Chapter Two
A/N- Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up, I did plan to have it up sooner, but I managed to get pretty bad concussion which left me unable to read properly until Tuesday! I'm hoping to get another chapter up in the next few days, but I am meant to be revising, so I can't make any promises.
Also, thank you to those who reviewed. :)
Emily groaned as she rolled over to turn the blaring alarm off. She rubbed her eyes and began to wake up; groaning again when she realised that today was Monday, the first day of her new job. She got up and wandered into the kitchen of her small apartment. She noticed the absence of high heels and clothes strewn all over the apartment, realised she hadn't been woken up last night and concluded that Katie had obviously stayed out. 'Thank God for that' she thought, with the day she had ahead of her she was glad she hadn't had to spend half the night listening to her sister shag some random guy she'd dragged home. She glanced at the clock in the kitchen, 'shit, Id better get ready for work before I'm late' she thought.
An hour later Emily had just got off the train and begun walking to the office when her phone started ringing, as e answers it she noticed it was Katie. "You okay? How come you didn't get home last night?" She asked. She heard a sigh on the other end of the phone." For gods sake Emily you're not mum, I'm 24 I don't need your permission to stay out overnight"
"I never said you did, it would just be nice to have a text saying that you're still alive" Emily replied," or a good luck seeing as I'm starting this new job this morning."
"Oh yeah I forgot about that, it's a bit random though isn't it? You never even told me you were going for another job; I thought you had that agreement to work at that Freddie guys place? How come you're…"
Emily cut her off as she approached the office "I've to go, I'll explain later, Bye." She hung up before Katie even had a chance to reply. Emily stopped and stared at the building in front of her, feeling nervous. She still wasn't totally happy with what she'd been forced into but as Freddie had reminded her, she wasn't exactly in a position to argue, the quicker she gave Freddie what he wanted the quicker she could go back to hiding away in the shadows again and staying out of trouble. She shook herself from her thoughts, took a deep breath and made her way into the building.
"You're late." Naomi snapped not even looking up as Emily walked in looking breathless.
"I'm sorry, I got lost in the building, it's just so…" Emily attempted to reply.
"If there's one thing I hate more than poor punctuality its people trying to make up pathetic excuses, take this and type it up, we're going to a meeting at one where you'll be doing the minutes," she finally looked up to give her a scathing look, "try not to make any more mistakes okay? Your desks over there."
Emily gulped and nodded, she took the sheets Naomi was waving at her and made her way over to the desk she'd been directed to. As the computer was loading she took a few moments to compose herself and study her new boss.
Her first reaction was "what a bitch" she hadn't been in the room two minutes and Naomi had already managed to make her feel useless, she tried to take a proper look at her discreetly. The blonde was wearing a light grey jacket and skirt that appeared to match her cold personality but Emily couldn't help but notice that she was quite attractive, maybe even with the potential to be beautiful if she let some warmth into her heart. Emily looked at her for a few more moments then sighed, it didn't really matter whether Naomi changed or not, she was only here to complete a job she reminded herself and with that she focused on her computer screen and began to type.
"The meeting is with two representatives from the company in China that we're working with. It's extremely important this goes well so that we can get the blueprints for this new product at a reasonable price, do you understand?" Naomi asked sharply. They were both in a taxi on the way to a meeting and Emily nodded wondering why she was being told this; it wasn't like she was going to take part in the meeting she was just taking notes.
"Good, just make sure you stay invisible, I don't want anything to go wrong, and given your performance this morning I'm not convinced you won't find a way to cock this up." Naomi said. Emily bit her tongue and tried to hide how annoyed she was by this comment, she couldn't understand why Naomi appeared to dislike her so much when they'd known each other less than 24hours. She'd been like this all morning and Emily couldn't figure out whether she was trying to wind her up, or if she was just like this all of the time. All she knew was that her patience was getting thinner and it was only a matter of time before she snapped and told Naomi to get over herself. She closed her eyes and tried to stay calm as Naomi opened her mouth to speak again, but to her surprise all she said was "We're here".
Emily breathed a sigh of relief and followed Naomi out of the car. She followed her into the hotel and towards a restaurant area which was empty apart from a man and woman sat at one of the tables by a window. Emily couldn't help but think that they were both slightly strange, especially the woman with the blonde hair, she was wearing a bright pink suit jacket with a neon green skirt, the man sitting next to her was dressed in a more ordinary dark navy suit and white shirt, but they both appeared to be having a contest to see who could finish their plate of doughnuts first. Emily couldn't help but giggle slightly as she watched them having fun and laughing at each other, but this earned her a glare off Naomi and she quickly shut up and suppressed her smile.
As they sat down the couple introduced themselves, "Hello I am Thomas and this is my partner Pandora, we are both very pleased to meet you" he smiled and held out his hand which Naomi took.
" It's a pleasure to finally meet you both," she said with the first genuine smile Emily had ever seen her give, " I'm Naomi and this is my personal assistant Emily, whose going to be doing the minutes for the meeting." Emily smiled politely at both of them.
"Well lets get cracking then, this is going to be whizzer!" Pandora exclaimed, clapping her hands together and looking round at the other three sat at the table. Naomi gave her a bemused smile and the meeting began in earnest.
The meeting flew by as Emily tried to keep up with the meeting whilst taking notes, about 45 minutes in she found her ears pricking when the conversation took an interesting direction.
"So how long will it be until the blueprint for the panels will be ready?" Naomi asked.
"They are almost complete right now," Thomas answered, "it is just going through the final checks and small changes that need to made in order to ensure that it is correct and can be easily translated into a manufacturing process."
"That brilliant, I didn't expect everything to happen so quickly, so what are going to be the next steps from here?" Naomi asked.
"We'll have to ask you to come and collect the blueprints in person in order to prevent them being stolen or damaged in anyway by other companies. It will also give us a better opportunity to show you the suitable material needed to ensure the optimum success of the panels when they are made. It is important to keep this trip low-key as we don't want trouble from other companies. Is McClair still dying to get revenge because of your history?" Thomas asked.
Emily almost gave herself away when she heard McClair's name.
"Probably," Naomi replied, "He always was a sore loser though." She laughed.
The meeting moved on and Emily tried to keep up but her head was full of questions, how did they know that Freddie would be trying to get hold of the blueprints? Why did Naomi talk about him like she knew him? Did this mean that they knew she was working for him?
She felt Naomi glaring at her a couple of times and realised shed stopped taking notes, she sighed and tried to focus on the task at hand.
As the meeting came to a close, Emily glanced around the restaurant and realised that it had slowly began to fill up. She began to pick up the pieces of paper scattered on the desk when a few slipped off the table and onto the floor, she stepped out from the table to pick them up and bumped straight into a passing waiter who happened to be carrying several drinks. These went flying into the air and landed all over Pandora and Thomas who looked dazed. Emily went bright red as she took in the situation around her, she apologised profusely to the waiter before finally picking up the sheets and sitting back down at the table, refusing to meet anyone's eye. By this point Thomas and Pandora had began to laugh hysterically and although Naomi was smiling politely, Emily knew she was going to be slaughtered on the way back to the office.
As they both got into the taxi, the rant began.
"I can't believe you were so careless! How could you behave so stupidly? What the hell do you think were playing at? I told you how important this meeting was before we even got there!" Naomi screamed. Emily just sighed and stared down at her lap, she could feel herself getting annoyed and hoped she wouldn't snap.
"I suppose I should've expected it, I knew you were useless as soon as you turned up today" she continued, " if you can't even turn up on time there's no way you can be trusted to behave in a professional manner in an important meeting." Emily could feel her annoyance steadily increasing as Naomi carried on, " you're just pathetic, you can't even stand up for yourself, no wonder you're only a PA" Naomi sneered, "you cant be trusted to do anything off you're own initiative, you need someone to tell you what to do step by step, you…"
"Stop the car" Emily said to the taxi driver, surprisingly calmly. The driver pulled over and Emily turned to Naomi who looked surprised, "I don't know why you decided to take such a dislike towards me today, but it doesn't mean you can treat me like this. I may not be running an amazing business such as a godlike person as yourself, but I do deserve to be treated with respect. If anyone needs to learn about acting professionally it's you. You need to learn that you can't just snap at everyone around you. I don't know what's made you so cold and bitter but it's not fair or right to take it out on everyone else." And with that, Emily got out of the car and walked off; leaving a shell shocked Naomi in the back of the taxi.