“Wonderful job Elena, this is exactly what I was looking for.” Sebastian did not hold back with his compliment in front of the room and I was really proud of myself for what I was able to pull off in a week.
The following Tuesday I was working late, buried in files, and my stomach reminded me that it was time to eat around 7:30. I still had a couple of hours of work to do so I was planning to just grab a sandwich from the cafeteria and bring it back to my office. One of the biggest conveniences about working in the corporate office building was that the cafeteria was open until 10:00 p.m. I bent down to grab my purse from the bottom drawer of my desk and when I sat up I was startled to see Sebastian standing in the doorway. I jumped and quickly recovered but not before he saw the frightened look on my face.
“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you Elena. I saw that your light was on and wanted to check on you.” He looked at the huge pile of papers on my desk and raised his eyebrows. “Are you being given too much work? We do like for our employees to have a life outside of this job.”
“Oh, no the amount of work is fine, I just wanted to get a good feel for the new campaign. This is all so new to me and I don’t want to be the one to drop the ball when we go to São Paulo.”
"I'm sure you'll do fine, from what I can see you are an extremely hard worker and you don't strike me as the type of woman who would ‘drop the ball’, as you say.”
“It’s really important to me that I do well in this position because it is such an incredible opportunity and I am very appreciative.”
He looked surprised by my words and there was something else there in his eyes but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Was he surprised by how grateful I was about being given this incredible opportunity? Maybe that was it, and I guess in his world, people at his level didn't really show their emotions so freely. But I did, that's just who I was, I was grateful and I was going to work really hard to make a name for myself.
"We are very happy to have you aboard." He glanced at his watch and look at me with a slight smile. "It's past 7:30 and I can almost guarantee that you have not eaten dinner yet, am I correct?”
"No, I haven't, but I was just getting ready to go down to the cafeteria to grab a quick sandwich. I still have a couple of hours of work left to do.”
“I think that any work that you have can wait until tomorrow. You won’t be any good to anyone if you don’t eat a proper meal. Would you like to have dinner with me?”
I sat there completely stunned. Did he just ask me to have dinner with him? Of course I wanted to! But, he was my boss, my brand new boss and he had been very clear about his intentions. I didn’t want to send the wrong message, so even though I really wanted to have dinner with him I decided it would be best if I didn’t.
“I appreciate the invitation but I don’t think it would be appropriate.” I looked down at my hands which were fumbling with the corner of one of the folders on my desk, unable to look at him.
He let out a soft chuckle. “Appropriate? Elena, you do eat food don’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I am simply asking you to join me for a meal. I know that you have to be hungry and I am starved, so please join me. I’ll expense it and you can fill me in on the new marketing ideas you have been working on.”
Well, as long as he put in terms of work I figured there couldn’t be any harm in eating with him.
“Okay, I’ll grab my notepad.”
A tiny smirk touched the corner of his mouth. “Fine, bring your notepad.”
We went to a small Italian restaurant clear across town which I thought was a little bit strange.
“This is kind of far Sebastian, is this your favorite restaurant or something?”
“It’s one of them, and it’s best if we are discreet since you just started in my office. We don’t want any rumors flying around, do we?”
Oh, we were in the boonies because he couldn’t be seen with me. I didn’t like the way that made me feel but I definitely wasn’t going to raise a big stink about it and get myself fired. I was hungry and the company was paying so I decided to just let that comment go for the time being.
We made small talk for a couple of minutes and then as we waited for our food to arrive Sebastian wanted to know more about me.
“So, let’s get work stuff out of the way. Have you come up with any new ideas for the marketing campaign?”
“Yes, I…” He cut me off as he waved his hand in the air.
“That’s all I wanted to know. Now that we have talked about work I can go ahead and expense this meal. So, on to something much more interesting, I know a few things about you from the background check but I want to know more.”
His eyes held mine, and the way he said that made my belly flip.
“What would you like to know?”
"Everything. What is your favorite color? What makes you happy? What makes you sad? Where would you like to travel in the world? Where have you traveled in the world? Where do you see yourself in five years? Do you want to get married? Do you want to have a family? Everything, Elena, I want to know everything about you.”
My cheeks were burning so I knew they bright red and I hated that I blushed so easily and everyone could see it. I really wanted to pinch myself because it was so hard for me to believe that all of this was actually happening to me. Sitting in this secluded restaurant, across from this gorgeous billionaire was just something that I never in a million years would have imagined could happen to me. I couldn’t believe that someone like him wanted to know everything about someone like me. I wasn’t putting myself down or anything but I knew that he could have his pick of any woman, and he was choosing to spend time with me and get to know me. It all just seemed too good to be true.
“I can see that my questions may have caught you off guard so let’s just start with the first one, what is your favorite color?”
I was totally embarrassed and I looked down at my hands and then slowly looked up at him. "Sebastian, we probably should just stick to talking about work.”
He held my gaze as his eyes smoldered. “No, I want to talk about you, we are going to talk about you.”
"Do you always get what you want?" I wanted to take the words back the second they rolled off of my tongue. I had to learn how to control my thoughts better!