The salty sweat dripped down her skin. The rhythmic thud of her running shoes hitting the sidewalk subtly played as a background to the music blasting in her earbuds. The Chicago park was filled with other runners, old women doing yoga, and little kids running and playing. Her legs ached, the familiar, and almost comforting burning filled her chest when she was almost at her breaking point. She kept going, though now in the direction of her downtown apartment. As she started to cross the street from the park area back onto the bustling sidewalk an arm grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the grass area. Honking and yelling filled her now tuned in ears. She glanced up to see a man in his late thirties staring back at her. His piercing blues eyes almost stopped her roaming eyes from traveling down his ripped muscles and building muscles in his tight navy blue shirt.
"Miss... miss?" The blue-eyed man repeatedly asked.
"Oh, um... yes?" She responded, quite a bit dazed from the rush of input filling her brain.
"I asked if you were alright." He asked with a slight smirk bringing his plump lips up a little bit to show his white teeth.
"Yes... I am." She stuttered.
"That's a relief as I pulled you out of the way of a pretty angry cab driver back there." His smirk grew as he noticed the faint blush adorning her cheeks.
"And you are...?" He inquired.
"Mia Embleton. You?" She confidently answered although she was jello on the inside.
"Dax Scorstone" He shot back, with quite a bit more confident than Mia had replied.
"Well, see ya, I guess," Mia shyly responded her adrenaline from the almost disaster, finally wearing off.
Dax winked at Mia before he walked in the opposite direction down the street. Mia mentally brushed herself off and shook her head to rid her swimming head from the shock of the whole matter. She continued to walk home, this time without her music playing. When she made it back to her apartment, her roommate Evangeline was sitting at the island with flour strewn about the once clean kitchen. Mia glared at the blushing Evangeline.
"What are you doing," Mia asked, trying to stay calm.
"I'm baking cookies, finals are coming up, and I have to know the specific difference between a sugar cookie and a gingersnap, so I thought I'd make both so I would remember," Evangeline shrugged after her long, and thought out, excuse to the dirty kitchen. Evangeline was trying to graduate culinary school in hopes of being a dessert artist for her favorite bakery, Flour Barrel.
"Well, at least give me some," Mia laughed as she gave in to her best friends, half-assed apology if that.
The next morning, in her cat pajamas and a white tank top, Mia sat at the kitchen table for some breakfast. Most days that consisted of a bowl of cereal and some orange juice, much like today. As she leafed through the morning paper, she came across many job opportunities. Mia had come to Chicago to become a published writer and had not written her "big debut" piece yet, so she was unemployed.
She scanned the job listings section... dog walker... no. Tutor... hmm. Librarian, that could work I guess? Ahh... secretary... for a publishing company! It stated "Secretary needed, Scorstone Publishing, full- time job, must be qualified,"
"This could work," Mia said out loud.
"What could work?" Evangeline asked as she stumbled out of her bedroom door with disheveled hair and last nights clothes still on. A man is peaking his head out from around the door frame.
"Who's that?" Mia asked accusingly of the unknown man in her apartment.
"Oh, never mind that. Back to you, what could work?" Evangeline asked again while shooing the man out the door, his shoes still in his hands.
With a raised brow Mia answered "I found a job opening for a secretary at a publishing company,"
"That's amazing! But Mee, are you sure that's what you want though. You wanted to come here to be a writer, not to watch other people have their books published." Evangeline asked, worried about the rashness of her friend's decision.
"It's perfect, I'm not even close to finishing my book yet, and I have no income, I'm going to be living on the streets before I can even meet with a publisher if I don't get a job," Mia responded, apparently having already though it all though in her head.
"Well then, go get 'em!" Evangeline praised.
With a smile on her face, Mia called the current secretary at Scorsone Publishing. After a happy talk with, assuredly, an older woman who happily told Mia to come in at four that afternoon to have an interview. As it was still only noon, Mia decided to head down to the local coffee shop to work a little more on her book before she met with the boss for her interview. When she made it to the little shop on the corner of two mildly busy streets, she ordered an iced vanilla latte and got straight to work. The time seemed to float away as her fingers ran across the silver keyboard. Before she knew it, it was already eleven fifty- five. Only five minutes until she was supposed to be sitting in Mr. Scorsone's office convincing him she was capable of being his secretary.
"Shit," Mia cursed under her breath. She had forgotten to prepare for the interview. At the very least she would have liked to do a once- over of her resume one last time before printing it out.
Realizing it was too late now to make any changes, she quickly printed her resume out and grabbed her half-full drink and ran out of the coffee shop. Her purse was barely hanging on to her shoulder, her coat was hastily hung over the crook of her elbow, and her hair was strewn about, giving it the "I'm running late" kind of look.
She stumbled down the few blocks separating the coffee shop to the place Mia would soon be working at, hopefully. Nearing closer and closer to the big building Mia could see just how impressive the company was. The huge office building was a great deal taller than all of the other surrounding buildings. The sleek matte black exterior reeked of wealth. The gold lettering of the company logo shimmered in the direct sunlight.
"Whoa," Mia's eyes bulged as she looked up to the top of the building. As she glanced down at her watch, recognizing she had stopped, she realized it was 11:58.
"No!" Mia exclaimed as she hustled towards and in the big building. The front entryway had a considerable staircase located in the middle of the main room — a large reception desk placed at the top of the stairs. Mia ran and asked for Mr. Scorstones office. She was directed to go the elevator and take it all the way to the top.
Once she reached the top floor, she was gasping for breath. Her face is flush, and her hair was a complete and utter mess. The receptionist at the front desk looked over with a disapproving look. Her eyebrow cocked, and her mouth turned into a smirk, though it had a sad undertone. She walked over, her high heels clicking in the pin- drop silent room. The white starch walls seemed to close in as she got closer and closer to the blanching Mia.
"Can I take your coat?" The artificial blond asked in a faux accent of some sort.
"My coat? Oh y- yes. Thank you." Mia stumbled across her own words as she tried to respond to the waiting blond.
The woman grabbed her coat and motioned towards a previously unseen woman, a good five or so years younger than the, presumably head receptionist. The young one shuffled over to Mia and asked if she would like anything to drink, the sentence came out choppy and rehearsed.
"Mr. Scorstone will see to you in a moment, Mia," The older blond cut through the almost awkward silence ensuing after the woman brought back Mia's water.
As soon as the words left the women's mouth, an alarm rang out from her phone on the desk sitting in the middle of the otherwise empty room. When she picked up the phone, she responded with "yes sir," and proceeded to nod to Mia, inundated that she should follow the already walking receptionist down a long hallway. Mia timidly followed the woman down the deserted hall. Once they reached the end, a big set of black doors awaited them.
"Alright, in you go," The inpatient receptionist commented after Mia stood staring at the doors for a few moments.
Mia blushed and looked at the floor before pushing the heavy door open. Missing the rug, Mia stumbled through the doorway. Her hands came up to catch herself and her eyes shut, hoping when she opened them it would all be a dream that she didn't just fall through a doorway on her way to an interview.
"Hmm hmm," a gravely voiced cleared his throat, breaking the silence where Mia composed herself.
The most handsome man sat in a massive chair behind an enormous oak desk. Mia's eyes seemed to bug out of her head as she realized that she had made an overly dramatic entry into an interview. Her cheeks blushed a cherry red. A smirk adorned the man's face after he saw her become embarrassed.
"Would you like to have a seat now," The man asked.
"Oh, yes. Sorry," Mia stuttered as she made her way across the room and sat in a leather chair in front of his desk.
"It looks like we meet again, Mia, was it?" He smirked at his question.
Mia's face blanched when she remembered why his name seemed vaguely familiar. He was the man who saved her from being hit by a car the day prior. The man sitting in front of her was Dax Scorstone, and she has already made a fool of herself in front of her possible new boss, twice.
"Yes, it's Mia. Um, I'm so sorry for today and um yesterday," Mia put her face into her hands in embarrassment.
"It's perfectly fine. Let's get down to business, shall we?" Dax commented as he collected a file from the top of his desk. His eyebrows knit together in frustration as he flipped through the pages.
"It seems there is no resume here, did you bring one?" He asked calmly, though with an undertone of annoyance.
"Yes, here you go," Mia handed over the filled paper.
Dax filed through the collected papers in his folder, now with the addition of Mia's resume. After a considerable amount of time in science with the occasional fluttering of a document, Dax looked up and smiled.
"Congratulations, the job is yours. Come in tomorrow at eight o' clock sharp. I will have the head secretary fax over any additional instructions or papers you might need for tomorrow." Dax's sentence ended in a tone signifying the end of the conversation. Mia realized this and hopped up from the chair she had resided in for the last fifteen minutes. As she turned around to walk, more like a brisk walk, knocked over a cup of pencils.
Mia bent down to pick up the fallen pencils. A warm hand landed on her shoulders; she looked to her shoulder to see his hand resting on it.
"Mia, don't worry about it, let me walk you to your car." Dax urged Mia to stand and collect her coat and purse.
The walk down the long corridor to the secretaries desk and the elevators was awkward for Mia, Dax looked unfazed and stone cold as he led her down the hallway with his hand on her lower back. The secretaries eyed Mia angerly, apparently upset that she was getting Dax's attention after they had vied for it for so long. He helped her to the elevator and pressed floor one. The elevator music did little to decrease the tension around them, which was not sexual but awkward and tense. Mia could feel the heat radiating from his hand, which he still kept on her lower back. The ding of the elevator coming to a stop brought Mia back from her wandering thoughts.
"Where did you park?" Dax asked, his voice low enough she was the only one that could hear his question.
"Oh, I walked," Mia could once again feel the heat rising to her cheeks as she realized he had made him walk her all the way down to the first floor when she wasn't even going to get into a car.
"I'll just be going then. Ok, bye," Mia tried to cut the silence short by getting out of his building, but Dax grabbed her arm before she could get out of his "personal space bubble."
"Nonsense, you can use my chauffeur, he will drive you. And don't object, I don't like it when people don't listen to me," Dax replied, leaning down, so his mouth was almost touching her ear by the end of his sentence.
Mia inaudibly gulped and nodded. Dax pulled away and grabbed his phone and called someone, asking for his car to be brought around to the front. When he could see the black Audi brought to the front, he once again placed his hand on Mia's lower back and guided her out of his building. He opened the door and settled her in the Audi before closing the door. The driver pulled away; Mia turned to look out the rear- view mirror, she could see Dax watching the car pull away and not go back inside until the car was almost down the street.