Kelley was a short woman with a strong Southern accent and a crazed look in her eyes, who almost jumped out of her seat when I knocked at her cabin. She didn't have the privilege of privacy as Aiden, only glass separating her from the outside world. I wondered how she picked her nose if she ever wanted to. Aiden could be fucking someone in his office and no one would know, it was so quiet and secluded.

I walked in when she motioned me to come and handed over the files saying Mr Steele had sent them. She seemed to be surprised till she opened a file and read its contents, a flash of recognition on her face.

"Take a seat darling, I'll just print out the sheets I wanted to send back and you can take it to him?" I nodded. Sure, I could do that before lunch. I had just about two and a half hours remaining. I'd drop by Jason's thing first and then to Aiden and I'd still have time to spare. Kelley, unfortunately, walked at a snail's pace. She apparently needed at least ten people to do her work and I found myself wanting to scratch her hair off on multiple occasions. Afraid this was another trick of Aiden's, I jumped to my feet to assist her in any way possible. She made me get a few sheets printed from the stationary office on the other end of the hall, and printed some in her own office, making the process go faster. We then arranged the sheets, lucky enough to have page numbers guiding us into a black folder, and it took me a whole of one hour in her office, but I managed to crack the code anyway.

Thanking Kelley with a smile, not letting her know I was onto her, I took the heavy ass folder upstairs, not wanting to piss Aiden off. If I had Jason's number, I could have sent an apology, but a mail would suffice, I suppose. If he ever saw his mails, that is. I tried to keep my frustrations to a minimum on the mail, knowing that the company mails were monitored, but some of it seeped through nonetheless.

Upstairs, another set of challenges waited for me. I had reached a whole hour before lunchtime, but Aiden had been 'busy' according to Lydia so I couldn't drop my folder in just yet. I sat down on the chairs lined outside, narrowing my eyes at her, "This is another one of his tests, isn't it?"

Lydia laughed, making me swear under my breath, "Sadistic cunt."

"You know I could be downstairs, actually learning something from someone actually willing to teach me?" I complained, not happy about missing my opportunity to see Jason and learn whatever he had to say. He'd said I would like it, and I was so freaking sure I would have.

I stared at my phone, seeing a mail notification light the screen up.

Nice to know you found Kelley's office. When you see Aiden, let him know I'll be going out for lunch with you and he's welcome to join.

Did Jason just invite me for lunch? It wasn't an invitation as much as it was a direct declaration, but it was something! I didn't reply at the risk of running farther than my legs could carry me, unsure if Aiden had any more torture tactics up his sleeve. Twenty minutes in, I half considered just barging in and dropping the file. But I doubted that is what Aiden's little game is about.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lydia staring at me, quickly looking away when she noticed me. She had to be the key.

"Hey, Lydia," I started, and she pretended to look up from her computer screen, "Yes, honey?"

"Do you think I can bore you into letting me go in?"

Lydia looked at me funny, but I was determined not to lose my challenge, "Because I have a story to share about the time my friend got fired from Walmart, and it's obviously not interesting enough to keep your attention for long. But it'll distract you enough that you won't be very productive. In fact, you won't be productive at all..."

Lydia shot me a dirty look but didn't say anything. Good, I was making progress.

Ten minutes later, I'd switched topics, "... so everyone started flooding her comments with the snake emoji. And like, she wasn't even in the wrong here, so then she basically just limited her comments and then disappeared for two whole fucking years. Like no one physically saw her at all. And then..."

"Jesus, just go." Lydia dropped her pen on the desk in frustration, staring at me exasperatedly. Smiling in victory, I jumped to my feet, knocking at the door. Hearing the faint 'Come in,' I entered Aiden's office, dropping the folder on his desk, a proud smile on my face. I still had half an hour before lunch break.

He stared at me for a second, before looking through the folder.

"Explain."

How did a small word wield so much power?

"I annoyed Lydia into letting me in." I shrugged. Aiden raised a brow.

"Well, she wasn't letting me go in, so I started talking about this friend from Walmart, and she's like a huge Taylor Swift fan. And then I got kind of sidetracked by the whole Taylor Swift – Kanye West thing so I was talking about that, and it was apparently boring and irritating enough to let me just come in here." I shrugged, a smile on my face noting how proud I was.

"Also, Jason's asked me to invite you for lunch with us," I said before I could forget.

"You're having lunch with Jason?" Aiden turned back to his computer screen, pushing the file away, mild interest in his voice.

"Yeah, he invited me, more like demanded, but whatever. And he said to let you know you're free to join."

Aiden pressed a button on his office phone, connecting to Lydia outside, "Yes, Mr Steele?"

"Bring Emerson to me." Geez, he could say please.

"Right away, sir."

The line cut off with a beep. Aiden vaguely motioned me to take a seat, but I had been tired of sitting on my ass, so I decided to walk around the office in circles.

"Your shoes are annoying me," He commented after a minute, the tapping of heels against the marble being too loud apparently.

"Sorry," I walked over to his desk, taking them off and shoving them in with my bare toes. I admired the pretty baby pink nail paint Basile had picked for me, continuing my stretching, hearing Aiden sigh behind me. What the fuck was he annoyed by now?

Jason walked into the room just then and greeted me with another award-winning smile. Someone better land him a modelling deal asap because the world deserved to see this beauty more often.

"You're shorter," he observed, and I pointed out my bare feet in response. He had an amused smile on his face, turning to greet Aiden with a loud, "What's up boss man?"

They clearly shared a friendship beyond just work, and it was nice to see a real smile on Aiden's face following his grumpy mood since morning.

"Can you take a seat now?" Aiden wasn't even looking at me, but the annoyance was still all over his face. I sat down next to Jason, extending my toes to get my shoes back. While Aiden and Jason discussed business, I took care of my shoes, playing with the small trinkets on my wrist to pass time.

"Have you been listening?" Aiden asked sharply, breaking me out of my actions.

I had been, just not as attentively as I should have been probably. In my defence, I was not told to listen to the conversation or to provide any input.

"You were talking about the meeting with someone investing in Steele Entertainment, and it didn't go as well as you planned. So, you're hoping for another spot to convince him, but you haven't quite figured out how you're going to do that." I summarized to the best of my abilities, feeling like a schoolgirl caught zoning out in English class.

"What was this investor's name?"

Fuck.

"I can't - I can't recall."

There. Aiden's distressed face turned into a sinister smile, happy that he'd found a chink in the armour. I'd been hella persistent and a bit of an overachiever all morning, and this is where I'd slipped. I'd fucked up, and Aiden had me right where he wanted me. How fun.

"I don't think Thea can join us for lunch today." Aiden had a hawk-like gaze on me, waiting for me to throw a childish tantrum. I looked apologetically at Jason, who had nothing but sympathy for me in his eyes. I turned my eyes back at Aiden, staring at him with a dead look. If he thinks he affected me, he was so fucking wrong.

"You can stay here and help Lydia type out this proposal before taking a lunch break." I nodded, getting out of my seat to start working. Jason held the door for me, only talking once the door was fully shut.

"I should have helped you, I guess. I didn't know he'd cancel lunch just like that."

I rolled my eyes, "He would have found a way to cancel it either way. Sadist."

Jason laughed, before shaking his head, "Not really. It'll pass soon." I hoped so. He really didn't have to be so fucking bipolar with me. "How long is your internship for?"

"Three months,"

"We'll have other chances to have lunch," He said, and I agreed, we'd find the time. We had to.

Lydia threw work at me and I drowned in it, burying my head into the drafting at my new desk, close to Lydia's. The walls around me were dull as hell and I thought of bringing some colour to my desk at least, if not the rest of this place. My unicorn tumbler was the brightest object in all vicinity, currently running dangerously low on water.

I asked Lydia if she wanted a refill, and grabbed both bottles to take to the break room. The water dispenser was awfully slow and it pissed me off, but I wouldn't let all of that affect my mood. Not when Aiden Steele was already having a steel grip on my emotions. Which was not fair, really. I laughed at my steel joke in my head, a splutter coming through my lips anyway.

"Something funny?"

I turned to the source of the voice, finding a tall, stunning woman pouring herself some coffee in a Tangled themes mug. We could be friends.

"Nothing, sorry." I shook out of my daze.

"I haven't seen you around here," she observed.

"I started today. Interning under Mr Steele." I explained and she nodded, looking in deep thought. I shut the lid of my tumbler with a click, sort of shaking her out of her thoughts.

"I'm Alison," she extended her hand out and I shook on it, "Thea."

"That Thea?" She asked, almost like it was an insult.

"Which Thea?"

"The receptionist downstairs doesn't like you, does she?"

"I think Mary would be happy to see my head being paraded on a stick," I said truthfully. If she was one of Mary's friends, she could report back to her and try some dumb shit. But I wasn't opposed to some office politics. I'd had my fair share of dumb people trying to beat me down in every single job, and this wouldn't be my first game.

"Then I guess you should sleep with one eye open," She noted finally.

"You can ask her to do the same." I rolled my eyes, grabbing both bottles and walking out of the room. If she had a response, I didn't hear it.

Back at my desk, I was hydrated and ready to get a crack on the draft one more time. When I came back, Aiden was just leaving the room with Jason in tow. Aiden walked past without a second glance, while Jason had the decency to acknowledge me at least. Lydia and I found a rhythm to work with that made work go ten times as fast. I didn't fully understand what I was writing, but Lydia helped me fill in the blanks. Steele's export wing was collaborating with a port trust, and it involved seven-digit numbers that I had no business being near to. The hallway to Aiden's office was secluded and barely had any sound, which is why when there was a distinct clacking of heels on the marble floor, Lydia and I both looked up.

I almost wanted to roll my eyes at Alison. She didn't even try to hide her disdain towards me. She stopped at my desk, hands hovering over the glass and staining it with her fingerprints. God, what an asshole.

"Can I help you with something?" I asked, a sweet smile on her face. Lydia watched us with interest but stayed out of the conversation.

"I'm not going to be your messenger," she gritted her teeth, and I could see in her eyes that she was simply following orders. This woman was scared.

"Oh, but you already are," I shrugged, returning back to my screen as if anything she said didn't interest me, "You sure did tell Mary what I said about her, didn't you?"

I wasn't really reading, just typing gibberish on the screen at this point. I just wanted to appear busy. A quick glance upwards showed me that Alison was still finding a response. Follower, not a leader, I assessed. To send my message across and to make her go away from my desk, I leaned forward in my seat, "I sure do hope you've passed on all your plans and information anywhere except the company's message system. You know those things are monitored, right?"

Alison's face paled, but she was quick to recover. Oh my god, what a bunch of rookies. Company emails were always monitored. You couldn't find the company in a scandal because one employee decided to buy meth online. She backed away from my desk, walking away hastily. Before she could even turn out of the corridor, I saw her pressing her phone to her ear, speaking in hushed tones.

Go report to Mary.

I backspaced the entire crap I'd written, resuming work. Lydia expressed mild interest, and I told her what happened without a lot of detail.

"I try to keep myself away from these things," she told me, "Assistants basically run the whole building. You never know when you need someone's help. If you pick a side in this, you're stuck forever. Now if you want something done from Vivian, for example, you'll have to talk to me first and I'll have to convince her to do anything for you. It's just messy."

I pursed my lips; I hadn't seen that coming. In all fairness, Mary had picked the fight first. I was minding my own business. Of course, none of these things would matter when it was time to get some work done, and I wondered just how much influence I could be able to wield by Aiden's name.

"Do you want to take a break for lunch?" Lydia asked, cracking her knuckles. I looked at the time. It was way past lunch hour. Aiden hadn't returned yet, but I didn't want him to catch me slacking.

"I'm good for now. You should take a break though, your eyes..."

"Have bags, I know. Too much screen time does it to a forty-year-old." I almost gasped.

"You're forty? What the hell!" I was so jealous. To have skin like hers and a face and a body like hers at forty would be a fucking dream. I could already feel my skin sagging at the mention of my thirties.

"It's all in the yoga, baby." She winked, before grabbing her lunch and walking away.

What the fuck. I was only twenty-six and I sometimes left felt like I had a foot in the grave. Especially after a night of cheap wine and cheap cheese. I needed to start with yoga. By the time Aiden came back, I was almost done with my part of the writing, even picking up some bits from Lydia.

"Where's Lydia?"

"Lunch," I answered, keeping my eyes on the screen so I wouldn't lose track of the line I was filling.

"And you've had yours?"

"Not yet."

I didn't have a second to react before Aiden's hand came down, shutting my laptop in the middle of a sentence.

"Go eat." He ordered plainly.

"I'll wait for Lydia to come back, then I can go."

Lydia came back minutes later, so I informed her of Aiden's arrival and took up my essentials for lunch – food, phone and earphones. Whenever I got my first cheque from Steele Enterprises, I would spend it on a new phone first. The screen was cracked, which made watching movies hard, and the back button was losing functionality.

As my rice and vegetables were reheated in the break room, I browsed through the movie selection available on my pirated site, settling on a Korean drama. I hadn't seen an episode in ages, finding myself quickly engrossed in the high school setting. My lunch was amazing but too heavy for me to finish it all, so I packed up the remaining food again, getting back to my desk.

Lydia filled me in with the assignment and I worked much faster now that I had some food in my system. Aiden called me in his office one more time to read out a document to him while he played with a stress ball, getting annoyed when I would fumble or repeat words. It broke his chain of thoughts apparently. Pig.

"You're done for the day, go home." He said, in the middle of me reading a sentence. I shut the folder with much more force than necessary, dropping it on his desk before heading out. Lydia was rearranging a couple of things and I asked her if she needed help.

Very kindly, she told me to go home and take some well-deserved rest. I had survived my first day and the rest of my time here should be easier than this. I hoped so too.

Tomorrow should be easier.

Casual reminder to follow me on Instagram if you haven't yet. It's @potionandpoetry where I post poetry [duh] writing-related updates and just generally share memes and become a nuisance.

I hope you liked this chapter, and I'll see you in the next update on Friday - same time!