With an opportunity of a lifetime to make her entrepreneurial dreams come true, Thea finds it getting increasingly harder to hide her attraction to her boss, Aiden Steele - not knowing that the man under all the cold layers has a secret worth millio...
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On most days, I looked in the mirror and convinced myself that I was a pre-fairy godmother Cinderella. Someday I will leave this world behind and live in my own fairytale. But for now, I had to be worried about dumb things like making rent for this month. I was a couple hundred short, which meant I would have to pick up several extra shifts and still beg Carson not to kick me out, an embarrassing task I was not looking forward to. Working in retail sucked more than most places, but if I had to put food on the table, I would have to end up doing more. When Sera offered me a night's job serving champagne to rich bastards at the club her cousin worked at, I didn't waste a second in saying yes.
I knew the rich tipped well, and I knew that my smile should ideally win awards elsewhere. I had the face of a model, my mother says, which I know is a little biased, but it did often help me get my way with people. A smile, a charming dimple, and a lot of people were practically slime.
Here I stood outside Negative a glowing hole in the dark, preparing myself for a night of brain-numbing bass and ugly rich people being entitled as fuck. But hey, whatever paid the bills, right? I looked down at my simple uniform. Black polo, black jeans, black heels. I was glad Negative was one of the places that did not make waitresses wear skirts, for their safety.
"Ah, Theodora, you're here," Pablo met me at the steps leading me in, "Hey, boss man! Check out Stacey's replacement." He called to a man in a suit, whose back was to us. During the daytime, it just felt wrong to be standing in a club. The floors were devoid of vomit and alcohol, the lights were all wrong and most conspicuously, there was no music that scared me within an inch of my life.
I smiled politely as he came to inspect me, taking a long, cold look before just exhaling a 'hmph'. What a fun boss to be around. Then he walked away, leaving me confused. This was truly the first time in my life no one had melted at my smile. I didn't like this feeling one bit, even if I was aware of how entitled I was being.
"Okay, good thing that he likes you. Now, you'll be serving in the VIP area, so that's around here," Pablo led me to the floor above, where there was a commotion of sorts. "There's a huge party tonight, it's Jason Emerson's birthday."
Was I supposed to know who that was?
Pablo stared at me, "Jason Emerson? The marketing whiz from Steele?"
Oh yes, of course. The guy who singlehandedly turned the tarnished public image of Kaleidoscope into a business everyone aspired to work for. Also, the guy who put a small-time, hole in the wall bakery called By the Dozen on the map, eventually pushing it to a national scale simply by advertising well. I read about him all the time, and I was amazed by his talents. Had I been interacting with him, I'd be excited, nervous even. But I was simply serving drinks at his party. Why would he care?
Pablo showed me the ropes, glad I had some experience waitressing. I could work well in restaurants and cafes, but clubs were a little out of my domain. If it wasn't for the roof over my head slowly disintegrating, I would have been pickier. Oh well. As the night rolled around, guests started pouring in slowly. The bright lights were all switched off, neon bouncing off the walls and hurting my eyes. The DJ had started warming his stuff up, and people were slowly swaying to the beat, trying to wind off from their hectic weeks.
