CHAPTER 9

Christian had her with him every day at work for lunch that week. They either went out to lunch, had a working lunch in meetings or Ana picked it up just for them. On Wednesday she ordered lunch from a place on East Pine St. called Dingfelder's Delicatessen and picked it up. She got the hot corn beef and hot brisket sandwiches on marble rye with coleslaw, pickles and an order of four knishes. The sandwiches were loaded with meat, heirloom tomatoes and lettuce. The brisket sandwich was with creamed horseradish. They each had an icee Coke. They sat down and dove in taking bites of each other's sandwiches. He loved that she liked good food like him.

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When the next Monday rolled around to Ana's first day on the job, she was dressed in Herve Leger Candice lipstick red, off the shoulder, long sleeve bodycon dress with a gold Gianni Versace chain belt. She matched it with Marc Fisher Abilene pointed toe pump in medium red and a Ralph Lauren leather medium tanner shoulder bag in Martin Red. She had smokey eyes, light makeup and a darker shade of red matte lipstick. She had her hair down and curled with her ruby earrings in and a gold bracelet. She drove herself in her Jaguar wearing her faux red Fox fur coat. Everyone watched and stared at her as she walked through the door with her laptop case, purse with a large Starbucks mocha latte and Christian Dior transparent red butterfly sunglasses on. She used her executive key. She was stylish, she knew, but felt good on the first day to look good.

Christian came off the elevator at work and saw the new office that was setup over the weekend for Ana. The lights were on, the door was open and curiously he looked in and Ana was sitting at her desk looking at her laptop from home because Barney was going to come set her up with all the executive hardware of phone, tablet, laptop, ect.

Christian said smiling, "Good morning, beautiful Anastasia, I missed you this morning."

She looked up and smiled saying, "Hi, Christian. You look nice today. I know. I was just so busy getting things ready to start the week last night for work in the morning, I fell asleep in my bed. I'm glad I at least turned on my alarm."

He smiled at her and said, "It's ok. I'm spoiled and want you next to me all the time. You know you always look so very beautiful in the mornings. We have a department head meeting at ten o'clock in conference room B." Ana blushed. He loved her reactions.

Ana said looking him in the eyes, "I'll be there. Count on it." He smiled and went to his office after kissing her.

Roz came into her office a little bit later and said, "Good morning, Anastasia."

Ana said, "Good morning. How was your weekend?"

Roz said, "Uneventful, thankfully. How was yours?"

Ana said, "Just running around getting prepared for work like a maniac Sunday. I needed more outfits for work so I did Nordstrom and Saks shopping trips on Saturday. I really am not crazy about shopping but sometimes it's a necessary evil." Roz laughed.

Roz said smiling, "I know what you mean. I'll see you at the ten o'clock meeting. Bye."

Ana waved and said, "See ya then."

Barney came into her office and said smiling nervously, "Hi, I'm Barney. I'm here to get you set up."

Ana smiled and said, "Welcome come on in and bring the chair around." He sat everything on the desk and Ana shut down her laptop, logging off.

Later on Ana went to the ten o'clock meeting and got a seat next to Roz and Christian at the end of the table. Once everyone was assembled Christian said in his authoritative voice indicating Ana, "Ladies and gentlemen, this Anastasia Steele. She is the new Executive Assistant for Roz and I and you unofficially have seen her around last week. She will be dealing with the accurate facts, figures and report assessments from each of your departments for coordinating the acquisitions, audits and operations of upper management of all companies that the CEO and COO manage. Her job is to coordinate and troubleshoot all relevant data to cohesively bring it all together. Are there any questions?"

A few hands went up. Christian pointed to one person and said, "Yes, Mr Andrew Dawson, Head of the Accounting Department." He was being explicit for Ana's sake, as she wrote down names and departments.

Mr Dawson asked a bit stuck up, "What are her qualifications for the position because she seems awfully young?" Christian thought he was audacious.

Christian said, "She has two master's degrees and a bachelor's degree starting at age fourteen to twenty two with a 4.0's and 4.2 GPA for Business Analytics, Risk Assessment and Business Administration." Mr Dawson sat down.

The hands went up again and Christian picked another saying, "Yes, Miss Denise Richards of the PR department."

The lady was still haughty with still low cleavage and asked, "It's been said that you made up the position for her. Did you?"

Christian said, "Yes, after seeing what her capabilities consisted of, Roz and I both had her employed to liaison with us." The woman sat down with her nose in the air.

The hands went up and Christian picked one saying, "Yes, Mr Jack Hyde of the Mergers and Acquisitions department."

Mr Hyde asked snidely, "Why did you not promote from within the Merger and Acquisitions department? I would have interviewed for that position with four years of experience if given a chance."

Christian said looking Hyde in the eyes, "She has two business masters degrees with a bachelor's degree, each designed for the job specifically. You had four years in your department but as head for only a year. You also had a bachelor's degree in Business Administration. She came with higher education and qualifications, Mr Hyde." Mr Hyde gave him a dirty glare and cut his eyes to Ana leering at her.

A hand went up, Christian said, "Yes, Mrs Macmillan of the Finance department."

The woman asked indifferently, "What about the chain of command? Who do we go to for complaints and accountability?"

Christian said, "Miss Steele is the priority for all gathering of information from all departments. Her requirements or requests from all seven departments under her Merger and Acquisitions, Finance, Marketing, Accounting, Auditing, Accounts Payable, and Accounts Receivable. I expect full cooperation and accuracy from all seven departments. Any problems see Roz or myself. You are all still head of your departments and the chain of command is the same."

Roz stood up and said, "Alright, now that that's over I want to get your departmental reports for this week." The rest of the meeting went with the department reports.

At the end of the meeting, Roz went to her office, Ana and Christian went in Christian's office.

Ana asked, "So how many potential acquisitions are you looking at right now?"

Christian said, "We are just looking at five right now. You saw the one."

Ana asked, "Do you have all of the data on them ready to calculate risk assessments?"

Christian said, "I believe so. The economic analysts have done initial research on the companies as potentials. Would you like to see the spreadsheets?" Ana said yes and walked up to his desk. He brought the data up on his laptop and got up to let her sit down and look it over. He looked out the window.

Ana sat down and was looking at all of the numerical breakdowns and projections on the one company. She said, "Christian, do you see here?" She pointed out a figure on the screen. He leaned down looking.

She said, "That figure is wrong and you need it double checked. It could be a typo. Accounting typos should be caught prior to the Economic Analysts, but should have been caught before by themselves too. It's like they weren't checking their work before it got up here."

Ana stood up and let Christian go over what she showed him. He called up the Economic Analysts then the Accounting Department. He had them fix the figure on the spreadsheet on Daronov Technologies. He told them which error was detected by the new Executive Assistant, Anastasia Steele. He said he wanted it corrected immediately. He hung up and looked at Ana.

He said, "Good job, Anastasia."

There was a knock at the door, Roz barged into his office and said, "Do you see anything wrong on any of our targets?"

Christian replied, "Yeah the figures are being corrected right now. Anastasia caught them on Daronov Technologies. just now. They are being corrected. I'm having her go over them all now." Roz looked over and saw Ana sitting on the couch.

Roz walked over and asked, "Show me what was wrong with Daronov Tech?" Ana pointed at the one spot.

Roz said, "Ok, I'm glad you're on top of it all now, Ana. Let me know if you find more errors."

Ana said smiling, "I will make sure you have trust in the data supplied as long as it can be cleared by me before you get it from now on."

Christian said, "Roz, I want you to show Anastasia how to log into the information on the targets we have for acquisitions so she can do assessments and evaluate them all before we get them to work on."

Roz said, "Ok, come with me, Anastasia." Ana walked out the door of his office.

Roz sat down at her desk and showed her how to pull up the spreadsheets for all the acquisitions target companies. She got up and let Ana sit down. Ana looked at the numbers and started working the calculator one handed and clicked through the figures and read the pages of the possible potential and assessments. Ana was about thirty minutes in and said, "Carlton Steel, either dump it or liquidate the assets into your corporation also Daestrum Inc.

We just have to make sure they correct the Accounting Department's mathematical error on page 7 on Daestrum. That potential out there on Acer Electronics looks good to go after I do a breakdown cost assessment. Remember to subtract the loss of assets from the purchase price before making an offer to Daestrum and Carlton Steel. The stock was devalued too. I can have risk assessments and cost breakdowns completed for all five out there by the beginning of next week as long as the data is correct." Roz was impressed.

After a little while, Roz went back to Christian's office and Roz said, "Anastasia just analyzed the entire five companies out there and caught another error by Accounting and the Economic Analysts in the last half hour."

Roz said, "I told her if the departments give her a problem, she can come to us. They are being held accountable for this. They will have to run it by her before we receive them. I told her to also sit in on negotiations and all meetings."

Ana said to Andrea and Olivia, "I know we weren't introduced properly but I am looking forward to working with you." She put her hand out and Andrea shook her hand. Olivia just looked at her glaring. Ana wondered what was wrong with her. Ana smiled at Andrea and left for her office.