Chapter 36 - Emily

**EMILY**

Emily heard the door open and the woman was already calling to her: “Come in, please. What was your name again?” For a brief moment, Emily struggled with herself. Should she give a false name and watch with relief as the contract was torn up in front of her? Or should she tell the truth and set up another meeting with her boss? *Accountant and hostess - was that even possible?* Her heart beat wildly in her chest.
Oh Gosh! She had already decided. If her boss, Alexander Fitzpatrick, wanted her so badly, she simply wasn’t strong enough to say no. In that moment, her feminine side triumphed, longing for his dominant, strong charisma. And hoped he wouldn’t disappoint her again.
“Emily Saron. As I said,” she explained with a cool smile. “May I please review my contract now? My lunch break will be over soon.”
She looked pleased to see the woman’s jaw drop. An incredulous gasp escaped her mouth. “You? I thought... I thought... you were here *for* Ms. Saron!”
“Well, you were wrong. May I come in?”
Ms. Enders turned and took half a step back into the office, almost stumbling. “Olli! Why didn’t you say something? *She* is Emily Saron! *Your* Emily Saron!”
Over the woman’s shoulder, Emily could see Oliver jump up from his desk chair, his eyes fixed on her in disbelief and almost horror. “No way! You’re not yesterday’s woman.”
Emily sighed and shook her head. *How much longer do I have to put up with this nonsense?* With pursed lips, she opened her silver-gray clutch bag and took out her ID. Then she walked around Ms. Enders and held the ID out to a stunned Oliver. “Is this enough proof? Or do I need to make an appointment for tonight and wear my gym clothes?”
Oliver stared at her ID like it was a magical relic and fell back into his desk chair with an exhausted groan. “I don’t think so,” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “That pudgy crybaby is actually a stone-cold lawyer!”
“I’m neither,” Emily complained, frowning. Her voice was sharper than she had intended. The thought that Oliver still hadn’t figured her out after everything that had happened yesterday annoyed her. How blind could you be?
“Come with me,” Susanne Enders said, grabbing a folder and hurrying past Emily into the hallway. Without hesitation, she walked to the end of the corridor, opened the door, and motioned for Emily to go first. “As you said, time is money. My business partner is impossible to work with right now. He needs to come to terms with the fact that you have an enormous talent for transformation.”
Emily walked over to one of the chairs and sat down, raising her eyebrows slightly and setting her silver-gray clutch bag beside her. “Well, I wouldn’t call it a talent for transformation. I just dress for the situation. I can’t do gymnastics in a business outfit.”
Susanne Enders laughed artificially. “True! Still, we would have expected a more casually dressed lady. Not every accountant wears a gray pantsuit.”
“Also true,” Emily agreed, leaning forward slightly. “Which brings us to my problem. I am a candidate for the position of chief accountant. At twenty-four, soon to be twenty-five, this is an extraordinary opportunity. If it becomes known that I was persuaded to stand in as a hostess yesterday, it might be seen as an act of charity. But if it becomes known that Alexander Fitzpatrick’s new girlfriend and the future chief accountant of Fitzpatrick Designs are one and the same person, it’ll be more difficult.”
Susanne Enders tilted her head slightly and looked at Emily intently. “Why?”
Emily frowned and gave the woman an irritated look. Didn’t she really understand what the problem was? “I can’t be chief accountant and my boss’s hostess at the same time!”
“Officially, you can’t,” Susanne Enders said with an almost triumphant smile. “As you so nicely put it earlier, you’re your boss’s new girlfriend. It’s a perfect match! He’s the creative head of the company, and you’re the...”
“The rational one,” Emily added, putting on her reserved smile again.
“Exactly! You are the rational head of the company. So you complement each other perfectly. And the fact that it doesn’t work out sexually is no problem. As long as you both stay in your roles, no one will notice. And if you are more rational sexually, Ms. Saron, you and Mr. Fitzpatrick could even get married. Many people have marriages of convenience. That way he would appear to be the perfect CEO of Fitzpatrick Designs.”
Emily’s smile froze and a cold shiver ran down her spine. *What was this woman talking about?* Not a good sexual match? A marriage of convenience? She hadn’t even wanted to see Alexander a second time, let alone consider marriage. Did this woman really think that she and Alexander Fitzpatrick should or wanted to end up in such an absurd situation?
Emily shook her head. *A marriage of convenience? With my boss?*
“Now that that’s out of the way, we can get down to the details.” Susanne Enders opened the folder with satisfaction. “We need a copy of your passport for our records. We also need a phone number where we can reach you in case of an assignment. You will not be meeting with Mr. Fitzpatrick. All dates will be arranged through us. This is for your protection, of course. Not all gentlemen are as reliable as Mr. Fitzpatrick - he is a true gentleman.”
Emily frowned. “Wait,” she interrupted the woman. “Nothing is settled yet. I told Mr. Fitzpatrick yesterday that I only filled in for Amelie once.”
“Yes, of course. That’s how it started. You filled in. But Amelie didn’t have a one-time appointment with Mr. Fitzpatrick, she had a permanent exclusive contract, which you took over yesterday with your signature.”
Emily stared at Susanne Enders in disbelief. “I have... Signed what? An exclusive contract to be my boss’s companion?”
The woman nodded enthusiastically, flipped through the papers and pushed the folder towards Emily. She pointed to the relevant section. “It’s right here.”
Emily began to read, her mouth going dry. It was true! Oliver had obviously been hiding a lot from her. There it was, in black and white: an exclusive contract as a hostess - or rather, as a constant companion of Alexander Fitzpatrick.
“Well, my time is up.” Emily closed the file energetically. “Please make a copy of the contract for me. Or have you already scanned it and can you email it to me?” There was no way she was going to admit that she knew her data had long since been stored on the DarEnd-Agency’s computers. “I’ll check the contract and let you know how to proceed.”
She took a business card from her clutch and slid it to the still smiling woman. Then she stood.
“Remember, Ms. Saron,” Susanne Enders said with a satisfied smile, “Mr. Fitzpatrick is expecting you the day after tomorrow. So don’t take too long to go over the documents.”
Emily didn’t reply and watched as Susanne Enders grabbed the folder and business card to leave the office with her. As Emily entered the elevator, the woman returned to her own office, clearly pleased with the outcome of the conversation.
Emily knew that the e-mail she had requested would be in her inbox by the time she got to Accounting. But she wouldn’t review the contract until she got home after work. There had to be a loophole somewhere! She couldn’t jeopardize her chances for the chief accountant position.
The elevator doors opened and she stepped into the small, shiny chrome car. Automatically, her mind wandered to the luxurious elevator at the Hotel Excelsior - and to the breathtaking kisses of Alexander Fitzpatrick, to his lust and greed that had intoxicated them both.
As the elevator doors closed, Emily couldn’t fight the longing throbbing of her accelerated heartbeat.