I got the job

Bree

Leslie and I sat quietly at the reception desk, watching the receptionist talk on the phone and trying to figure out why we'd been called back after practically being dismissed from the interview.

The same woman who had recognized me earlier was now speaking into the phone in a surprisingly serious voice.

"Yes, sir. They are both here." She listened for a moment, then glanced over at us. "Yes, Mr. Blackwood. I'll bring them upstairs."

My stomach tightened at the name. Blackwood. That had to be him, the billionaire whose mansion we'd invaded, whose flowerbeds we'd photographed like tourists, and whose garden I'd insulted on camera without even knowing whose garden it was.

Fantastic.

She hung up and turned toward us. "Mr. Blackwood would like to see you."

I sat up straighter. "Are we in trouble?"

She looked at me for a second before shaking her head. "I don't think so."

"You don't sound very sure."

"I honestly don't know why he wants to see you," she admitted, smiling. "But he didn't sound angry."

That was supposed to be comforting. It mostly wasn't.

I followed the receptionist with Leslie beside me, trying to convince myself this wasn't a terrible idea. We'd already established that we had come to the wrong interview, and that neither of us had a single qualification for the position we'd accidentally applied for. 

So why were we being called upstairs?

There were only two possibilities I could think of. Either they'd somehow decided they needed someone as spectacularly unqualified as me, or I was about to receive a very expensive lecture.

When the elevator opened, the receptionist led us down a quiet hallway and stopped in front of a large wooden door. She knocked, and a deep voice answered from inside. "Come in."

She opened the door. "Mr. Blackwood, they're here."

His gaze moved toward us. "Send Bree Carter in."

I froze. "Just me?"

"Yes."

Leslie gave me a sympathetic look, the kind you give someone right before they walk into a room they might not walk back out of. I took a breath. This was it.

 He was going to bring up the garden, and I could already hear it in my head. *How dare you call me greedy in my own house?* Honestly, he'd have every right. Still, if I was going down, I intended to keep whatever tiny scrap of dignity I had left.

I stood, smoothing down my red dress. 

"Okay. If I don't come back, tell my followers I died doing what I loved."

Leslie grabbed my arm. "Which is?"

"Taking pictures in places I have no business being."

She rolled her eyes, and the receptionist muffled a laugh as I stepped inside the office. 

The moment the door closed behind me, every speech I'd prepared on the way up evaporated on the spot.

Oh. My. God.

It was him. The man from the garden. Only this time, I noticed his eyes, and they were green, a striking, almost unnatural shade of green that made it genuinely difficult to look anywhere else.

How did I miss them in the garden? God, they were beautiful.  

He stood by the windows with his hands in his pockets, dressed in the same outfit I had seen him with in the garden. 

I'd never really had a type. At least not one I could put into words. But apparently, if I did, it was standing about six feet away from me, looking unfairly put together, and it came with a face that should probably require a warning label.

Then there was his scent, warm and clean, something that read as expensive without me being able to explain why. I stood there a beat too long just breathing it in like an idiot.

Aaron raised an eyebrow. "Apart from insulting strangers in their own garden, do you always stare at people?"

I blinked, mortified. He'd noticed. Of course he'd noticed.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to stare."

"You were."

"I was surprised."

"By what?"

I made the mistake of looking at him again while answering. "By being called back."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "And the garden?"

I swallowed. "I really am sorry about that."

He didn't say anything. I'd braced for another sarcastic line, something that would let me match his energy and get this over with, but he just watched me, and somehow the silence was worse than any comeback could have been.

"I didn't know it was your garden," I added quickly. "I definitely didn't know you were the owner. I was just talking."

"You were recording."

"Yes."

"And criticizing me."

"I didn't know it was you."

"You still criticized the owner."

I sighed. "Okay. I was wrong."

Something shifted in his expression, something close to surprise, like he hadn't expected me to actually say it. 

"I shouldn't have said those things about someone I didn't know," I continued. "So I'm sorry."

He studied me another moment, then gestured toward the chair. "Sit."

I sat. He stayed standing.

"I've decided to offer you the position."

I stared at him. "What?"

"The position."

I looked around the room like there might be someone else in it he was actually talking to, then back at him. "Are you all right?"

His eyebrows drew together. "What do you mean?"

"Because this is strange."

"What is?"

"You're offering me a job."

His jaw tightened. "You applied for it."

"No, I applied for the nanny position."

"And we established you came to the wrong interview."

"Exactly."

"So?"

"So I'm not qualified."

"I know."

"I don't have any experience as a personal assistant."

"I know."

"I don't even know what personal assistants do."

He looked at me for a long second. “At least now I know you have some common sense.”

“Excuse me?”

“You understand that you're unqualified.”

“That doesn't sound like a compliment.”

“It wasn't.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again, because there wasn't a good comeback for a man who'd just insulted me and offered me a job in the same breath. 

This man was annoying. Extremely annoying. And, unfortunately, ridiculously attractive, which felt like it should be illegal in combination.

"You start Monday," he said, before I could recover.

"Monday?"

"Yes."

"But I don't know anything about the job."

"My sister will train you." He paused. "And don't interrupt me while I'm speaking."

I pressed my lips together, thinking one word on repeat. *Arrogant.* Completely arrogant. And yet, infuriatingly, I found myself fighting back a smile anyway.

"Fine."

"This is a full-time position," he continued, "which means you'll be required to live on the estate."

My eyes widened. "Live here?"

"Yes."

I thought about our tiny apartment, and Leslie's night shifts, and how strange it would feel to leave her there alone. "Can my friend come with me?"

He looked at me. "Your friend?"

"Yes. Leslie."

"The lady you came with?"

I nodded. He considered it for a moment, the kind of pause that made me wonder if I'd overstepped. "Your accommodation will be large enough for another person."

My face lit up. "Really?"

"As long as you both don't become a nuisance."

My smile faded a little. There it was again, that irritating edge to everything he said. Still, I wasn't going to pick a fight over it, not when he was offering me twenty thousand dollars a month for a job I wasn't even qualified to do. I needed this far more than I needed to protect my pride.

"Okay," I said quietly.

He nodded. "You'll move into the estate before you begin work. My sister will provide everything else you need."

"Thank you."

He walked toward the door, and I stood, finding myself looking at him again for no good reason. He paused with his hand on the handle and glanced back over his shoulder. 

Our eyes met, and that same strange sensation returned, a flutter low in my stomach, a sudden awareness of him that I couldn't explain and didn't particularly want to examine. 

For just a second, his expression changed, his eyes darkening, his jaw going tight. Then it was gone, as if it had never happened.

"That's all," he said.

"Okay."

I walked out of the office, back to the reception where Leslie was waiting, and the moment she saw my face, she grabbed my arm. "What happened?"

"He offered me the job."

Her mouth fell open. "What?"

"I got the job."

She squealed loud enough that the receptionist looked over. "Oh my God, Bree!" She threw her arms around me. "We got the job!"

I laughed and hugged her back. "No. I got the job, and you are moving in with me"

"Oh my God, we're going to be rich!"

We were both laughing now. The receptionist smiled at us. "Congratulations, Bree."

"Thank you."

"I told you not to worry."

I smiled, and for the first time since we'd arrived at the estate, the whole thing started to feel real. Twenty thousand dollars a month. Somewhere to live. A fresh start neither of us had seen coming that morning. It was more than I'd dared to hope for.

But as Leslie kept celebrating beside me, my mind kept drifting back to the office. To Aaron. To those green eyes and the strange feeling that had moved through me the second I first saw him. 

I'd barely known the man for a day, and already I had him narrowed down to three things. He was arrogant. He was rude. And he was probably the most attractive man I had ever seen in my life.

The first two should have been more than enough to make me dislike him. Unfortunately, my brain seemed to have developed a terrible sense of humor about the whole thing, because despite everything, I liked looking at him.

And that, more than the job itself, was what made me nervous about Monday.