They went back out into the living room, and Danielle settled into watching Victor cook breakfast. She was surprised to find that he actually seemed to know what he was doing; he moved around the kitchen comfortably, and had her coffee made just as quickly as he had the night before, bringing it to her already doctored the way she liked it. “I am kind of surprised at how good you are at this, I have to admit,” Danielle said, watching him scramble the eggs while the bacon cooked in the oven.
“I wasn’t always a billionaire,” Victor pointed out. “I was actually broke in college.”
“That explains it then,” Danielle said, nodding.
“There’s act
ually something I want to discuss with you over breakfast,” Victor said. “Do you want orange juice, too?”
“That would be awesome,” Danielle replied. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Let me just finish up serving everything and we can talk,” Victor said. Danielle waited, curious and almost a little impatient, but made herself continue to wait even after Victor brought her plate to her, taking a bite or two of the food he’d prepared; the scrambled eggs were as good as any she’d ever gotten from a restaurant, and the bacon was crispy, just how she liked it.
“What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?”
Victor nodded and finished a strip of his own bacon. “I had a thought,” he said. “You deserve a better job than you have—better pay, if nothing else—and I’m in need of a personal assistant to help me with my charity endeavors.”
Danielle raised an eyebrow at that. “Just for the charity endeavors?”
Victor shrugged.
“I have an executive assistant for the business stuff, and I have people who help with getting my dry cleaning, and all that bullshit,” he pointed out. “But I feel like to really make things happen the way I want with the charitable giving, I need someone who can just work on that.” Danielle thought about that for a moment. You have so much money that you can hire someone specifically for the purposes of spending your money.
It was unreal to her; she couldn’t even imagine ever in her life making enough money even to support a full-time maid, much less to have a team of assistants to manage all the parts of her day that she didn’t enjoy taking care of along with someone whose sole job was finding ways to spend money.
“Are you saying you’d want me for that?” That was what she thought Victor was implying—but she didn’t want to be wrong.
“I thought that it would be good to hire you for it,” Victor agreed. “And that way, too, I would have you nearby.” He smiled slowly. “The other part of it was that I’d like to have someone around who I could have sex with whenever I felt like it.” Danielle raised her eyebrows at that, setting her fork down.
“If you’re only interested in hiring me to be your personal whore, I’m not interested,” she said.
“No—no, not that,” Victor said quickly.
“It sounds an awful lot like that, from what you just said,” Danielle countered. “Maybe you should explain it a little more clearly to me.”
“You wouldn’t be paid for sex,” Victor said. “Your salary would just be for the charitable work—and I can offer you a hundred thousand dollars a year for that. But you’d be working in my office, in contact with me throughout the day, and considering how good things were last night…” He ventured the risk to smile slightly. “I had hoped that you’d be willing to incorporate a little pleasure in the business.”
“The sex would strictly be an opportunity thing—not what you expect from me as an employee?” Victor nodded.
“You would get paid the same whether or not we had sex,” he told her. “And if you told me that you didn’t want to ever have sex with me again, I’d still want to give you the job.” Danielle wasn’t so sure about that, but if she could trust this man not to threaten to fire her over her not being available to him on demand, she thought that one hundred thousand dollars a year was a huge step up from her current job.
With that kind of money, she could get a better apartment; she could consider—after a year or two—even getting a proper house that she’d own in her own right. She could get a decent car. Images of what life with a well-paying job could mean to her flashed through her head.
“Would you be willing to put in a contract—private, obviously—that my employment with you would have nothing to do with whether we have sex?” Danielle picked up her fork and gathered up some egg on it, carefully depositing the protein onto some of the toast that Victor had made for her.
“As long as you agree not to disclose that there’s a contract between us for that, I would be happy to,” Victor said, smiling more bravely. “I want things to be clear between us: the sex is purely for fun, and if there’s any point where you don’t want to have sex with me, whether it’s a one-time thing, or it’s something you don’t want to do ever again, then I respect that.”
“I think I can work for you, then,” Danielle said, smiling a little herself. “When would you want me to start?”
“Monday,” Victor replied, matter-of-factly. “And I would expect—since you’re going to be essentially representing me—that you can take the rest of the weekend to get a suitable wardrobe, if you don’t already have it, to act as my surrogate in dealings with charities, as well as to be seen in the office as my employee.” Danielle’s eyes widened.
“Just what kind of wardrobe are you expecting me to buy? I have professional-looking clothes,” she said.
“I would want to see you in the office in an upscale wardrobe,” Victor said. “I am, of course, willing to pay for it—it would be part of your compensation package: hair, makeup, clothes all to be deductible expenses.” Danielle stared at him, shocked, wondering: did he think he’d been slumming it with her the night before? Did he think that her outfit the night before was cheap? She felt her cheeks heat up.
“I’m not sure who or what you think I am,” Danielle said slowly.
“I think you’re someone who’s working towards not just being legitimate, but successful,” Victor replied. “And I think part of that is dressing up from where you’ve been. I’m sure you have work-appropriate clothes—but what I want for you, when you’re in the office, is for people to think immediately that you’ve never struggled at all.” Danielle ate some more eggs, some more toast, and tried to think of whether or not Victor’s idea was insulting.