A/N

Hello all! I'm completely new at this thing, but I've been thinking about this plot for a while now and decided to just write it down. The chapters will be getting longer as the story evolves.

Also, I'm not a native English speaker so any grammar mistakes/ corrections please let me know

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Stephanie, I own nothing.

Chapter 1 – The Office

The phone rang for what felt like two hours, but I'm sure it wasn't more than three minutes. I looked at the screen to see who it was and obviously, it was Jasper.

"Hello?"

"Edward, would you care to explain to me why you missed the 8:00 a.m. meeting with Price?" Jasper´s voice indicated he was clearly very annoyed.

"Shit, I didn't have it written down on my agenda, when was this scheduled?" I always had my meetings set up through my email so I could get a reminder beforehand.

"Well, it was talked about through various emails last month, so Kate should have sent you and invite" Oh, well that was my answer. Kate.

Kate was my assistant, up until 2 weeks ago. She was a nice girl, but painfully naïve. She was constantly forgetting to write things down and deliver messages, as with the Price meeting. She worked at a young age to please her father, who demanded she learn some responsibility, but it just wasn't what I needed. I'm a busy man, I manage the entire Tax department for this firm, I can't just forget to put stuff on my calendar.

"Jasper, look, Kate probably forgot to add it into my Outlook, I'll see what I can do to make it up to them. I know this joint project is important for Tax, so I'll talk to Robert and work something out. Send me the notes from the meeting and I'll fix it."

"Ok man, but please tell me your new assistant is arriving soon. You seem to never know how to do your own shit."

"Yes, she's coming in on Monday. He resume wasn´t the brightest, but it definitely gave me economic problems type vibes. Those are usually good worker, since they need the money. Kate was spoiled and not used to working, I can't blame her, it's her father's fault."

"Well, make sure the newbie gets on track fast, we need you on your A game."

"Will do, boss."

"That's Mr. Boss to you."

The phone clicked indicating the fucker had hung up. We had a game of sorts, like an ego game of who hung up on who first. I'd beat him next time. I was the regional director of Tax and Legal at Deloitte here in Seattle. Jasper was senior manager, so we constantly had to work together. We usually got along, since we lived together in college but the guy knew exactly how to annoy me when he wanted to.

Despite that morning's slip up, I carried on with my normal work as always. Meetings, conference calls in different languages, signing a thousand reports, and so on. I loved my job, it allowed me to travel often and our firm had a very flexible environment. People took breaks whenever they needed to and signed in late if they had a morning coffee date or a doctor's appointment and in return, if there was a lot of work to be done, people stayed late to please the client. There was a very good life-work balance, not that I had much of a life anyway.

It was Friday, so everyone was making plans to go out and have drinks with co-workers and friends, but I didn't particularly like crossing those lines with my employees, especially since I was young for my position and people didn't take me seriously at first. They thought I was somebody's nephew or a good friend of someone's son, but that wasn't the case. I worked hard to get to where I am. I joined the running team as a sprinter in 8th grade, since I knew I wanted to study law and scholarships for sports where the most common. I worked out daily, worked at a local car wash so I could pay for supplements and running gear, I studied harder than the other kids, always went the extra mile and that was the key to my success. I took pride in that.

I maintained my distance from most colleagues and just kept to myself. I avoided social outings and only attended very necessary office parties, like the one for Christmas. Jasper on the other hand, is a whole different story. He likes every woman in the firm, especially my assistants, who tend to like him back. I don't mind as long as it doesn't interfere with my work.

The clock on the wall of my office indicated it was long past 5:00 p.m. I liked leaving the office late so I could work in peace, without phone calls every 2 minutes and no one timidly knocking on my door as if I was the Grinch. I'm hard to handle and I'm aware of it, but I strongly believe in doing things right, or not at all. Hopefully the new girl would agree with me.

Right, the new girl. I hate having an assistant. They're usually young girls who dream of fucking their boss and getting an easy life or just don't have any type of maturity to handle a job. They're on their phones all day texting their friends and forget they're being paid to actually do something. But my job requires I have one since I have a huge amount of paper work that I can't handle on my own, there's just not enough hours in a day. Plus, the firm pays me to think of new business strategies, not file a client's tax papers.

At about 7:30 p.m. I headed out, saying goodbye to the cleaning lady.

One I was home, I ordered a pizza for dinner and opened up a beer. I lived for my quiet evenings where I didn't have to listen to anyone's nagging or requests. I turned on the T.V. and pressed the numbers of my favorite channel. Cooking channel. Something about Beat Bobby Flay and Everyday Italian was mesmerizing to me. I didn't know how to cook at all, so I think it's my way of satisfying that dream of eating a home cooked meal.

I was alone all the time, and I liked it. I was used to it. I was alone, but not lonely, even if no one believed me. Jasper keeps telling me I need another woman, someone who will brighten up my day and make me less of an ass. I didn't agree. Women usually drained me, and my ex-wife was living proof of that. She was selfish and didn't appreciate anything I did for her or gave her. I learned my lesson and just retired the dating scene.

I could tell people wondered why I wasn't dating more. Sometimes women in the office would bait me, try to see if maybe I was more of a "casual encounter" type of guy. But I wasn't. I didn't enjoy meaningless sex, I didn't want that either.

When the show was over, I got in my bed and fell asleep shortly after.

The weekend flew by. I headed to work on Saturday to get some more work done and grabbed lunch with Jasper after. He told me about his escapade with the receptionist of the 3rd floor and I just sat there and judged him, as always. He was playing a dangerous game, it's not only women who get judged for sleeping around. Yes, they definitely have it worse with double standards, but in the eyes of our superiors, being taken seriously by your employees is important and I don't know how much respect one can have for a man fucking everything that walks, especially if you've been one of those walking things.

Sunday was spent at home, doing laundry and cleaning up the apartment. I lived in a pretty big apartment, it only had two rooms, but a lot of living area space and a huge kitchen that I rarely used, because, well you know.

When Monday came, I admit I was a bit nervous. The upcoming projects where important and I just couldn't deal with having another useless assistant with all the stress. I walked into my office and let the receptionist know she could let the assistant into my office when she arrived.

"Hello Martha, let the assistant come in as soon as she arrives"

"Um, Mr. Cullen, she is already here. I tried telling you as you came in but you were checking your phone, for important issues I'm sure, I'm not insinuating you're texting or doing anything non work related, you just, um, seemed distracted and didn't respond so I left it at that"

"Martha, let her in."

"Yes, Mr. Cullen."

I sighed. Here it comes. At least the assistant arrived on time, that's a plus. As soon as the though left my mind, there was a soft knock on the door. Didn't I tell her to just come in?

"Come in." I spoke loudly to make sure she heard through the door.

A young girl, younger than I expected, walked through the door. The first thing I noticed is she didn't dress over the top, just a black tight fitting pencil skirt and a white button-up. Hair up in a ponytail and simple black heels. That's a first. Usually women walk in here in huge heels and straightened hair, trying to cause an impact on the first day. It was a nice change, she looked ready to work, not wow.

"Hello Mr. Cullen, I'm Isabella."

"Hello Isabella, sit down, I want to go over some things with you." She quickly sat down and looked up at me waiting for me to continue.

"Your responsibilities are pretty simple, yet somehow every single girl before you managed to do a terrible job, I hope it is not the case with you." She showed no emotion on her face so I continued. "Your job requires you be here on time in the morning and prepare a brief overview of my day, that means meetings, conference calls, and so on. You will also be helping me write up contracts for clients. These contracts include confidentiality clauses, sometimes provided by the client and previously discussed fees so if you have any doubts with these, check the signed proposal and emails. I'll make sure to copy you in every email so you are updated on these cases." She nodded and looked at me intently, trying to memorize all I was saying, I'm sure.

"Basically, you'll be handling a lot of paper work, but we do get audited frequently so please keep everything organized. Martha will walk you over the system we use for coding clients and filing their documents. Any questions?"

"No, Mr. Cullen."

"Well, if that is all you can head over to Martha who will show you to your desk."

She quickly stood up and left the office. I was surprised she didn't talk much, they usually do. Once again, it was a first.

The day passed very slowly, I didn't have any meetings outside of the building so there was no wasted time getting to and from places, which usually made time fly by.

At 5:20 p.m. I decided to call it a day so I closed the laptop and headed out of my office. As soon as I walked out I saw her. Isabella. She was here at half past five? Another first. She saw me looking at her, and my weird face must have scared her because she immediately started apologizing.

"I'm so sorry Mr. Cullen, I didn't know if you needed me to do something so I just decided to leave when you did, but now I remember them saying you liked your space so I must be an inconvenience, I'll leave immediately."

"Isabella, first of all, please stop being so nervous around me, it's stressing me out. Second, you are free to leave at 5:00 p.m. Just because I work till late, doesn't mean my employees have to, that wouldn't be fair to them. Please don't ever feel the need to do that again."

She nodded and left without another word.