the presentation, and it’s obvious he pawned off his work on Alyssa. I walk up to Alyssa and put my hand on her shoulder in a show of support.

“What exactly is going on?”

Charles looks at me and grits his teeth. “Is this how you train her?” he shouts. His face is red and he glares at me. Just a couple of years ago I’d have been shaking in my boots, much like Alyssa is now. I tighten my grip on her shoulder and she leans into me subconsciously.

“I didn’t ask Alyssa to work on the client proposal. Either way, as an intern, she cannot be held accountable for this. If you want to blame anyone, blame me. You do not, however, get to speak to my trainee this way. Going forward I expect you to take it up with me directly if she makes a mistake. I am, after all, the person training her. Am I not?”

Charles looks at me through narrowed eyes and then looks at Alyssa. She takes another step closer to me and I wrap my arm around her shoulder fully.

“You’re lucky Daniel is standing up for you, Alyssa. If it were up to me you’d be out the door by now.”

I know he doesn’t mean that. He’s said similar words to me a thousand times, so I know he doesn’t mean a word. Alyssa doesn’t know that though. The way her body trembles makes my heart ache. Charles walks away and Alyssa stares at his closed office door, frozen. Eventually she snaps out of it and steps away from me. She rushes towards the bathrooms and I inhale deeply.

I follow her and lean against the wall while she disappears into the ladies room. I have no doubt that she’s crying her heart out and indeed, she emerges ten minutes later with red eyes.

She looks startled to find me standing here and looks up at me with wide eyes. I sigh and hand her my bathroom card.

“This gives you access to the executive bathroom,” I tell her. She takes the card from me with trembling hands and stares at it. “I know this is probably hard to believe, but he’s always acted the same way with me too. I know you probably can’t see it now, but his craziness does work. Clients do actually behave in the same irrational angry way far more often than you might think. You’ll get used to it soon enough, but it never gets easier. Feeling like you’ve let him down never gets easier, Alyssa.”

She looks at me wordlessly and closes her hand around the card I gave her. She’s clutching it so tightly than I’m worried she’ll hurt her own hand.

“I may or may not have had to hide in the bathroom on numerous occasions after receiving a verbal lashing from your dad. At least the executive bathroom is private. No other stalls. No one witnessing your mini breakdown. And there will be many. Even I might sometimes upset you. I hope I won’t, but I can’t be sure. Things do get a little tense around here every once in a while.”

Alyssa laughs and my unease settles just a little. “Did you really?” she asks. “Did you really hide out in the bathrooms too?”

I smile down at my shoes embarrassedly and nod. “Yeah. I respect the hell out of your dad, but he’s a f*****g psycho.”

Alyssa bursts out laughing and puts the card away. “Thank you, Daniel,” she whispers. I smile at her and fall into step with her as we walk back to the office. I can see Charles pacing nervously and he pauses when he catches sight of Alyssa smiling. His relief is palpable and I bite down on my lip to hide my smile. If he’s going to feel this bad about it then why shout at her in the first place?

“Why don’t you write up this morning’s meeting minutes?” I ask Alyssa. She looks up at me and nods, her usual eagerness back on her face. I walk past her and pause at Christian’s cubicle. He looks up at me with dread.

“Conference room. Now.”

I walk away and he follows me reluctantly. He seems nervous and starts trembling as he sits down. I take the seat opposite him and cross my arms. I don’t even have to ask him what happened. He starts rambling nervously almost immediately.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Devereaux. She was so eager to help, so I let her. I didn’t know the quality of her work would be so poor. She seemed quite bright. Guess I was wrong.”

Wrong f*****g words, buddy. “So you asked an intern to do your job for you and then didn’t even check for errors? You seemed quite bright. Guess I was wrong.”

He looks up at me with wide eyes and shakes his head. “No, Mr. Devereaux. She said she double checked, so I assumed everything was fine. Like I said, she seemed so eager to help. I thought I was doing her a favour. It was bad judgement on my part.”

I just about keep from rolling my eyes. “You thought you were doing her a favour by asking her to do a job I specifically assigned to you?”

He looks panicked and is no doubt coming up with yet more excuses. I sigh and check my watch. I have exactly seven more minutes before I need to be in my next meeting.

“You know the deal, right? You’re fired, buddy. We have a zero tolerance policy for basic errors at DM. Especially in the executive office. Since the task was assigned to you, the end responsibility lies with you.”

He jumps out of his seat and I rise too. I walk out before he can start begging to keep his job. If he’d just done his job, we wouldn’t be in this situation. If he’d done his job, Alyssa wouldn’t have cried her heart out the way she did.