Cassia felt a whirlwind of emotions when she ended the call with Mr. Mathew Grayson. She placed her head on the table on top of the notes they spent two hours going over. Mr. Grayson was looking for a publishing company to start working on a series of children's' books in braille. Since she didn't know much about him, she looked him up on her phone while he excused himself to take a phone call. Cassia couldn't see a ring on his left hand but she didn't put it past him.
When they were both done taking and giving notes he looked straight at her.
"It's been an absolute pleasure Cassia. Can't wait to meet you." And with that he was gone.
The thought of meeting Mathew sent a yearning through her that she couldn't understand. She felt flustered and horny as hell. Cassia hadn't been with a man since her second year of college when she was dating a civil engineer named Connor. Muscles, tall, chiseled abs, and a great smile. But he was a total jerk. At first, he wined and dined her. Took her out to meet all his friends, things were great. That was until after the 4th date, he took her to dinner and to see the latest Ironman movie, he tried to make a move on her and she declined. He was not too happy with that. He yelled at her for holding out, telling her, "You better give it up soon or else ill have to find someone else to."
Cassia couldn't take that kind of disrespect. She replied, "Should I give you a few numbers of the campus hoes? You might need one of them to "give it up."" With that, she walked into her apartment and slammed the door. They never spoke to each other after that day. She was thankful no one really asked about their break-up either. Made it easier to just forget about him.
Michael cleared his throat in the doorway and she snapped her head up. He was a little taken a back by the far away, sad look on her face.
"You good boss?" Michael asked concerned.
She nodded. "Yeah I'm fine, just a little overwhelmed but I'm good. Thanks Michael!"
He replied, "You can call me Mike if you'd like, that's fine with me." Cassia thought for a moment.
"Nope, I like Michael." He smiled wide; because he really did prefer people use his full name but allowed people to call him Mike out of courtesy.
"Your 3:30 is here, but I can tell her you're a little tied up at the moment, I'll just give you a few minutes to breathe." Cassia looked up at Michael thankfully.
"I would love that, thank you. I just need a few minutes to catch my breath and I'll come out and get her. Can you give me a quick run down?" Michael explained that she was a writer from Dallas, Texas. She was under another publishing company, but didn't like the way she was being treated so she was shopping for a new company. Cassia stood, shook herself a bit, and nodded to Michael, "I'm ready." She shook thoughts of her past and Mathew out of her mind as they walked to the lobby area to greet the prospective author.
Ruby was a middle-aged woman, with short red hair, and a piercing through her right eyebrow. Cassia stretched her hand to the red haired woman when they were a few feet apart.
"Hello, I'm Cassia Montgomery." She shook the outstretched hand and smiled pleasantly.
"I'm Ruby Lannister, pleasure to meet you."
By the end of the meeting Cassia and Ruby were laughing and talking like old friends. Ruby was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY but moved to Dallas when her husband moved his dental practice to expand his business. She was a bored housewife, and though she loved her husband and children to death she felt unsatisfied. She wrote mostly romance, and mystery novels. She given Cassia a book she'd written from each genre, and Cassia promised to read it soon, and send some feedback. They said their goodbyes, and Cassia wished Ruby safe travel back to Dallas.
Michael and Cassia walked back to her office. She was thankful all her appointments were finished and she could catch up with Michael about anything else she needed to know. Michael stopped at his desk and picked up a big box and carried it towards Cassia's office.
Eyeing the box Cassia said, "I hope those aren't manuscripts you want me to read?" Michael chuckled at the confused face she shot at him.
"No boss, these I think you'd like, but let's hold on that, there are some other things I need to show you." He said, getting up and walking around to her side of the desk.
Michael started showing her the office controls that were controlled by a screen built into the surface of the desk. Cassia had to admit it was pretty cool. Temperature control, opening and closing the blinds, even music that she could connect her phone to over Bluetooth. Michael waited until he was done showing her everything in her office to open the box. "Now for the fun stuff," Michael stated with a big kid grin on his face.
He pulled out a smaller white box that Cassia instantly recognized. It was an iPhone box. She loved Apple products and had quite a few of her own. She looked as Michael passed her the new iPhone.
"This is your new work phone. Our tech department hooked it up for you. I won't explain all the extras; it's all in the instruction sheet. And don't worry its only 2 pages long." She sighed; she was not a fan of instruction manuals. But who was these days? The next box got her even more excited, a new iPad. It was also tricked out with tons of extra features, and it came with a beautiful case with her name in gold cursive written across the bottom right. She traced her finger along the words as she'd done on the door when she arrived.
She smiled up at Michael with tears in her eyes, smiled sweetly at him and thanked him.
"Oh, don't thank me yet, this is the best part." He pulled out the final box and Cassia jumped out of her seat. It was a brand new MacBook Pro, and without breaking the trend the tech guys tricked it out. Cassia felt like a kid in a candy store. She really loved Apple products.
"Will you help me get all this to a cab, and remind me to go down to the tech department and thank them." Michael agreed.
"Before I forget, you don't need to take a cab anymore, you can choose your car and your driver from our staff. Editors are given the option of driving themselves or using our car service."
Cassia knew this was her dream job, but it was just too good to be true. Michael pulled out his own iPad and pulled up a slideshow of cars. Cassia picked the Black Navigator, just because it was spacious and she was sure she would want to lay down some days after work, when she worked late. Michael showed her pictures of the drivers. She scrolled through until she sound the one that stuck out to her. "Him!" Cassia picked a tall bald man that reminded her of a secret service agent. Michael nodded.