His Secret Virgin

3. Christopher

3

CHRISTOPHER

A soft rapping on my office door pulled my attention away from the computer screen. My assistant, Mrs. Kramer, opened the door, letting herself in.

“Mr. Taylor, how are you doing this morning?”

“Fine. I’ve received an interesting e-mail this morning. I may be on the next flight to China if the Skype meeting I’d like you to arrange works out.” I turned the screen around for her to see. A handful of farmers wanted to grow organic crops, and they wanted my company to distribute them. Before I agreed to anything, I’d have to visit the farms myself. They would have to prove to me that their products were truly organic, or I wouldn’t put them on my lists.

Sliding the tortoiseshell-framed reading glasses onto her thin face, she read the e-mail. “This is interesting.” Turning my keyboard around, she tapped away on it, forwarding a copy to her e-mail. “I’ll get on this meeting right away.”

“Great.” Sitting back, I put my hands behind my head. “A trip, even if it’s just a quick business trip, will do me good. I’ve been in the office way too much the last few years.”

“You have.” She walked over to the coffee pot to make me some of her famous coffee. “But then again, you can’t deny that focusing on work helped you forget about all the crap that was going on in your personal life. That’s much better than turning to alcohol or something even more destructive, like so many people do when dealing with divorce.”

“Well, there is that. But I probably drink a bit more than I should, too. I’m merely human.” I thought about how different my life had been since leaving my wife. “But then again, I don’t drink to drown my sorrows—I don’t have any of those anymore. I do it because I can without anyone trying to make me feel guilty.”

Not one to pry much into anyone’s personal life, Mrs. Kramer quickly turned the conversation. “Mr. Taylor, I’ve been kind of falling behind on my work lately.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” The woman never fell behind on anything. “Is everything okay?”

“Sure.” She brushed her graying hair back after turning on the coffee machine. “It’s just that you keep coming up with new projects so quickly that it’s getting hard for me to keep up.”

I had to remember that the woman was well past the age of retirement. But she had many good years left in her and wasn’t the type to stay home and knit. “Should I slow down some?”

“No.” She shook her head and then went to look out the window. “This company needs you to keep on doing what you’ve been doing.” She turned to look at me again. “I love my job. I want to keep working until I can’t anymore. With my husband gone now, being home doesn’t feel the same.”

Mrs. Kramer’s husband had died two years earlier. The woman had handled herself professionally throughout the whole ordeal.

“I’m sure it doesn’t feel the same.” I nodded to her.

The coffee machine dinged as the brew filled the cup below it. She watched the dark liquid as it poured into the mug. “It never will.” Her eyes cut to mine. “So, you see, I want to keep this job as long as you’ll let me. I know a younger person could keep up with you a lot better, Mr. Taylor. But I’m going to need an assistant of my own if I’m going to be able to do it.”

“Of course, you can have an assistant.” I got up to grab the coffee, beating her to it. “Head to human resources and get them on it.”

Her expression told me she felt relieved. “I was afraid you’d say you couldn’t do that for me. It seems I’ve been worried for nothing.”

It made me feel terrible that she’d think such a thing. “Mrs. Kramer, if you ever need anything at all, you just need to ask. I’m not trying to work you to death here. And I’m not trying to boot you out either. I want you to work here for as long as you want to. You’re invaluable.” It was the truth. “But don’t forget, you’ve got a pretty great retirement here. If you feel like you need to stop working, then you do what’s best. Life’s too short not to live it the way you want to.”

She nodded in agreement. “For now, I want to continue working. And getting an assistant will make things better—take some of the pressure off me.” She made her way to the door. “I’ll get to work on that meeting. It may take a day or so to get anything set with our time difference. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got it all hashed out.”

As she left, I thought about what it would be like when she wasn’t my assistant anymore. Perhaps her new assistant might one day take her place.

I jotted a quick e-mail to her, telling her I wanted to be involved with the hiring of the new assistant. If that person could one day work for me, then I wanted to make sure I could get along with them too.

I’d become picky about the people I surrounded myself with since the divorce. Too many of my ex-wife’s lovers were men I thought of as friends. And too many of the women that I thought were friends stopped talking to me in favor of maintaining a relationship with my ex. To be honest, I’d lost a bit of my faith in people as a whole.

Life hadn’t turned out the way I thought it would. The relationship I put all my hopes and dreams into sank like the Titanic. My daughters had grown into shallow people. My friends were all but gone, as I’d cut them out one by one. Life wasn’t going anywhere near the way I’d planned it.

Even though things hadn’t worked out the way I’d thought they would, I wasn’t sad, upset, or mad about it. I’d grown quite content with my life.

So what if my daughters were shallow? That was their life, not mine. I still loved them just the same.

So what if I made the mistake of marrying a woman who eventually cheated on me? It didn’t ruin me. At least not completely. I still had my company; I still had my wealth.

And as far as cutting out the friends I’d had, I hadn’t really lost anything. During my marriage, I’d surrounded myself with people just like Lisa. And who needs people around who are just trying to use you?

There wasn’t anything for me to complain about. My company thrived. I spent my time spent wisely. And I had nothing or no one to worry about.

My daughters did make that part easy. Neither of them ever got into any trouble. No drugs. No partying like so many other rich kids. No promiscuous behavior. They could’ve been just like their mother, and that would’ve given me a reason to worry. But they didn’t act like her in that regard. Thank God!

However, I knew if I ever tried to bring a woman around, there’d be trouble in my little slice of paradise. My daughters would turn into nasty little weasels then. I knew that for sure.

They weren’t shy about telling me that it was their mother or no one for me. And not even their mother unless she turned over a new leaf.

Funny how they’d turned the tables on me. As their father, I should’ve been the one to give them hell about who they dated. But I stayed out of their love lives, preferring to remain ignorant on that score.

It might’ve been nice for the girls to butt out of my love life. But I didn’t have one, so it never occurred to me to tell them off. And the fact that I had no desire to date made the idea of putting up a fight with my kids feel like an unnecessary chore.

Things were simple, and I adored simple.

Simple things always appealed to me. I liked Scotch neat, my favorite color was white, and hands down, I always prefer a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich over any other food.

As I sat there thinking about what a simple man I was, a bit of anger began to seep in to me towards my ex-wife. She didn’t have it bad with me. We rarely fought about anything. I let her have her way all the time. I gave her expensive gifts when she left hints about what she wanted. And I gave her everything and then some in our bedroom.

The slightest zing of pain shot through my heart.

With a sigh, I released the pain, letting it all go. “No reason to be hurt by what she did, old man. Selfish people only ever think of themselves. Don’t take it personally.” I’d made it through all the divorce ugliness by using those words.

Not taking things personally was the key for me. Those words had kept me sane for the last five years, and I had a firm belief that they’d continue providing me with peace of mind for years to come.

Another soft knock at my door, and Mrs. Kramer peeked her head in again. “Excuse me, Mr. Taylor. I wanted to ask you if you thought you could come back here around nine tonight for that Skype meeting? Mr. Wong and Mr. Lee will be available at nine in the morning, Beijing time.”

“That’s not a problem at all. Set it up.” Getting out of my chair, I put on my jacket. “I’m going to go home and get some lunch. I’ll take the rest of the day off then come back up here for the meeting.”

“Since I’ll have to be here for that meeting, too, may I also take the remainder of the day off, sir?” She looked at me with hope-filled eyes.

I had no idea how it had happened, but my assistant, the one who’d been with me from the very beginning, seemed to not know me at all. “Of course, you can take the rest of today off. I won’t be here anyway. I’ll see you at about eight-thirty then.”

“Yes.” She nodded then turned to leave. “Thank you, sir.”

Reaching out, I put my hand on her shoulder, feeling like she needed a bit of reassurance. “Mrs. Kramer, you’re a valued employee here at Global Distributing. I want you to know that.”

“Thank you, sir.” She looked at me with pale green eyes. “I’ve started worrying so much lately, wondering if the job I do could be done better by someone else, someone younger.”

“Stop wondering. It can’t be done better by anyone else.” Patting her on the back, I hoped to make her feel more like herself. “Mrs. Kramer, not only are you a tremendous asset, you’re a wonderful person, and I love having you as my right hand.”

I thought I saw a glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Taylor. That’s wonderful to hear. I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately. I just keep thinking about how I’m the oldest person working here and how I don’t belong.”

“You most definitely belong here, Mrs. Kramer. Please, never doubt that.” Now I really felt bad about how much I’d been shutting people out of my life. “I know I’ve been distant for the last few years. I need to make some changes in myself. If I’m so closed off that I haven’t noticed you feeling insecure, if I’ve been contributing to this issue of you feeling out of place, then I need to do something to change that. Thank you for opening my eyes. See you this evening.”

Maybe my life did need to be punched up a bit, but how was I supposed to do that?