I wasn't expecting life to be so freakishly annoying, really. I mean, just who the hell was Dylan to tell me I couldn't quit my job just yet? Sure, store managers are a thing and they have their policies and stuff, but seriously. This wasn't an opportunity I wanted to be horsing around. Fuck notice periods. How had I not factored in this stupid concept when I agreed with Aiden's proposal?

"There's no way to get out of this?" I asked for the last time, staring at the ceiling instead. Dylan's shabby office was hardly a sight to take pleasure in anyways. Brian would have found a way. Brian would have known how to make it all go away.

"Well unless you have $10,000 lying around, nope."

"Ten grand!" My voice cracked, "You think you guys pay me enough to have ten fucking grand lying around?"

"I know you don't. That's why notice periods are a thing. So the company doesn't lose-"

"I've had a year at B-school, Dylan." I interrupted him, "I know why. That doesn't mean I'm happy about it. Especially for a freaking Sales Associate. You can find college girls willing to take this role in minutes. I don't see why you're making this so hard for me."

"You're making it hard for yourself sweetheart," God, I hated when he called me endearing terms, "It's a contract, you signed it and now you have to honour it."

An idea struck me, "Fire me then."

"What? On what grounds? You were the employee of the month three times in a row!"

"Well, I slept in the stock room for two hours yesterday. Everyone thought I was checking inventory." Dylan did not look convinced, "One time I took a sweater back from a customer without a receipt just so she could leave me the fuck alone."

Dylan's face was impassive, and I knew I would have to dig my head deeper into the rabbit hole of shame to actually get any damage done.

"Last month a lady pissed me off for two whole hours straight so I kept accidentally giving her clothes a size smaller than she needed and I felt very happy when she had a breakdown in the changing rooms."

Nothing. Seriously? I'd felt disgusting about myself for a whole week and Dylan had nothing to say?

"I stole one of the new perfume sample sticks last year around Christmas."

"Darling, I'm not paid enough to care about these things." He brushed me off, "Now get back to work, it doesn't look like a busy day but the clothes from the basket need to be put back on display."

Groaning, I walked out of the stuffy cabin, hands immediately busy sending a text to Aiden to update him about the situation.

Seeing the message was delivered, I put my phone in my pocket, trudging down the trial room to pick up the clothes people had discarded. I hated this job more than anything, and I even had a ticket out, but I was freaking trapped and I hated it. I had tears welling up in my eyes that I brushed away before walking onto the floor, racks of clothing waiting to be filled.

Kylie pulled me aside just as I was lining up some cropped hoodies, "Girl you look like you've lost someone, pull it together."

I nodded, sniffling and composing myself as much as I could. Fix your eyes, fix your nose, fix your cheeks. I arranged all hoodies according to size before heading to the back again, trying to group as many clothes to make my job easier. The only good thing happening today was that there weren't a lot of people in the trial rooms today, and that meant lesser clothes to add to my burden. Whoever was on this duty yesterday had been seriously slacking, and I wanted to give them an earful when I realized that it had been my job yesterday, and while I should have been doing this, I had slept on the floor of the stock room.

I stopped the process to help a woman zip up a pair of jeans that she swore was the right size, until I offered to get her another style that would fit her better. Why do women always think they know their size and how do they always fail to get it right? Collecting a few options, I headed back to the trial rooms, ending up satisfying her with blue high waist jeans with flared bottoms. She'd been taking low waist skinny fit. How the two aligned in her head was beyond me, but as long as she was satisfied, well. It worked.

Back to sorting and arranging clothes. As soon as I had ten tee shirts from the same rack in my hands, I headed out again to put them in their place. What a waste. A four-year-old could do this job if his legs allowed it. And here I was, wasting away my brilliance.

In a way, it was cruel, really. I had given the dream up a long time ago. There was no reason for Aiden Steele to just barge into my life and take over my routine. Just when I had been settling for mediocrity....

For the second time in the day, Kylie pulled me away from the racks, this time excitement all over her wide brown eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell what?"

"You sly minx! You've managed to snag the hottest bachelor in all of the world, and you didn't even tell me!"

I narrowed my eyes, following her gaze to the strangest sight in the world, Aiden Steele, wearing Armani, standing in a GAP store, having a conversation with Dylan and actually managing to make him laugh. Dylan and laughing weren't exactly synonymous. "What the hell is he doing here?"

"Tell me what site you've been using! I've practically seen every site for sugar babies, but all men are disgusting-"

"He's not my sugar daddy, Kylie!" I whisper-screamed, face heating up.

"Thea?" Dylan called me at just that moment, leaving Kylie with curious eyes, accusation and determination all over her face. She really wanted to get to the bottom of all this.

I handed the remaining tee-shirts to her, rushing over, questions all over my face.

"I'd call this business advice, but it's just common sense to answer your phone whenever someone calls you. Especially when it's multiple calls." Aiden's eyes bore through mine, the square of his jaw looking more defined and somehow dangerous.

"I was working," I defended myself when in reality I just didn't realize when his phone had gone off.

As if it was possible, his jaw clenched even more. He looked at Dylan once, before turning back, "Get your stuff, we're leaving." Seeing me open my mouth again, he stopped me before I could say something stupid, "No questions. I've handled your situation with your manager. Let's go now."

Fine, I'll ask later.

I headed to the back, grabbing my bag and hoodie from the lockers and more or less sprinting out of the store. Kylie's jaw dropped, seeing Aiden open the door to his black Jaguar for me before settling in the driver's seat. I waved at her through the window, a bubbly feeling building inside my chest seeing her practically glued to the glass of the store window.

'Call me,' she signalled, and I knew she would not leave any stone unturned to find out what the fuck just happened.

I would tell her, if I could just figure it out myself, honestly.

"Put your seatbelt on," Aiden told me as he pulled out, cursing the traffic on the busy street.

"Can I ask how you managed to get me out of work in three minutes when I spent like an hour convincing him and he wouldn't budge?"

"Just guess between me and you, who does he like more?" He asked, absent-minded again.

It made sense, but still....

"But I am under contract still, so-"

"He fired you. You'll get your documents and last paycheck in a week."

That pig! I'd even counted every single crime in front of me and he hadn't so much so as batted an eyelid.

"On what grounds?"

"Does it matter? You got what you wanted." We stopped at a red light, and he turned the music to something classical, which of course I didn't recognize. Anyway, it seemed like the end of the conversation, so I stared out of the window, just seeing the city pass by.

We pulled up at Steele Park again, having no trouble getting through the reception as Aiden walked with me to the elevator. Mary did not look thrilled by my presence, but really, neither was I. If I was her employer, I would have wanted her out. No one wanted an unwelcoming face at the reception. Unless, of course, Aiden preferred it that way so he could avoid random people showing up to meet him and wasting his time. Ever so often I would see his eyes on me, most definitely glaring for some reason before staring straight ahead.

"You still haven't read my messages, have you?" He said finally, pressing the button to go up.

"My phone died," I showed him the black screen. He sighed, running a hand over his face. It was clearly a lot for him to handle than he'd originally thought of. As we waited, a couple of people joined us in the queue as well, and I had a feeling it would be a cramped as fuck elevator ride. What on earth were people doing moving around so much at this hour?

I overheard two girls talking about how a third was being really bitchy over lunch and realized that lunch hour was coming to an end, and these people must be resuming their jobs. I had planned on making good on Kylie's promise for Subway today and hadn't packed any lunch, so I would have to figure something out eventually. Or I could just hydrate myself enough to keep going till whenever Aiden wanted to keep me here.

The elevators opened, and Aiden and I were first to get in, the swarm following. The more people entered, the more I doubted the capacity of the thing. Surely having like a billion people wasn't safe for the elevator. To make space, I was pushed to the left, stumbling over my feet straight to Aiden, who steadied me with a hand on my shoulder. Someone pushed on to us from the front, more or less leaning her entire body on me for support, trapping Aiden's hand on me.

Shit. My life was getting cliché like a Bollywood movie.

The gates slid over, cutting off a few hopefuls that wanted to come in too, proceeding upwards. If Aiden's office wasn't thirty-five fucking floors up, I would have suggested taking the stairs. But I knew my body was horribly out of shape, and I would have died by the time we reached the seventh floor. I doubted Aiden would have the patience to carry me up, which meant my body would be left to rot on the stairwell, which was definitely not how I wanted to die.

I'd had conversations about death a while back, and I'd decided that even in death I must be doing something colourful. I'd seen Instagram ads about becoming a firecracker after the cremation and that was the way I wanted to go.

As the floors rose, people started getting off, giving me space to move away from Aiden's uncomfortable touch and that lady's coarse hair tickling me. I mean, Aiden was only doing the normal thing, but he was being a little too kind, a little too nice, and over the years I'd just learnt to accept that no one was kind to you for the sake of kindness anyway. Everyone, and literally everyone had their own agendas, and we were all wheels in the grand scheme of things to somehow benefit each other and eventually wither away.

I hadn't quite figured what Aiden wanted, but whatever it was, I was sure I could handle it. $400,000 wasn't easy to come by.

We walked past the receptionist on his floor and quickly made it to the corridor of his office, where Aiden seemed to relax ever so slightly, "Lydia, can you bring the new contract to my office? Two copies. And please take Ms Thea's bag and coat."

Lydia was on her feet before Aiden had finished speaking, taking my bag and hoodie off my hands and put them on her desk, "I'll bring the copies right away. Your lunch is ready and waiting in the back office, let me know when I can heat it for you."

Lydia walked away and I just stared at her legs before shaking myself out of it. Jesus. She was clearly being a good assistant, and here I was only ever noticing her legs. I needed to stop being so god damn jealous of people having the physical traits I wanted.

"Have you eaten lunch?" Aiden asked, opening the office door and motioning me inside. Embarrassingly, I didn't even have to duck under his arm to walk in, being short and not wearing heels on the daily was a curse, truly.

"No, you came right before lunch break started," I said.

"I'll ask Lydia to show you some places in the Park, you can eat there after we go over your contract. I'm assuming you have a basic understanding of how contracts go?"

I nodded. If by basic understanding he meant the one class in Business Laws that I slept through, then yes, I understood contracts.

"Good. Makes my work easier. Here's the deal-" Of course there was a catch to this $400,000. Good thing that I had calculated my risks. "You can't tell anyone the real reason you're here. I won't go into the details, but you just, can't tell I'm investing in your business plan. As far as anyone in the office knows, there is no business plan at all."

Lydia came in just then, bringing two folders with her, "Anything else, Mr Steele?"

"No, Lydia. Thank you." He dismissed her politely.

He went over the NDA with me, and despite my nervousness, I asked him questions where I was confused. The good thing was, Aiden wasn't rushing through things and he never made me feel like a fool for not knowing something. He was calm as he spoke, and more than once, I found myself losing my mind in his deep voice before being brought back to reality.

Theodora really did not have a grip on her life whatsoever.

The details of the NDA were pretty simple, really. As far as anyone in the world was concerned, Aiden was investing in no business plan until July of 2019.

If this matter came to light by breach of contract on my end, I would owe Aiden a million dollars and would also lose the seed funding. So basically, I had to take this to the grave. Not like I had a million dollars in my name anyways. What the hell did Aiden think I was?

When we were done reading, I signed in all the necessary places, happy that I would finally get to put some food into my system. Apparently, Aiden had other plans. He promptly closed the first folder and opened the second one, which damn near made me cry.

Lucky for us, Lydia popped back in to remind Aiden of his pending meal. Aiden looked lost in thought for a second before telling her to give the food away and that he'd be gone for an hour or so. "No messages or calls except home, alright?"

"Sure." She nodded, almost leaving before coming back again, "Should I inform Mike you're coming? It's past service hours."

How on earth does she even know what he was going to do? I had always thought of Donna as an exaggerated character, but maybe some assistants truly knew their boss better than anyone else.

"Call Tomatina instead, we'll be discussing the rest of the contract there."

I almost wanted to ask if he was insane. But then I was reminded how stupidly rich he was, and that he could afford tacos costing $40. Technically, with the means he had, Aiden Steele was going to a very low-end restaurant. I wondered if it was because of me, but my thoughts were put on hold by Aiden already standing at the door, "Aren't you hungry?"

Yes, yes I was. 

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Pari C