A Rose From Concrete

The Boss

Chapter Two

Marcus was regretting coming in late today. He wanted to be there to meet his new PA. He wanted to see her reaction to the gifts he had gotten her. But he knew he needed to play it cool. He originally was going to come in at two, but Samatha thought that him being home meant he was at her beck and call.

So, instead, he was coming in at 1. He timed it so he would come in a couple of minutes after one and hopefully his new PA would be at her desk.

He took the regular elevator, and he hummed quietly as the machine ascended to the 20th floor. When the doors opened, he walked out. His secretary looked up at the sound of the elevator and was surprised to see her boss walkout.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hightower.” Mona greeted.

“Afternoon Mona. Is Ms. Down back from lunch.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. How did she do?”

“Great. She set up all her electronics herself. She loved them by the way, sir.” Mona added the lat bit because she knew that’s what he was after. Mona and Marcus were friends. She was one of his few real friends. 

“Thank you. I’ll go introduce myself then.”

KNOCK KNOCK

The knock-on Rose’s door scared her. She hadn’t expected anyone to be looking for her on her first day.

“Come in.” She commanded and then laughed to herself because she immediately thought of The Office. It was her favorite tv show of all time.

“Care to share the joke, Ms. Down.”

Rose abruptly stopped laughing as the man walked into the room. Before her, stood her boss, Marcus Hightower.

Just great, she thought, his first impression of me involves my dorky ass laugh. I’m going to get fired. Ugh!

Rose mentally facepalms.

“Um, Mr. Hightower I wasn’t laughing at you, sir. I promise I wasn’t. When I said come in, I thought of a scene from my favorite tv show.” Rose tried to explain.

“What show?” Marcus asked casually as he took a seat.

“The Office,” Rose answered.

“Ah, Fun Run.”

Rose was shocked she had never met someone who could quote episodes and episode titles as well as she could.

Marcus watched her shocked expression before she quickly covered it. He couldn’t help feel a sense of pride. He loved The Office, but most people weren’t as dedicated as he was.

“Yes. Sorry again for laughing. Hi, I’m Rose Downer, your new executive assistant. It is great to meet you. I look forward to working with you.” As Rose introduced herself, she checked out the man in front of her. He was gorgeous, his dark chocolate skin glistened and complimented his surprisingly blue eyes. The suit he was wearing showed off his toned body, and Rose could tell he worked out.

She loved James and was happy with him, but she would be blind and dumb if she noticed how fine this man was.

“No worries, Ms. Downer. I’m glad we share a common interest, we are going to be spending a lot of time together. Plus, now that I know you love The Office, I know you are smart with good taste. It is lovely to meet you as well. I look forward to working with you. I will be frank, I am demanding, and I push for greatness. I work hard, and I expect my employees to do the same. You will typically have normal hours, as I am sure Mona explained to you, but when important deadlines or meeting are approaching it will be typical that you stay late with me. There will also be some traveling, so I would advise for you to get or update your passport if necessary. Now, that is out of the way we have a meeting in two hours, and we need to prepare. Gather your laptop, phone, and notebook if you need it and come to my office in 10 minutes.”

Rose just stared at his retreating back, her mind spinning. He had started the conversation off so fun and cordial but ended so business-like, almost cold. It made it hard for her to come to any type of conclusion about him.

Nevertheless, she told herself that she would not let him get to her. She was here to do a job, get paid, and gain experience. Being his friend was not in the job description, and so she wasn’t going to worry herself about it. She began to grab her things and prepare herself to work with him. She wanted to be nothing but professional. She looked at her watch and realized she had time, so she went to the bathroom.

In his office, Marcus sat in his chair and got ready for his new assistant. He wanted to get to know her more, but he also needed to make sure she could do this job. A pretty face, only got you so far but looking at her grades and recommendations, she was more than a pretty face. He began to gather documents, both electronic and hard copies necessary for today’s meeting.

Marcus wanted to brief her on today's meetings but also on the type of meeting they would generally be in.

Marcus knew he was an asshole to his assistants, but he was a young black millionaire, near billionaire, and had worked hard to get where he was. He refused to expect mediocrity when he didn’t give it. He paid his employees top dollar and wanted them to do the work deserving of their pay. He had a feeling that Rose would live up to that.

He had noticed her checking him out in her office, but she quickly covered it and didn’t attempt to engage in more.

Marcus liked that, he was used to women, especially young women, falling around him like dominos.

A knock brought Marus out of his thoughts.

“Enter!”

Rose walked into the room with her bag and two cups. She sat one cup on Marcus’s desk next to his computer and kept the other for herself.

“Mona showed me your coffee order, and I figure we’re going to be powering through the next couple of hours.” Rose smiled as she sat down and got her self situated. Marcus was shocked. None of his previous assistants had taken the initiative like this, especially not on their first day.

“Thank you. Now, down to business. The meeting today is with a small tech start-up, they are shopping their company hoping for some investors or a buyer. The apps they make are for college campuses. We have been in talks for a while, but this is the first face to face meeting. Today, I will get to see some of the code for their apps get to see some apps they have in development, and we will talk numbers things like that. I know you don’t have a tech background but…” Marcus stopped talking because Rose began unconsciously shaking her head.

“What?” Marcus questioned.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that I have some tech background. I worked at apple throughout high school.” Rose revealed, and Marcus was impressed. He didn’t remember it being on her resume. As if reading his mind, Rose continued, “It wasn’t on my resume because it was so long ago and it would’ve made my resume too long.”

Marcus just nodded and then pick up where he left off. “ So, during the meeting, you are to take notes. I want you to take minutes, but those will be done after the meeting, use your laptop to record the meeting and transcribe later. After you are done taking the minutes, you are to upload the recording to our secure cloud and archive it. It is to put in a folder called Mountain Range Catering. Our cloud and severs are secure but doing this is just added protection. The notes you take during the meeting will mostly be ideas and comments made by me or anyone in the room. You can include an idea you had during the meeting if you think it will be helpful. You are my right hand, and you should feel as though your thoughts are important. You and I share a cloud account, this is where we will share documents. So, far, so good?” Marcus asked, and Rose smiled and nodded.

“Perfect! Here are some documents about the company we are meeting. Read them over, ask questions, and prepare yourself.”

Rose took the papers, whipped out her pen, and got to work. She loved reading contracts and documents, well honestly, she loved reading in general. This is why this job appealed to her.

Marcus watched Rose and was impressed, she was reading intently, every now and then stopping to scribble something on the section she was reading. The more he watched, the more he realized he made the right decision.

Once again, his selfishness pushed him to make a stellar business decision.

“Any questions?”

Rose jumped and looked at her boss, she had completely forgotten that he was in the room with her. She quickly composed herself.

“Actually, yes. These numbers show they are quite successful, so why are they looking for buyers? I understand investors because more money means the ability to do more, but buyers seem extreme.” Rose wanted to say stupid but pushed down her urge to do so. It was the first day, no way was she going to offend the first client she got to read in on.

For what felt like the hundredth time, today Marcus shook his head. This girl was good.

“I asked myself the very same question. The answer I got was that while a buyer isn’t ideal, they are not opposed to the idea.” Rose nodded, taking in the information.

“Well, is their software patented?” Marcus nodded so Rose asked her next question. “Are the patents included in the sale?” Marcus shook his head. “So, that’s why they are okay with a sale because even if they sell, they can still make money off the software if whoever buys the company decides to use it! Sneaky bastards.” Rose said the last bit without thinking and immediately regretted it. “Um.. sorry!” She quickly tried to apologize, but Marcus shook his head.

“No, no your right! They are sneaky bastards, that was my thinking exactly. I need to figure a way to get the patents along with the company.” Marcus told her, he loved her candor, he also loved the light blush her face got when she thought she did something wrong, it was something else to see.

“Thanks. So, maybe I have a solution. What if we changed some of the code for the software, upgrade it just enough that we can file our own patent.” Rose suggested.

Marcus thought it about and immediately loved the idea, he was upset no one else on his team had come up with it.

“That’s actually an excellent idea, we only need to change 20% of the code. And if those are updates, it saves us both time and money. I like that a lot. However, I won’t be bringing it up at the meeting. If they want to continue playing hardball, they’ll lose. I don’t think working at Apple gave you enough insight for that solution.” Marcus joked. Rose just laughed, a sound Marcus could get used to.

“Well, your right about that. I minored in Computer Science and Information Technology in undergrad.” Rose informed him. ”That was on my resume.” Rose joked. She kind of loved the easy banter they fell into. All the articles she read about him, made him out to be cold-hearted but he seemed like a down to earth guy.

“Touche,” was all he said.

They both went back to preparing for the meeting, both silently reading and taking notes. The silence was comfortable and not awkward at all. Marcus couldn’t remember the last time, he had a comfortable silence with a woman he wasn’t related to, or that wasn’t Mona. It was nice.

Rose was also enjoying it, usually sitting in silence with someone was awkward for her, she felt like she had to fill the silence with noise but here sitting with Marcus she didn’t have that feeling. It was different, subtle, but still different.

The silence was by Rose’s alarm going off.

“Time to go set up the conference room,” Rose told him, as she got up, collected her papers and left the room.

Marcus checked his watch and realized the meeting was in 20 mins. Time had flown by. 

Checking his watch, he saw it was time for the meeting. 

He got up, buttoned his suit, and grabbed his papers and laptop, time to play the game.

Marcus walked into the conference and every head toward him.

“Good Afternoon, gentlemen. Let’s get started shall we.”

Rose sat and quietly took notes, writing her thoughts down as well. Overall, she thought it went well for her first meeting. Marcus was compelling and masterful in the boardroom, very different from the man she just spent hours sitting in comfortable silence with. It was a nice contrast.

In no time, the meeting was over, and they were saying their goodbyes.

As Marcus and Rose walked back towards their offices, Marcus asked her thoughts.

“Honestly?” Marcus nodded. “Well, I think it went well. Seeing the software and hearing their price, I don’t think they're going to get a better offer for a buyout.”

“My thoughts exactly! I think you're going to fit in just fine around here. Look at the time, grab your things, and I’ll walk you out.”

“No, I want to transcribe these before I leave. It's only five, I'm on the clock for two more hours,” Rose told them gesturing her laptop where the recordings were.

“It’s your first day. Go home and relax. Trust me; you have already impressed me. Plus, it'll be a rare occasion for you to ger out of here early. Enjoy it! ”Marcus told her both honestly and jokingly.

“Okay, thank you. My boyfriend will be glad to have me home for dinner. I tell you that man would starve if it weren’t for me.” Rose said as she grabbed her bag.

“Boyfriend?” Marcus inquired, he couldn’t remember if he knew she had a boyfriend.

“Yeah, he’s a law student and paralegal. Sometimes he gets so caught up studying that he forgets to eat plus he can’t cook, so when he does make food for himself, it’s pure junk.”

“Well, he’s lucky to have you. Goodnight, Ms. Down. See you tomorrow.” Marcus saluted as Rose got on the elevator.

A boyfriend, a boyfriend why didn’t anyone tell him she had a boyfriend. A boyfriend meant she was off-limits. She seemed happy, and he refused to ruin that mainly because he doubted, he could give her anything more than a fling. Thank God, she was terrific at her job.

Rose rode the elevator down, excited to go home and tell James about the rest of her day. She hadn’t had time to talk to him since lunch. Hopefully, the fact that she was going to be early and was making his favorite meal would lessen any hard feelings he was harboring from earlier.