The Devil Lives In New York

Chapter 5: "My Boss's Car"

"What do you think you just did, Miss Baldinelli?" my boss's voice said from inside the red Audi I had just scratched.

I felt my body freeze as I saw him inside the car, his brow furrowed as he looked at me with a noticeably angry expression.

I was almost certain that Gabriel's story about having murdered his former assistant would now come true to me.

"I'm sorry!" I exclaimed, worriedly trying to futilely fix the car's paint.

‘You're such a fool, Olivia! You just ruined your boss's car!’ I thought with a racing heart.

At that moment, I remembered Abigail mentioned that Leonardo was one of the richest and most influential men in New York, and I was sure he would ensure no other company would ever hire me again, and I would be finished.

"Are you really okay? Are you mentally ill or something?" he asked, getting out of the car to look at me.

"I wish I could tell you yes so you wouldn't think I did it on purpose,” I said in a low voice.

He stood next to me to see the entire side of the car had a huge scratch from end to end.

"Why did it have to be my boss's car out of all the cars in the world!?"

"I really didn't know this was your car, I..." I stopped at that moment, remembering why I had done all of this.

The driver of this car had intentionally driven close to the curb and soaked me completely with the puddle that was there.

"Is this your car?" I asked, completely ignoring what I had just done. He had started all of this.

"Of course it is mine" he said, crossing his arms over his chest, "I think the least you can do is apologize for what you just did."

"I will when you apologize to me first" I replied and crossed my arms over my chest too.

"Excuse me?" he looked at me incredulously.

"Do you remember that it was raining last Monday?" I asked and he looked at me confused.

"What does that have to do with you scratching my car?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It has everything to do with it," I said. "Do you remember that it was raining, yes or no?" I repeated the question.

"I think so" he replied, unsure.

"Well, I was just on the sidewalk when you drove over a puddle and splashed me completely with that puddle. You were driving this car" I said.

"It was you?" he asked as he opened his eyes in surprise and I nodded in confirmation. "I only saw you through the rearview mirror and thought I had splashed an elderly woman," he said with a mocking smile.

I looked at him with a furrowed brow and he stopped smiling.

"I couldn't stop because there were many cars behind me, and if you haven't noticed, the most abundant thing in this city is traffic. If I had stopped to apologize, it would have created more traffic than usual, so I decided to turn onto the other street, park my car and look for you, but you were already gone," he explained.

"Was I supposed to wait for you? You left without a word." I raised an eyebrow.

"No, but at least I had the intention of making things right" he said, l*****g his lips "But now that I've found you, I apologize. It wasn't my intention to do that to you. That day, I was driving fast to get to the company for the interview I was going to conduct with my new assistant, but I couldn't make it on time. How ironic" he smiled as he looked down at the ground "That day, I was driving fast to meet you, and it turns out I met you earlier."

It was the first time I saw him smiling, but despite his beautiful smile, the situation we were in didn't help at all, and right now his smile seemed sinister, as if he were telling me under his breath, "You're a fool because you don't know that after this, I'll kill you for ruining the paint on my car."

"Quite a way to meet your new employees," he said, laughing out loud.

"As I said before, I apologize for my actions. If you allow me, I could replace the clothes I ruined."

"There's no need" I replied.

"Okay" he said, but there was still a hint of amusement on his face. He looked directly into my eyes and suddenly all the fun that was reflected on his face vanished, his gaze became cold and intimidating again.

"Do you have something to say about that?" he said, pointing at the scratch on his car.

"Well, I..." I started to stammer "I didn't know it was your car, I thought it belonged to someone else, if I had known, I swear I would never have done that," I said, worried.

"Have you ever made a mistake that you deeply regret? This is a mistake I deeply regret," I said regretfully.

Leonardo stared at me intensely, as if he was examining my face. When I mentioned the question, he seemed to think for a moment. We stayed silent for a few seconds.

"I suppose you've already got what you wanted, which was my apology, so I want you to fix what you did to my car," he crossed his arms.

It was incredible how just a few seconds ago he seemed like a completely different person, smiling and laughing loudly, and now he was crossing his arms and giving me his typical intimidating look that made me lower my gaze.

"I could pay for the scratch, but not now. I don't think I have enough money to fix it, but if you give me at least two weeks, I can get the money..." but before I could finish, he interrupted me, shaking his head.

"Do you think I'll wait two weeks for you to fix it?" he said with a disbelieving look. "Since you don't have the money to pay me, I'll take something else from you" he said and approached me slowly. I couldn't help but feel nervous as he got closer to me.

"They say it's something essential and very important to all people," He got so close that I could even feel his breath. "I will take your time" he whispered in my ear.

"My time?" I asked, confused.

"That's right," he said and moved away calmly "It's time for you to start getting used to working with a CEO." He turned his back on me and got into his car, and I stood there watching him.

"What are you waiting for?" he looked at me impatiently and asked.

"Can you open the trunk?" I asked, dragging my small suitcase. I put it in the car and then got into the passenger seat.

Leonardo drove to his house, occasionally asking me questions about his schedule for tomorrow. However, he didn't mention the incident with his car again and I really appreciated it. I had never wished to be swallowed by the ground so much until I saw my boss inside the car I had scratched.

We arrived at Leonardo's apartment, which was located on Madison Avenue. When we entered the apartment building, at first I found it strange that he was only renting one apartment, until I realized that he had bought the entire building, which had three floors, each floor being a separate apartment, so you could say he had three apartments all to himself.

Upon entering the house, a woman who worked as a cleaner took my suitcase to the guest room.

"Thank you," I said, smiling at her.

Leonardo started walking towards the living room and I followed him. There was a laptop on the table that he turned on.

I looked at his schedule. He had meetings with five different CEOs from other companies. A few minutes later, he asked me who the first director he had to talk to was, and he started talking to the first director through the computer.

I felt a little silly at first thinking that the directors would come to his house for the meetings.

I was sitting next to Leonardo, out of camera view, but close enough to hear the conversation and take notes. Sometimes Leonardo would ask for some administrative data and I would answer him.

It was already 1:00 am and Leonardo was still talking to the last director.

Marta, his cook, had prepared coffee for us to help us stay awake all night. Sometimes my eyes would close for a few seconds, but I would wake up when I heard Leonardo's tone of voice suddenly rise, knowing he did it to keep me from falling asleep.

It was 1:45 am when he finally finished his last call. He had managed to hold back yawning all this time, to the point that I wasn't even aware when I let out a big yawn while stretching my arms.

Leonardo started rubbing his eyes. He looked quite tired, just like me, but he continued to do some work on his computer while I started organizing today's schedule. We both worked in silence.

I looked at my iPad with a furrowed brow. Today, he had so many meetings that I didn't even know how to organize them. It occurred to me to organize them by relevance, so I decided to ask Leonardo.

When I looked at him, he was already closing his computer. He had finished his work.

"Do you want me to organize your meetings for tomorrow by relevance?" I asked. He massaged his forehead. He looked quite tired.

Whenever I watched movies about wealthy people who were businessmen, I always thought their work was very simple and that they probably didn't have many things to worry or complain about. But now that I see Leonardo, I don't think his job is as simple as I imagined.

"Let me see," he said, getting up from the couch and walking around the glass table that was in the center to sit next to me.

When he sat next to me, he sat so close that I had to move a little so we wouldn't be so cramped.

"I want to talk first with the representatives of the directors I just spoke to, and then you can do it however you want," he returned the iPad to me.

"That's fine," I nodded.

He got up and went upstairs to the second floor. I watched him until he disappeared up the stairs. I assumed he was going to his room, so I focused all my attention on the iPad to finish as soon as possible and go to sleep.

It didn't take long to finish arranging Leonardo's schedule. When I was done, I got up and headed towards the room Marta had prepared for me.

When I opened the door, I was quite surprised to see the spacious room. The size of the room was almost the size of my whole apartment. It had a bathroom and even a small refrigerator next to the bed.

I entered the bathroom to change. I put on the pajamas I had packed and brushed my teeth. I threw myself onto the bed and turned at least ten times before finding a comfortable position to sleep.

When I was about to close my eyes to sleep, my mind started playing tricks on me, reminding me of how stupid I had been to ruin my boss's car.

"You're a fool, Olivia," I said to myself, remembering how I had ruined my boss's car. "You're a fool!" I grabbed the pillow next to me and put it on my face to drown out all my screams of anger.

I spent a few minutes like that until I gradually closed my eyes and fell completely asleep.