The Boss (Managing the Bosses 1)

“Mr. Reid will see you in a moment,” a skinny secretary told her.

Jamie sat down in a chair in the waiting area and looked around the immaculate office building. It was far grander than the one she had worked in before. The floors and ceilings were made with white and black marble with beautiful paintings both classical and modern adding splashes of color to the wall. All of it had to cost a fortune. Did Alex own all of this? She had already guessed that he was well off, but this was positively extravagant. Her mouth went dry as she realized she had no idea what Alex exactly did or what his position was in the company. She should have done her homework. Idiot!

Her thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing. She jumped at the sound and grabbed it out of her purse. “Christine, not now,” she hissed.

“I’ll make this quick,” her sister said. “Did you send out the invitations yet?”

“Not yet, the envelopes haven’t even arrived. I thought you said you haven’t finalized the guest list yet.”

“Jamie,” she whined. “You were supposed to help me with that last week, remember? You have no idea how stressful all of this wedding stuff is. I need to—”

Alex appeared in the doorway of his office, one dark eyebrow arched in a way that could cause fear and swooning at the same time. He leaned against the doorframe, his expensive business suit pulled up by his arms as he crossed them, showing of a gold pair of cufflinks.

Jamie had no idea how long he had been standing there. “Christine, I have to go.” Jamie jabbed at the end button, trying to get the sound of her sister’s angry complaining voice to stop echoing off the waiting room windows. She hit the speaker button instead of end. Christine’s voice rang out clearly, “You’re so freakin’ incompetent! Now I’m just going to have to take care of–” Jamie managed to hit end before her sister had a chance to finish.

Face burning, Jamie shoved her phone back into her purse and brought her head up to look at Alex. She didn’t have the courage to let her eyes meet his. “Sorry, Mr. Reid,” she mumbled. “My sister’s having a mid-day crisis.”

“Apparently not that severe if you can hang up on her for the sake of an interview.”

Jamie flushed a deeper shade of red and struggled to keep her expression neutral. “It was resolved quickly,” she said. She wanted to smile but pressed her lips tight to prevent the corners of her mouth from curling up. “Thank you for making the time to see me today.”

He inclined his head and then gestured her into the office. “Like I said on the phone yesterday, your resume was impressive.”

Jamie went in and sat down stiffly in the chair in front of the giant, but neatly organized, mahogany desk. So this was how it was going to be from now on. Aside from their informal meeting and talk on the phone, it was clear that Alex preferred his business relations strictly formal. That was fine by Jamie. She preferred to keep her distance.

“Shall we get to it then?” Alex sat down behind his massive desk in a chair that was unnecessarily big, even for his significant frame. He folded his hands over a leather binder. “Why should I hire you?”

Because I don’t want to live in my parents’ basement? “I have an outstanding work ethic,” Jamie said. “I’m not afraid of hard work, I’m efficient, overtime doesn’t scare me, and I’m overqualified for your job.” Was he smiling? She blinked and focu

sed on what her qualifications were. “I’m beyond efficient with multitasking and time management – both yours and my own.”

“Most time management courses say that multitasking makes you inefficient with low quality work that takes too long.” He didn’t bat an eye.

Neither did she. “Those people are doing it wrong.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t say.” He shifted and undid the button on his suit jacket. “Why do you say that?”

“The trick is not to do two things simultaneously,” Jamie said, her mind imagining what she wanted to explain to him. “It is to do one while waiting for the other. For instance, if my computer is doing updates, I can be answering the phone, or organizing my materials to suit my schedule that day. For this to work, you need to switch all of your focus completely from one task to the other immediately.”

“What if the phone rings first?”

“Pardon?”

“What if you’re waiting for the phone to ring and while you are waiting you decided to update your computer?”

She stared at him. “You answer it. The computer can update by itself. All you have to do is click ‘ok’ when it’s done.” Was this some sort of trick question?

“Interesting,” Alex said, his face and body language giving away nothing. “Tell me, Ms. Connors, what was the crisis your sister was having?”

And now she would lose her chance at this job. Jamie sighed. “She needed to know about the invitations for the wedding.”

“What about them?”

“Whether or not they were sent out.”

“Were they?”

She shook her head.