The Gift: Book 1 (The Billionaire's Love Story) (3 page)

The recruitment agency had told her she’d need to look super sharp in a place like this even if she was only doing menial tasks.

Savannah gave her name and the name of the person she was supposed to work for to the cool blonde at reception. The woman looked so smart and stylish that Savannah stared at her own clothes in dismay. She’d worn her black suit. It had never been a suit, just separates, but the color seemed similar enough that her ensemble could pass as a suit. The material of her skirt was different to that of her jacket.

“Please take a seat,” the blonde told her. “Someone will come down for you shortly.” Noting the woman’s blonde pony-tailed hair, Savannah fingered her own mousy brown hair gingerly, trying to smooth it. Not only was it the wrong color, it wasn’t even within an inch of being as groomed and as shiny as the hair of the women who worked here.

She stared in dismay at her shoes which she’d polished on the weekend but which now exhibited telltale splashes of Jacob’s orange paint on one of them.

How come she hadn’t noticed that earlier?

She considered going to the ladies room but decided to postpone that until later, after her boss had shown her the tasks. She sat down on the soft padded leather sofa, waiting nervously and feeling out of place and as if she didn’t belong.

It’s only filing,
she reminded herself.

The elevator doors in front of her opened and the noise of sharp, high-heeled footsteps followed. “Ms. Page?” A redhead in a pristine black and white suit appeared before her. “Hello,” she put out her hand for Savannah to shake. “I’m Briony Marsh.”

“Nice to meet you,” Savannah replied, getting up from her seat.

“I hope you’re not afraid of heights,” said the woman. “You’ll be on the 21
st
floor.”

Savannah shook her head and followed the woman into the elevator which was full of others but had emptied by the time they reached the 21
st
floor.

“This way,” said Briony and led Savannah through a long corridor that had identical doors leading off it. The floor was carpeted in deep black and she could feel its thickness even through her shoes. The walls were papered silver and black and she wondered if all the floors were the same. The whole building and everything inside it, people, and furnishings, screamed rich and extravagant. With trepidation, she followed Briony to the end of the corridor, to a smaller room on the right. The office was small, but it had everything she needed; a computer with attached scanner, a printer, a phone.

“You’ll be working in here for the next three weeks.”

Three weeks? Savannah’s heart did a triple somersault. She’d been so excited to have a job that she’d not even asked the agency about her hourly rate or how long the contract was for.

“Is that alright with you? It’ll take you right up to Christmas Eve. Can you work Christmas Eve?”

Savannah knew she couldn’t because Rosalee was going to her son’s over Christmas and this left her without childcare, but she found herself nodding in response. “Yes,” she replied, grateful for extra work.

“We usually close half day that day, but this project is important and it needs to be done quickly.”

“It’s fine,” she replied. It was freaking amazing, or it would be, once she figured a way around her childcare problem.

Christmas Eve.
Maybe she’d be able to buy Jacob a few decent Christmas presents this year.

“It’s straight forward enough.” Briony pointed to the big, bulky plastic boxes that were piled one on top of another and reached just above her head.

“You’ll need to go through those boxes and take a few bundles of files and work through them in order. Let me just show you. Take out a bundle. It’s paperwork for one client. Some might have many bundles to their names. Scan each sheet like this,” she slipped the sheet of paper into the scanner. “Then save it like this. When you’ve scanned one bundle, put everything back in order back into the boxes. I’ve got some empty ones in that corner for you to start with.”

How long was this going to take, Savannah wondered? It looked simple enough.

“They’re more or less in alphabetical order. Start with these, see, they’re numbered at the sides. The scanning is what will take the longest time.”

That’s all she had to do?

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, there’s nothing much to it. Just work your own system. Go through these boxes first,” Briony told her, pointing to the three boxes that were spread out on the floor. “I had the maintenance men get them down for you. Do these first before you start on those.” She pointed behind her and Savannah looked at the three piles of stacked boxes piled high and wondered how she was going to lift them.

“I think three weeks should be enough. See how you do.”

“Thanks,” said Savannah.

“I’m on extension 3279 if you need me. It’s just a few doors down.” She smiled, and slipped out super-fast, before Savannah had even had time to ask her anything. She stared around her in a daze, knowing nothing about what department this was, who she was working for, how long she had for lunch or where the ladies room was. It was as if she’d been left to her own devices. Still, she could hardly complain.

She had an office job in Lower Manhattan, in the Financial District. She was here for three weeks which meant three weeks of income. The thought made her smile as if she’d just heard one of Jacob’s jokes.

She took off her coat and scarf and smiled at the idea of having her own room with nobody else to worry about. She wasn’t sure she’d fit in anyway; not if the rest of the people who worked here looked like the models from the Paris catwalks. She smoothed down her skirt; at least she had new tights and they weren’t torn. Yet.

She set to work quickly, knowing that the work was easy to do, that it beat working at the supermarket and she felt grateful for the good things that had at last started to show up in her life: an apartment in New York, for which she had to pay no rent, a wonderful babysitter and now this.

The best thing of all? No Colt. Nobody to tell her she was a worthless piece of shit. No nasty scenes for Jacob to witness.

They were safe and happy and she felt lucky to be here.

Before long, she’d finished the first box. Staring out of the window to take a breath when she finished the first box, Savannah observed the ant like images crawling around on the sidewalks below. The Christmas decorations looked garish without the magic of the dark sky but it didn’t matter. She was happy. Even graffiti would look good to her the way she was feeling.

This building was huge and she had no idea how many floors the company she worked for occupied but once this contract ended she could ask Briony if any of the other departments might need a temp. It was an exciting possibility and for now the worries that usually plagued her at night and clung to her soul like mildew during the day were temporarily pushed away.

Re-energized, she set to work with gusto and by lunchtime was almost through the three single boxes which had been lying on the floor. If she didn’t slow down, she would get through the rest of them far quicker than three weeks. If she wasn’t careful she’d do herself out of a job. She had to slow down.

It was time for lunch and she decided to eat her homemade sandwiches but needed to go to the ladies room first. As she made her way back to the office, she heard a voice behind her.

“Are you lost?”

She turned around to see a woman frowning at her.

“No,” Savannah replied, and was about to go into her room.

““Do I know you?” The woman asked, leaning in and peering at her. “You look familiar.”

Savannah recognized her instantly. Morticia Addams in a business suit. How could she ever forget? It was the woman from the toy store. All of a sudden Savannah wasn’t so sure that she was a shop assistant.

“I’m working here for a few weeks,” explained Savannah, feeling the need to justify her presence since the woman looked at her as though she’d caught her stealing.

“Here?” The woman’s eyes scanned her appearance from top to bottom. Was that a look of pity that flashed behind her eyes? Savannah couldn’t tell.

“I’m working for Briony Marsh.”
Why don’t you go and ask her if you don’t believe me?

“You are?” The woman’s steely blue eyes sparkled with amusement, heating Savannah’s skin for the wrong reasons. “Welcome,” she said, and headed back towards the elevator bank.

“Thanks,” murmured Savannah under her breath, and hoped she wouldn’t run into her again.

Chapter 4

Tobias noticed the smirk on her face as Candace strutted into his office to hand him his lunch. “What’s so funny?”

“It seems we take on just about anyone.”

Puzzled, he lifted an eyebrow.

“That woman,” Candace continued, “from the toy store last week; the one with the kid you took pity on.”

Last week was a lifetime away in Tobias’s life. “What woman?”

“At the charity event at the toy store, for the adoption centers. That woman with that big hole in her tights. She’s in 218.”

Now he remembered. The woman whose son had wanted to stay. The one with the inhaler. “She’s working here?”

Candace nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought. She’s working
here.
Can you believe it?”

He shrugged, not sure he understood what she was getting at. “What’s so strange?”

Candace stifled a laugh and wrapped her shiny nails around the fur collars of her coat, holding it snug against her neck. “She doesn’t even look the type.”

“I didn’t know we had a
type,
” Tobias responded, smoothly. He hadn’t been a
type
—this local boy from Queens. But someone had believed in him, had mentored him and given him a chance. Someone had seen something in the young, dyslexic child whom teachers had given up on. He had a fast and clever brain and a killer instinct which had helped him to make killer deals that made him millions.

For all her talk, the only thing Candace had going for her was that she was his PA, and that in itself gave her prestige.

“She’s wearing a cheap ten dollar suit. It doesn’t look to me as if she’s even run a brush through her hair. And you should see her shoes. Orange paint!” Candace wrinkled her perfect nose.

“If she can do the job, I don’t care.”

“I don’t understand why Briony couldn’t get one of her regular people to do that job. It’s those customer files you wanted scanned and digitized. It’s something a three year old could do.”

“I don’t want a three year old or anyone who works for this company, for that matter to go through my customer files. I want someone to come in and quickly finish the job.” He unwrapped his salt beef sandwich and waited for her to leave.

Candace hoisted her slim and slender fingers on her hips. “I’d forgotten how paranoid you are, Tobias.”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

“Don’t worry,” she turned to walk out of his office. “I doubt that woman can even read.” She gave him a wicked smile, confirming her bitch status. She did a good job for him though, and so he let her be. He tore into his sandwich and considered the idea of the woman who now worked on the same floor as him. For a moment he wondered how her son was but just as quickly the thought was dismissed as his attention quickly drifted to his emails.

It was only later, when he got out of the elevator after meeting with one of his managers, that Tobias’s curiosity got the better of him. Instead of returning to his office, he walked a few doors down, to room 218. The boy so reminded him of himself, that Tobias’s interest in him drove him to hover outside Room 218, wondering how to casually walk in and enquire about the child.

Not one to make conversation with people at the best of times, Tobias decided against it. While he was interested to hear how the boy was doing, he had no desire to talk to his mother and he started to walk away but the sound of something big and heavy falling, punctuated by a frightened shriek at the end, stopped him.

He rushed back and flung the door wide open.

“Oh…SHIT!” The woman lay sprawled on the floor with her legs akimbo and surrounded by a heap of plastic boxes that had fallen. Only one stack of boxed remained standing.

“Are you alright?” he asked, as he knelt beside her. She stared up at him, eyes wide, her hair falling around her shoulders. She scrambled up to a sitting position.

“Are you hurt?” He glanced over her, clearly noticing that her skirt had ridden up to her thighs and that the middle button of her shirt had come undone.

“I was trying to get one of those boxes down.”

The boxes were heavy and she could have been hurt. “Are you insane?” He asked, not without a hint of irritation, as he held out his hand and pulled her up to him.

“No,” she snapped and let go of his hand as if it was on fire. She smoothed her skirt down. “They were piled on top of one another and I’d finished the others—” She began but he wasn’t interested in explanations.

“You could have hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine, really, I am.”

“A lawsuit is the last thing I need.”

She let out a cry of indignation. “I would never—”

“Your blouse,” he said, his gaze falling to her chest and the button that had gaped open revealing an off-white bra. He turned away as she colored the shade of blood red. She turned her back to him as she did up her button. Now wouldn’t be the time to tell her that the back of her tights had a hole in them. Again.

“How’s your son?”

She turned to face him, smoothing down her skirt and her hair, as she tried to put herself together again. But Briony walked in just then, “What happened in here?” she asked, looking around at the pile of boxes that had tumbled onto the floor. Paper from a few of them had fallen out, scattering all over.

“She was trying to get it down.” Tobias explained.

“You finished the other boxes?” Briony looked surprised.

“They were half-f,” the woman explained.

“Didn’t you go through the safety rules with her?” Tobias asked Briony.

“I—” Briony’s face flushed.

“It wasn’t her fault.” The woman jumped to Briony’s defense. “I thought I could lift the lid off and get a few bundles out.”