Chapter 1
"Good morning Ms Ava..." my assistant Christie says to me as she walks me to my office. This is our everyday routine, if she doesn't take a taxi or the car with me, she waits for me at the entrance of the office building, tells me my schedule for the day while walking me to my office. I am 26years old, and I am currently the editor of a growing fashion magazine...
"Good morning Christie... when are you going to drop the Ms, and just call me Ava? I know its formality first, but Ms Ava makes me feel really old...what does my day look like today?"
I know it's not easy working for me. I've heard a lot of things about me... but to be something in this world, you're going to be a lot of things people don't like... I am a 26 year old black female, how much harder does it get? And even with all the obstacles I face, I try make it easy for the staff... I'm a very friendly person; I'm just not the most approachable person when you don't know me personally.
"Sorry, I forget that you'd rather be called Ava... anyway your schedule for today, is a tad bit busy, at half 9 you have an editor's meeting in the boardroom, you also have a meeting with an up and coming designer from South Africa at 10, Nicco Rabatti's assistant called to confirm the meeting, says that he is only available this afternoon, so I booked you for that too..."
"Oh, is that all? I don't have any more meetings?"
"Uhm, well you did, but I had to reschedule them because Nicco prefers to do interviews throughout the entire day, and he's expecting you at 11 am..."
Seriously? Who is this guy? I mean I've heard he's the biggest douchebag in New York City... but is he serious? I can't be missing out on meetings because of him? I have work to do... I'll just have to give him a piece of my mind when I see him...
"Hello...Ms... I mean Ava... are you okay"
"Yes, thank you Christie. I kinda just zoned out there for a bit. I'll be in my office until the editor's meeting"
Walking away from my assistant I thought of my life. I love my job and what I do; being an editor for a fashion magazine at such a young age isn't so easy. This industry is filled with many weird and evil sharks and they bite. But I try and I try very hard, I hardly have a social life because my first priority is the magazine and its success... and now this asshole Nicco Rabatti wants to slow me down... I can't seem to put a face to the name... what does it matter? I've decided that I don't like him. Who does he think he is anyway?
I have an hour to kill until my 9am, time to start working. This month's issue is really awesome; our fashion spread is inspired by 10 young and booming designers, who've just entered the industry. I need to organise the story board for that... I have a few pieces from our writer's to read too. Let's get started with that...
Picking up an article by one of the interns, I quickly read through it, I like this piece; it's about shoes and what they say about us... I need to speak to the writer tomorrow, better get Christie to set up an appointment.
"Yes Ava"
"Hey Christie, can you please book a meeting for me with Nicole, the intern, for tomorrow... after lunch?"
"Okay, will do"
"Thanks..."
As I was about to read through another article my phone rings, the biggest mistake I made, was answering without checking the caller i.d. now I have one of my girlfriends chewing my ear off. Why me?
"AVA!"
"Gee Lee, I can hear you." I say while rolling my eyes. I silently laugh to myself, because had she been there, and seen me rolling my eyes at her, she would have flipped out at me...
Lee and I continued to chat; we probably would have been on the phone longer had I not checked the time. I got off the phone with Lee and got my stuff together and quickly headed to the boardroom for the meeting. How am I going to do this, these meetings usually last long, I just hope that we can fit everything in. An hour seems like much, but it's not really, with brainstorming and going over the ideas that we have and perfecting things, it's really not.
I've been in the boardroom for 45 minutes already and we're not getting anywhere; this is when my job sucks. When the ideas lead us to dead ends, very little is accomplished.
I quickly excused myself from the meeting and headed to my meeting with the South African designer. She has the most beautiful clothing I've seen in a long time. I even tried on a few of her dresses, my body felt so great wrapped up in all the different types of materials. We even had time to chat a bit. I really like the girl, we ended up switching contacts, said we'd keep in touch. With 30minutes left to spare I called Christie to confirm my 11 o'clock.
With that confirmed, that gave me 30minutes to head to the jerk's office. 25minues later, I arrived at one of the most beautiful buildings I've seen in a really long time. I quickly made my way into the building and took the elevator up to the 15th floor. When the doors opened I couldn't believe my eyes.
This looks like one of those custom made offices that you see in the movies, only difference is that the decorations in this office look like artefacts you'd find in a museum. How much money do these people make? I mean I'm pretty sure that these kinds of things don't come at a cheap price.
I walked up to the receptionist's desk, and sitting behind the desk was an old woman with grey hair and the friendliest face I've seen in my whole life, these people are rare, it's so refreshing. Just from looking at her, I could tell that she was a really beautiful woman in her days, not that she's not now, she looks really good, she even kind of looks like Juliet Andrews.
"Hi, I'm Ava Jones; I'm here for my 11 o'clock appointment with Mr Nicco Rabatti."
"Ah yes, I'm Mary, Nic's assistant and part-time mother, he's expecting you, please have a seat while I let him know that you're here. I'll be just a minute."
And two minutes later (I checked) she returned with a smile on her face and said "Alright he's being a baby, but he's ready to see you, I told him that this is one interview he can't pass out on. I'm pretty sure that you two are going to hit it off"
"We'll see about that" I said under my breath. We walked past a few offices and now we're face to face with big oak doors. Mary then turns to face me and says "he's actually a very nice guy, he isn't as bad as the papers and gossip magazines make him out to be. And I know he may seem like a big arrogant jerk for making you spend the entire day with him just for an interview, but he has his reasons."
I look at her and nod my head. I didn't know what else to say, I guess she took my nodding my head as a go ahead to open the door. She entered his office and said "She's here, and you better be on your best behaviour", she walked out and said to me "Well have fun darling, hope to see you again".
I stepped into the office and there was a man in a very nice suit sitting at his desk with his head bowed down signing some papers. I stood there for a full minute (yeah I counted) waiting for the man to acknowledge me, I mean come on, Mary did tell him that I'm here, shouldn't he be waiting with a smile on his face, ready to be interviewed? Is this guy really trying to test me? I turned around walked to the door, opened it and slammed it, turned back around, staring at me was the best looking, most beautiful and the hottest man I've ever seen in my whole entire life. And his face was covered in total shock from the scene I just pulled. Well THAT got his attention.
On the other side of the city Nicco Rabatti, one of the city's most eligible bachelors was sitting in his office starring at the skyline, thinking about his life...his love life...
I'm Nicco Rabatti, rich, not bad in the looks department, great personality, very accomplished, yet I can't seem to meet my perfect girl, a woman who won't love my money first, who won't want to be with me because I'm a rich bachelor/playboy. Why can't I just find a woman whose going to love me for me? Most girls I meet want to sleep with me, hoping that I'll propose the next morning asking them to have my kids, and no matter how much of a jerk I am, they keep throwing themselves at me. At first I enjoyed having so many good looking women throwing themselves at me, I felt like I was the best thing since wrestling, I felt like I was untouchable, and look that feeling is nice for a certain period, but it's not a feeling
I like present all the time.
I hate coming home to an empty house, I hate not having someone to touch, someone to call my own. I just want to settle down now; I'm tired of being the douchebag playboy.
And that's why I'm doing an interview later today; I just want to set the record straight. I'm not the guy that the media makes me out to be. I'm excited to do this interview, and that's why I asked Mary to postpone any appoints I had set for today. This interview is to be done from afternoon till evening. I just hope that the person doing the interview is a guy; I feel that will make things easier for me. The interviewer will be easier to bond with ...seeing as he's a guy and all, I mean we guys pretty much have a 'bro code' that gets us through a lot of sticky situations. And guys are easier to bond with.
"Nicco, your 11 o'clock is here, should I let her through?" my assistant Mary says to me.
Did she just say "she", are the gods against me? Have I seriously been so much of a bad boy? I tried to put on the best face I could master up.
"Uhm sure... Mary...you can bring her through". Even that sounded sour and strange to me, the tone sounded so unfamiliar to my ears. And the expression on Mary's face just pretty much confirmed my thoughts.
"Look, she seems like a very nice girl, I'm pretty sure the interview will go very well. You don't have to worry about her twisting your words, I did a background check on her, and she's clean. She seems like an honest person. Let's just try this out, see how it goes."
I just continued starring at Mary like she was a foreign species of human.
