10

He was a gem! He had to be an absolute gem! Not only did he not recognize her from before, but he was honestly happy to have her working for him. He said he’d been working his job for the past seven months and he’d been promised an assistant when he was hired. But it was only recently the budget was approved for him to finally get one. He was delighted.

“Now my office will be clean,” he said jubilantly. “And that’s so important in our line of work. I have to invite people into my office all the time and it’s so painful when it’s a mess, but I don’t have time to clean it.”

Helen’s first day of work was incredible. Working for Mark was going to be awesome!

And he’d never find out she was Vera. If she had to protect her secret to her grave, she’d do it, because as soon as he found out, she’d probably have to leave. It would be a pity. The job had been too hard to get to simply cast it off because she used to be an escort Mark hired once.

Knuckles to nose, he’d never find out.

***

When Helen got home, she told Mindy about her first day at the office and how her boss happened to be the guy who had lost the bid for her on Valentine’s Day.

“Holy crap!” Mindy exclaimed noisily. “How the freak did that happen?”

“He wasn’t the person who interviewed me. Instead, it was a woman named Elizabeth from Human Resources.”

“And she didn’t say that you’d be working for Mark Lewis?” Mindy asked, ultimately perplexed that such a screw-up had happened on her watch.

“I’m pretty sure she mentioned it during the interview, but I wasn’t listening to her very carefully,” Helen admitted bashfully. She hated owning up to her stupid side. “I was just so excited to be interviewed for such a great job.”

“Well,” Mindy said authoritatively, putting her feet up on the coffee table. “I don’t believe for one second that he didn’t know you would be the same girl. He probably watched you come in for the interview even if he didn’t speak to you himself.”

“But I look totally different… and men are stupid. He wouldn’t have known the difference,” Helen persisted.

“Even so, if he figures it out, or it comes out in the open, there’s only one thing to do,” Mindy said darkly. Helen wasn’t sure, but sometimes Mindy acted like a gangster when it came to stuff to do with the agency.

“What’s that?” Helen asked, almost jumping backward at her cousin’s forcefulness. “We aren’t going to kill him, are we?”

“Hmm… You just leave it to me. I’ll take care of you,” she said, pounding on her chest with her fist.