Bearilicious - Collection (7 page)

Taken By The Bearillionaire

Ashley Hunter

 Copyright 2015 by Ashley Hunter

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced

in any way whatsoever, without written permission

from the author, except in case of brief

quotations embodied in critical reviews

and articles.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any

person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First edition, 2015

I.

New jobs, for me anyway, always brought this sense of unease.

When I was in college, I majored in business, and I thought I could start my own company, work for myself, be a real big shot, but that’s not really the way it turned out.

Like the lemonade stands I had when I was a kid, I could build the stand, make sure I had enough change, and have my lemonade mix to water ratio on point, but I wasn’t skilled at getting people to buy. They’d walk on by without a second look.

I needed that true maverick for business - the sales person, the true decider, the won’t-settle-for-under-twenty percent kind of person. That’s why I became a secretary.

The problem with being the person in the background making sure appointments are scheduled, parties are planned, suits or dresses are dry cleaned, is having to deal with the personality of the true maverick for business.

My bosses have not been easy. I came from a background of waiting tables before getting into the secretary trade, and I can tell you that bosses are more demanding than even the most difficult diner.

My first boss was a 70 year-old-man who sold organic hair products out of his house. The house was massive, the largest house I’d ever seen in my life, and there was ample room for us young college kids to make sure everything shipped on time and correctly; however, the place reeked of cats. He’d often walk around with one of three of his ancient cats - Alexander, Caesar, and Antony - to check on the workers, show how “cute” the animals were while also conspicuously staring at the females’ chests. He actually took me on a lengthy tour in his Jaguar of the beach town I lived in during my first years of college, telling me about how he found such drives “incredibly romantic.”

His car smelled like cats too. I ended up being fired a few months in after I started wearing more modest clothing and less make-up. He had a high turnover.

My next boss was middle-aged, married for over twenty years, and the father of three grown kids - we got along splendidly. He reminded me of my dad (May he rest in peace.)

Yet, this boss liked long meetings, over-reactions, and, generally, ridiculously high standards. For me, however, I skated along as a favorite of his. It wasn’t until I (admittedly) took advantage of his good graces and slacked on my duties that he berated me as well. He claimed I was “losing [him] the company.” I quit not long after that to finish school (and save my sanity.)

After college, I tried to get into bigger roles in companies - being the HR manager. It turned out, I wasn’t especially skilled at managing others - I was a bit too critical when it came to my co-workers’ work products.

I also “accidentally” threw a stapler at my office mate, who I’d been dating, after discovering he was dating other girls in the office as well.

So, here I found myself again, a personal secretary. Unlike my other secretary jobs, the person I was actually being a secretary for didn’t interview me - it was actually his HR manager, Vance.

We bonded on my former position and my ability to deal with difficult bosses. Vance warned that, unfortunately, this boss would be no different. I informed him I could handle it.

“All right, what you should know especially is that Mr. Mathan can be a very private man,” Vance instructed on my first day of work after he’d given me a lengthy amount of paperwork detailing my new boss’s likes and dislikes. “On the third Friday of every month, he is not to be bothered if he’s here. Do not speak to him, do not call him, do not email him. He is
not
to be bothered.”

I nodded in confirmation. Vance seemed like the kind of guy who enjoyed his own voice more than anyone else’s. “Will I be meeting Mr. Mathan?” Does he have a first name?

“I believe he’s in a meeting right now. What’s best is to keep your chat open and your email checked. That’s usually how he asks for things,” he responded. “If I were you, I would get water for his tea ready. You will see from the recipe included in the paperwork he likes it a certain way.”

I nodded again. Vance smiled and offered to start the water for me since I just started. I took whatever I could get as I started on my work. The boss made a list of my duties for the day with none being especially difficult.

He expected his tea to be done in an hour, after his phone conference. Then, we would meet for the first time.

With Vance’s stellar description of Mr. Mathan, I felt about as uneasy as I was riding in the Jaguar with my former cat loving, old man boss.

At the very least, I hoped he smelled better.

II.

I checked over the recipe an inordinate amount of times, making sure it was perfect. When it came time for our meeting (which he reminded me of via the chat Vance had spoken of), I steadied myself, took a deep breath, and walked into his office.

Mr. Mathan leaned back in back in his chair with his legs lounged on his desk  as he looked over some paperwork, seemingly making notes on it with the pen pursed between his lips.

He looked like an Armani model, leaning in that fashionably handsome and careless way. His combed-back auburn hair looked effortlessly in place and his cool blue eyes read with a quiet, sexy intensity.

“Is that my tea?” he asked with a very slight, slight Irish accent, but not bothering to look up at me.

“Yes,” I responded. “I made it exactly to your specifications.”

“Those are actually Vance’s specifications, but it’ll do,” he responded, putting down his paperwork and his legs to finally look at me. He gestured for me to sit and folded his hands before him. “What was your name again?”

“Lorelai Tanner,” I responded.

He nodded, reaching out for the tea. He tasted it, frowned slightly, and looked straight into my eyes. I felt frozen by his gaze - behind it was something foreign and animalistic that I’d never seen before. “So, you have a degree in business. What did you expect to do with that?”

“The hope was,” I cleared my throat, “to have a business of my own one day.”

“But you’re a secretary.”

“Yes. I’m better behind the scenes.”

“Hmm,” his frown hadn’t budged. “Well, if you can look over this paperwork and tell me what you think, that would be great. It wasn’t the next task on your list, but our meeting ended early.”

“Okay,” I took the paperwork and headed out the door.

“And Lorelai, if you could, please dress a bit more modestly. Vance tends to hire women he can ogle, and we both know you’re better than that.”

I only nodded, unsure of what to say. I wore a normal button up and pencil skirt. I felt I looked professional. My other bosses never said anything about the outfit. Of course, I guess they wouldn’t have.

“You may go.”

I nodded again and skittered out of the office like a roach away from the light. Though I had worked with difficult bosses before, I never felt so nervous when meeting one. It was as though he were the predator. And I was the prey.

When I got back to my desk, he’d sent a message: “Next time, let the tea steep longer and add more sugar.”

The man was devastatingly handsome, but he also was disarmingly condescending.

III.

Mr. Mathan had a particular way of “constructive criticism” (as he liked to call it.) Each morning while delivering his tea, he’d gesture for me to sit down, give notes on my work (one day he said he simply didn’t like the way I typed and suggested I do some typing exercises at home “on your off time”), have me read whatever paperwork, and then ping me with what was wrong with the tea.

It was interesting reading the actual paperwork for business deals, but painstakingly making tea every morning - while constantly being criticized for it - was starting to wear on me. And I’d only been his secretary for a week.

At least he hadn’t asked me to dress more modestly again. After that note, I noticed Vance came by to check on me less and less. Though Mr. Mathan was a jerk, he did have Vance’s intentions right.

Another thing about him - besides being arrogant, rude about tea, and employer of oglers - was that haunting quality of his cold blue eyes. Even while I sat hating his guts, I couldn’t get those eyes out of my mind.

I both dreaded and looked forward to our interactions in the morning because they were the only interactions we had. He always appeared calm and collected as he made his disappointment clear, much different than my second boss who’d yell and scream like a spoiled child.

I wanted to hate Mr. Mathan with every fiber of my being, but a small part of me (a tiny, minute part) thought he was unbelievably sexy. I think that miniscule part might be a masochist.

On the Thursday before the third Friday of the month (my first third Friday, if that made any sense), I made his tea as usual. The day before, he’d mentioned he’d like to try it with honey instead of sugar, so I attempted to melt the honey with the hot water while the tea steeped.

I figured I’d give it a shot. Once done with the tea, I returned to my desk to see the boss himself waiting for me.

I immediately thought he’d telepathically figured out my new tea attempt and already was going to tell me what was wrong or to simply remake it.

“Good morning, Mr. Mathan,” I greeted.

“Good morning, Ms. Tanner,” he replied. “I assume that’s my tea?”

“It is. I added honey instead of sugar.”

The lack of caring on his face made me feel foolish for even mentioning it. “Oh, wonderful.”

Dark circles etched under his eyes, and he had a slight five o’clock shadow. His voice, though still chillingly calm, sounded weary and slow - he normally had a certain cadence to it that seemed to be taking a nap. His tie hung slightly crooked, and his suit slightly wrinkled.

He looked far less put-together than normal, which caused a new sense of unease. However, the masochist within me thought this change of pace was even sexier than the perfectly put together version of Mr. Mathan.

“Is there something I can help you with right now?” I asked, not sure of what else to say since he’d never been waiting at my desk before.

“No, I was just waiting here for the bus to take me into my office.”

“Does Vance drive it? He doesn’t come by in the morning anymore.”

Those blue eyes opened and closed, only watching with no kind of emotional response. “I have a large project for you if you can follow me into my office.”

Note to self: jokes not appreciated. I followed him without another word. His gait seemed slower as usual, though I normally didn’t see him walk anywhere since he was just behind his desk. He handed me a tape recorder and a stack of papers.

“I have dictated my plans for an environmental project to help conserve the habitat of bears in logging areas,” he said. “Please transcribe my dictation, and refer to the facts in this paperwork. I expect this to take you at least today and tomorrow. You are welcome to do over-time through the weekend from home if necessary.”

I nodded in response. He gave a slight frown, but continued.

“When you finish, I need you to bring it by my house. I will be out tomorrow, but I’ll email you my address. I expect this done before work Monday at the very latest. Understand?”

“I understand.”

He reached for his tea and took a drink. “Remake this. It was better without the honey.”

Well, so much for that. “Right away, Mr. Mathan.”

“My name is Oliver,” he said, rubbing his weary eyes and appearing like an actual human being for once. “Please stop calling me Mr. Mathan.”

I nodded, not sure if this was some kind of milestone for us.

“You can also answer me when I speak to you.”

“Women are supposed to be seen, not heard, as they say,” I replied with a slight smile. He only gave me a look wearily. “That’s a joke.”

“If you’d like to be a woman who’s seen and not heard, you can find a new job.”

“Right. It’s really just a…” remember that note to self you just made? “I’ll get right to this project.”

I dropped off the paperwork and moved to remake the tea. Though he’d admittedly been about as critical as he’d been before, he didn’t seem as cold. I felt we’d jumped over some kind of hurdle in our professional relationship.

He showed a sense of vulnerability I hadn’t yet seen. The masochist inside me argued that maybe he was warming to me, and also he looked incredibly hot when so weary.

This made things slightly awkward when I delivered his new tea. He was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed - he almost appeared asleep. His five o’clock shadow looked more prominent, while his hands seemed hairier. I set down the tea and tried to inch out of the room.

“I’d like to not be disturbed for the rest of the day,” he said.

“Okay.”

He grabbed the tea, took a drink, gave me a look, and then closed his eyes again. I nodded awkwardly (as I usually did when leaving his office) and went back to my desk.

The task he provided was quite difficult. I’d worked at a newspaper in college, so I was able to transcribe pretty well, but it took me quite a while.

Without making tea the next day while he was out, I was able to start back up, uninterrupted. The thing was, I didn’t understand why he cared so much about bears.

In Mr. Mathan’s - excuse me,
Oliver’s
research - he noted a supposed curse in Ireland from the fairies that turned humans into bears on the third Friday of the month. Although it seemed completely unrealistic, I looked into the curse, and it seemed to represent him almost exactly.

That auburn hair, the cool eyes, the bone structure (maybe I added that) all seemed to symbolize him. Of course, by the next day he was out of the office so I couldn’t ask, but it seemed like him.

But what rich guy turns into a bear? That was ridiculous.

I finished the task on Friday around the end of the day. I waited for Vance to appear to ask if the third Friday of the month was a good day to bring work by, but he never appeared.

I decided that I’d take the report back to Oliver’s house after work. I checked over it after I got home, but it seemed perfect. I drove slowly, feeling especially nervous, but I built myself up as I walked to his door. I knocked twice as instructed in the directions he provided.

He didn’t answer.

I knocked again, but no luck. In the back of his house, I heard a noise. I investigated, to see if he were the one making noise, and noticed a figure that resembled him.

I followed the figure into the bush behind his house and watched from a bush (just in case.) The figure transformed from a man to a stooped creature under the light of the moon. I felt as though I should run, but I wanted to know the nature of the creature: a bear. It appeared to be a bear.

Was he one of the individuals cursed by the Irish fairies to transform into a bear?

Had I just imagined it all?

Was I perhaps delirious from the thought that my incredibly handsome boss, Mr. Oliver Mathan, had paid me some sort of attention that I’d never experienced from him before?

Whatever it was, I ran as fast as I could back to my car. Unfortunately, I fell and hit my head on the ground.

I looked ahead, trying to crawl forward to where my car may be. The surroundings started to appear dark, spinning, when I took a moment to breathe. Before I knew it, I blacked out before I could speed away home.