My travel itinerary is an absolute disaster. My new assistant has royally screwed up my travel schedule. She has my quarterly visit with the Germans overlapping with my negotiations for the shipyard in Taiwan. I am surrounded by idiots, absolute idiots.

"Yes, Mr. Grey," my new assistant says, letting herself into my office. She walks across the marble floor and sits herself in one of the chairs facing my desk. Clearly she has trouble reading social cues. She should be shaking in her five inch Louboutins. I should hear a tremble in her voice. Did she not hear my anger over the intercom? I am sure that the guys in the basement heard me yell.

Christ, I will be glad when Andrea returns from her maternity leave. I need my head moron wrangler guarding the gaits to my kingdom. Until then, I am stuck with this incompetent, fresh-from-college twit.

"Care to explain this?" I growl as I toss the poor excuse for a travel itinerary across my desk.

Showing no fear or trepidation, Anastasia Steele picks up the itinerary. A small V forms above her nose as she scrutinizes the document. Why is it taking her so long to explain this epic mistake? Is she too dense to recognize her error? I wonder how much money it would take to get Andrea to come back early from her maternity leave? She has already been out for 9 days, sixteen hours, and 24 minutes. Surely she is bored and ready to return to work? Hell, she can even bring the little vomit comet with her. I'll have Ros give her a call. Ros can sell drugs to the D.A.R.E. dog.

"I'm sorry sir," Ms. Steele says in her soft, sure voice. "You'll have to explain to me what the problem is." She looks right at me with her large, blue eyes.

"Explain the problem to you?" I bellow as I begin to run my hands through my hair. "You have me finishing the negotiations with the Taiwanese at 10 pm on the 21st and starting my meeting in Frankfurt at 7:30 am on the 22nd."

My temporary assistant raises her eyebrows and shakes her head, failing to understand.

"It takes 15 hours to fly from Taiwan to Frankfurt. How in the fuck do you intend for me to attend a meeting that starts five and a half hours before I land?" I clap my hands down on my desk to make my point and, hopefully, put the fear of God into this little imbecile.

Ms. Steele giggles. She fucking giggles at me. "Mr. Grey, your itinerary is listed in local time. Frankfurt is 6 hours behind Taiwan. Furthermore, I took the liberty of contacting your pilot, Stephen, who assures me that the flight will be just over 13 hours with the tail winds. Thus, you have adequate time to finish your meeting in Taiwan, travel to the airport, sleep on the plane, and arrive in plenty of time to make your meeting the next morning in Germany."

"Who the hell told you to put the itinerary in local time? Andrea always makes it in Pacific Standard time so that I can plan conference calls while on the plane."

"Andrea did, sir. She sent you a memo about it before she left. Apparently, some of the other GEH executives have missed foreign meetings due to incorrect local time calculations. Publishing schedules in local time will prevent errors when converting times, Mr. Grey." Ms. Steele says in her sweet, melodic voice punctuated with another one of her cute giggles. Wait, did I just call her giggle cute? Fuuuuuck, I need to get laid before hell gets icy.

I grumble and growl as I try to think of a comeback to what Ms. Steele is telling me. Unfortunately, I now remember the memo that Andrea sent about this very topic.

"Andrea usually schedules international meetings at least a day or two apart so that I have time to rest and prepare. This schedule leaves me little time for either." I grumble.

"Understandable, sir," again with her annoyingly placating voice. "I thought that you might want some down time between meetings as well. I was planning to schedule the times as such when I received your company-wide email about reducing GEH's carbon footprint. I thought that scheduling these meetings together would be a large reduction. Spending the night in the air reduces the need for hotel rooms and meals in restaurants. Of course, if you would rather, I can push back the meeting with the Germans to give you more time to prepare."

I tug at my hair until it hurts. This little 5 foot, 4 inch doe is mopping me into the corner. I just sent out a very preachy email about reducing GEH's carbon usage. It's bad enough that I am using a private jet instead of flying commercial. If we want to get this company to carbon neutral, I need my executives to start thinking just as Ms. Steele is doing. Still, it does not mean that I welcome the inconvenience.

"Fine, Anastasia. We will leave the itinerary as it is. The stacked meetings mean that I will need someone to come along with me to help me prepare for the second meeting while we are en route."

"Yes sir," she replies, again in that calming voice. "Who would you like to accompany you on the trip?"

I think for a moment about who I want to punish the most on the admin team. Whoever comes along will be required to accompany me to several 18 hour days of negotiations in Taiwan followed by pulling an all-nighter on the flight to Germany. Who deserves this wretched punishment, ehr assignment?

"You, Ms. Steele. You will be accompanying me on this trip," I grin.

I will instill the fear of God, no, make that the fear of Christian Grey, in Anastasia Steele if it is the last thing that I do. I hope that she is ready to work until her knuckles bleed. I intend to make this trip a living hell for her.