Hard For My Boss

I sure hope Elijah was right about that last part. I’m eager to prove myself to Benjamin Gage, whenever I finally get to meet him. First impressions are the most important thing. It can make or break an intern; that much I know. I have to impress him come next Monday. If I don’t, the summer and this opportunity will be a total waste. It’ll be back to the university—and back to my daily neck-tightening tedium, long classes, and tasty little helpings of disappointment in my morning cereal.

That can’t happen. No slacking off. No tardiness. No half-assing.

Another intern struts right past my table. I avert my eyes and staple the next packet with conviction, grinding my teeth.

And no distractions.

2

Benjamin has it all under control.

Well, isn’t this a shit storm.

“Mom, really, you’re overreacting,” calls out the half-naked girl from the bed. Her nightmare-black mane of hair dances down her shoulders as she searches the sheets for her top.

“You’re only sixteen!” cries her mother Melena, the woman in the silk robe at my side with a cigarette pinched between two long, pale fingers—who also happens to be my client.

The girl sighs demonstratively. “Yes, Mom. Everyone does it.”

“And you are not everyone, Angelina Marie! You live a life in the spotlight. You have to set an example for other girls your age, and I swear on my grandmother’s pearls, you will not be an embarrassment to this family like your father was!”

“Oh, so we can all suffer damaging our precious public image when it’s your divorce we’re talking about. Yet I’m not allowed to do something in the privacy of my own room …”

“It won’t be so ‘private’ when your boyfriend sells that video you just sent him to the highest bidder!”

After finally managing to put on a top—which does little to actually conceal anything at all—the petulant girl huffs and rolls her eyes, rises from the bed, then proceeds to brush past us on her way out of the room.

“Angelina Marie, you will not walk away while I’m—!”

“Screw you!” calls her daughter from halfway down the stairs.

Melena shakes her head, dismissing her daughter’s attitude with a careless wave of her hand. “Lord help me, I can see the headlines now. ‘Divorced Hollywood Actress Can’t Control Her Own Daughter Amidst Sex Tape Scandal With Horny Boyfriend.’ Hopefully it’s more artfully written than that, at the very least. Any press is good press, right?” she asks me flippantly, then proceeds to suck on her cigarette like she’s trying to draw blood from a stone.

This isn’t the worst case of rebellious-teenager-mess I’ve had to clean up by far, but it’s still a pain in my ass. “Thankfully it wasn’t an actual sex tape,” I point out. “It was just your daughter putting herself in a compromising state of undress … which she happened to proudly share with her boyfriend.”

“Teenagers,” moans Melena with a roll of her eyes, as if every teenager in the world suffers this exact same situation, like it’s some expected rite of passage.

My phone buzzes. I slip it from my pocket and squint down at the screen.

JAZZ

the friend may become a problem.

advise me.

I hide a pinch of annoyance from my eyes with a tightened smile. Always the damned boyfriends stirring shit up. I can’t show any concern on my face, not when Melena’s career could explode on account of her daughter’s boy-toy wanting to make a buck. Melena is counting on me and my team to handle this swiftly and cleanly, no matter how blasé she’s pretending to be about it all.

I may come off as cocky to some—maybe even arrogant—but if I don’t appear to my clients to have everything under control at all times, they start questioning whether I’m really worth the cash they’re putting down for my services. They’re quick to read even a flicker of doubt on my face as a sign that everything is going to hell. In this industry, I have a reputation to uphold, and if it takes exuding a constant air of confidence to reassure my clients, then I’ll wear that mask with pride, keep my chin up, and never falter.

Even if I’m shitting my pants right now.

I face Melena again. “It just happened this morning,” I remind her assuredly, “so we’re still ahead of the game. I have my team watching the network traffic on Angelina’s phone while blocking the outgoing data packets from her boyfriend’s to ensure the video—or videos—don’t go anywhere.”

Her eyes lock onto mine as I speak. The look in them is pretty unmistakable, and I’ve seen it a thousand times. Her hair, as dark and voluminous as her daughter’s, flows over one shoulder and leads the eye to the slit of her robe, which plunges far too deeply down her cleavage to be decent. Recently divorced, starved for affection, and filthy rich, this woman is clearly hungry for something more than just my help in cleaning up this situation.