Brothers of Paradise Series

“Wow.” She must know all the ins and outs of this place. “And how many assistants has Mr. Marchand had in that time?”

We step into the elevator and Christina presses the button for the ground floor. Her face turns thoughtful, and uncertain, and I can’t read her expression. “Six,” she says finally. “And I’m not saying this to discourage you, but they don’t tend to last long.”

Wow.

What have I agreed to?

I give her my winning smile. “Why not? I wouldn’t want to make the same mistakes.”

“He’s… exacting,” she says. “Not all assistants can keep up or have the strength to handle it when he corrects them.”

It’s not exactly a stretch of the imagination to picture that. All day, I’d only seen the blank, expressionless mask he seemed to wear. Nothing of the man who had enjoyed provoking me during my interview.

“Is that why people didn’t bother to introduce themselves today?” I ask, realization setting in. “They don’t think I’ll last?”

“Well, I don’t know their motivations.” Her voice is careful. “But it could be, yes.”

I shiver, despite myself. I had thought getting an assistant job was beneath me-that I’d be twiddling my thumbs all day. But according to Christina, I might count myself lucky to survive past my six-week trial period.

“Wow.”

“But don’t let that discourage you. I’m sure you’ll do great. He hired you himself, didn’t he? He usually outsources the interviews to HR.”

I have to fight to keep the laughter off my face. There was no way I would’ve been hired if HR had properly read my cover letter. “You’re right.”

Christina bids me goodnight as we emerge on the busy New York street. It’s past seven p. m. and I’m too tired to function. I commute on autopilot-down into the subway, in with my earphones, up the stairs, unlock the door to my building-and finally kick off my shoes in my little apartment.

I ignore the pile of laundry in the corner and head straight for the kitchen instead.

“Hi honey,” I say to my palm tree. “I’m home. How was your day?”

He doesn’t respond, but the leaves look a little bit less droopy than the day before. “That good, huh?”

He silently agrees, and I sigh at my own silliness.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

Six assistants in eight years. They rarely last more than a year, then. I wonder why his previous assistant left. Judging by her fastidious notes, she seemed like an excellent assistant. I’ve got big shoes to fill.

I lie down on my couch with a bowl of noodles. My place might be small, but it’s mine, every inch of it. The first piece of mine I’ve ever really had. The walls are lined with artfully framed blueprints. It had taken me years to find each one, some of them replicas of old versions, other complete fabrications. A side view of the Colosseum in Rome, showing off the impressive columns and the ingenious design that allow it to stand today, two thousand years after its creation. The Empire State Building. The Sagrada Familia. All of them designs that I love, and have loved for as long as I can remember.

It used to be my dream to design my own monument one day. These days, it feels foolish. Very few architects ever achieve something like that.

My phone dings with a text from Jessie. She’s a bartender uptown and always works evenings.

Jessie Moore: I know you said not to ask, but I did it anyway. Travis would definitely be down for a blind date with you. And before you say no, you haven’t been out with a guy in ages!

I toss the phone away. She’d been nagging me about her cute co-worker for months, telling me I should focus less on my career and more on happiness, that I needed work-life balance and love in my life.

As if I have time for that. I’m smack-dab in the middle of the most important years in a person’s career, and I’m struggling. There’s absolutely no time for flings or affairs, and certainly not full-blown relationships. Hell, if I’m going to keep up with Henry Marchand’s apparently exacting demands, I’ll find it difficult to even make time for my friends.

I’m nearly asleep on the couch, a bad Netflix show on the TV, when my phone rings. The name on the screen jolts me awake.

“Hello?”

Henry’s voice is deep with irritation. “My calendar is gone.”

“What?”

“It’s wiped entirely from the system. Did you accidentally press something? Delete instead of sync?”

“No.” I think back to earlier in the evening, when I had made the changes I wanted to. What did I press…? I can’t remember. I’ve never worked in that system before, but it had seemed easy, intuitive even. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Well, it’s gone. All of it.”

“I’ll fix it,” I vow, though I have no idea how. “I can do it now. I can come in-”

“I’m still at the office.”

He’s still in the office? It’s nearly midnight. I’m already reaching for my pants, my phone locked between my shoulder and ear. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Don’t worry-”

But he’s already hung up.

Henry

I sigh and resist the urge to run a hand through my hair. This was a complication I definitely didn’t need. The coming days were going to be busy enough without suddenly second-guessing where I was going and who I am meeting.

Maybe hiring Faye had been a mistake. I had assumed that learning to be an assistant was easier than learning architecture; that she could learn on the job. But maybe I’d been wrong. I had been, often, when it came to assistants. Damn Rykers had been lucky on her first try.

I return to the architectural model on the screen. There’s something missing, something in the curve of the outer fixtures that doesn’t work. At first, I’d thought it was a problem with proportions, but balancing that hadn’t helped either.

The elevator dings. I click away the project, switching instead to the office building we’re developing in the Bronx.

Faye is standing in the doorway to my office. She’d worn a black dress to work today, complete with matching pumps, but that’s gone now. She’s in dark-wash jeans and an oversized sweater. Her face looks bare somehow… no makeup on. And her dark hair frames her face, falling long down her back.

I frown at her. She looks beautiful, which is yet another distraction I don’t need. Sure, I’d seen it before, when I interviewed her. But then she’d worn her beauty like armor, with sharp eyeliner and hair swept back. This time it’s disarming-seeing her like she’d look on a Sunday morning.

She steps into my office uninvited, laptop under her arm. “I’m sorry again. Let me double-check this and I’ll have it fixed in no time.”

“See to it that you do.”

She takes a seat at the large conference table in my office, still uninvited. Few people spend time in here apart from me. I can see how her eyes drift as she fires up her laptop, running across the bookshelves I have to the large model in the corner. It’s covered by a sheet, but I still feel unsettled as she looks at it.

That project is for my eyes only.

She works away on her screen, fingers tapping occasionally against the keyboard. I try and fail to focus on my own screen.

“Do you always work this late?” Faye asks, voice cheery. I can’t tell if it’s fake or not. “It’s midnight.”

“Often, yes. A lot of people rely on us meeting our deadlines.” I frown again. Why am I volunteering more information?