Mr. Handsome A Billionaire Romance(8)

“That is better to say than trying to do your best. I like that about you. You know, if I were to fire Kristi, you could easily take her place. But I’m afraid the girl is pregnant now and I’d be faced with a lawsuit if I did,” Marissa said with thinly veiled disgust.

I hid my reaction at her obvious lack of concern for poor Kristi. No wonder she was so frazzled yesterday.

“Anyways, since you’re still the assistant, I’d appreciate it if you could bring me my coffee and breakfast early,” Marissa clicked into her office and shut the door before I could respond.

I went to pick up my assigned phone and then headed out to get the bagels and coffee. The day started out slow as the line at the bagel shop was exponentially long and the wait for coffee was just as painful. Marissa was going to kill me. Instead of having her breakfast thirty minutes early, I had it in the same time it normally took me.

“Christina, you’re back, thank goodness. Two of the models who were supposed to do the Armani shoot tonight caught food poisoning at some restaurant they were at and Marissa is freaking out trying to replace them. Grab a few model profiles and start calling,” Jennie said, handing me a stack of contacts and I went to put out breakfast before sitting at my desk with the other frazzled assistants calling away.

The first name on my stack was a Jeffrey Bates, the number was to his assistant, though, and not Jeffrey himself. That was weird. I wondered if he was that high up in the modeling world that he had to have an assistant talk to his modeling agency.

I managed to book Jeffrey for the shoot and another model who fit the description Armani was after. Marissa came striding out of her office and told me again how she wished Kristi wasn’t pregnant. I thought that was her way of thanking me. The rest of the day, though, went by just the same as all the others. I was a glorified errand girl. With Kristi out and Marissa thinking I should have her job,

she gave me all of Kristi’s work to do on top of everything else. Yet, I was still being paid the same damn salary. Intermittently throughout the day, I found myself also wishing Kristi wasn’t pregnant.

“Alright Christina, are you ready to go? I know you had a tough workload today. Don’t worry, I plan to give you a much needed bonus for it.” Marissa stepped out of her office with her bag and keys. I stood up from my desk, not completely sure if she said she’d give me “a much needed bonus.”

“Maybe then you can afford to buy yourself a cell phone for Christ’s sake,” she mumbled and a wide grin spread across my face. Well, maybe I actually was getting somewhere with the job…maybe. I followed Marissa to the shoot and she ordered me to freshen my makeup before we went in.

I sat in my car and studied my features as I touched up my mascara, lipstick and powdered my nose. I was pretty enough. Marissa had high standards and would certainly not hire anyone less than “model worthy themselves”, or so she said.

I really didn’t see it. Yeah, I had a nice bone structure, feminine with nice cheekbones, I had dimples and a nice smile. My nose wasn’t overpowering on my face. My lips were full and my chocolate brown skin smooth from my Caribbean roots. I had nice eyes, though, they were a caramel color, framed by thick lashes and my eyebrows had a natural arch to them. I seldom had to get my eyebrows done. I was also blessed with manageable curly black hair, so I didn’t have many of the problems other girls with my skin tone had with their hair.

Thinking about hair made me remember my mom. She grew up in Jamaica and came to the USA for school and that’s when she met my father, who was also Jamaican, and they had me. She swore up and down that I was adopted because my hair was so different from hers.

Of course, she was joking and made sure I knew I was theirs. She had pictures all over the house of me when I was a baby, of her in the hospital with me just having been born. A tear sneaked down my face and I quickly dabbed it away. I couldn’t get lost in thoughts of my parents, not now.

I pulled myself together and met Marissa at the front of the hotel where the Armani people were shooting. Marissa gave me a once over and nodded in approval. “You have good genes; you could go into modeling, you know. Perhaps not on such a grand scale as Armani or Vogue, but your face could be seen in Targets everywhere.” I looked over at Marissa and wondered if she was serious. She made eye contact with me and I saw that she was and meant what she said as some sort of compliment.

“Um…thank you, but I’m not one for modeling, I’m too shy.” Marissa shrugged her shoulder dismissively as if it made no difference to her. I discreetly shook my head and we went into the Waldorf Astoria and headed back to the private bar that was reserved for the shoot.

“There are my beautiful men. Where’s Stephan? Why haven’t we started yet?” It was really weird, but Marissa went truly soft when it came to her “beautiful men.” She almost coddled them and made sure they were well taken care of.

“Christina! Come and help Mister Bates here with his tie, I have my hands full with the other two…” My eyes widened at the nearly suggestive way Marissa said that. But I quickly schooled my expression before fully turning towards her. She was only helping them track down the photographer…I hope. I watched Marissa leave with the other two models and then I walked over to a very tall, dark, and handsome Jeffrey Bates. He looked even better in person than he did on his headshot. Well, really, all the guys did, but he had something special about him.