All I Want For Christmas Is You - Vi Keeland Page 0,18

I couldn’t imagine him not handling him with care.

Then there were the many charities I knew he donated to. Anytime I tried to ask him about them, he just blew me off. But I worked for him. I saw the good he did without wanting accolades for it.

And all of his staff were competitively paid. If one of them had a personal problem that was interfering with their duties, Reid had instructed Nicola, our Human Resource Manager, to create a supportive environment for them and to put measures in place to help them.

His staff were a priority.

When I mentioned this he just replied, ‘Happy staff are productive staff. Productive staff bring in more sales.’

All that was true, but I still thought he was a big softie, really.

For the last six months, I’d seen Reid with two women up close and personal. The first was Anushka. She and Reid had been dating for three months before I appeared. His PA before me was a lovely older lady called Janet. She’d retired.

Anushka was unhappy that Reid’s new PA was a twenty-two-year-old, not entirely unattractive (I hoped) woman. Again, Patrick filled me in on that. After about two months working for Reid, Anushka grew increasingly paranoid about me. At her jealous insistence that Reid fire me, he fired Anushka instead.

Emmy appeared on the scene about a month later.

And she was the worst.

While I truly got the sense Anushka had genuine feelings for Reid, all Emmy saw was Reid’s success and what his money could do for her. Patrick told me (if you hadn’t already guessed my big brother was a bloody gossip!) that Reid had to stop at his mum’s house in Dalkeith one night while Emmy was with him. Despite Reid wanting to buy his mum a nice house somewhere else, she didn’t want to leave. Instead, he paid off her mortgage. The darling man.

Anyway, back to the story. So Reid goes to Annie’s to drop off the new phone he’d insisted on buying her when her old one broke and Emmy had stayed in his car, dramatically terrified to get out of it as if Dalkeith was the ghetto. While the estate we grew up in was a little run down and very working class, the insinuation that it was dangerous was insulting. Patrick had been pissed when Reid told him Emmy had said “he was never to bring her back to that dump again”. Reid had just shrugged it off. When I asked Patrick why, he said Reid wasn’t serious about her. He was just interested in their sexual relationship, so there was no point getting upset about her attitude.

I got upset.

Mostly at the reminder that the snooty cow got to have sex with Reid.

Reid who looked after his body with the same careful discipline he brought to all areas of his life. There was a staff gym on the top floor that Reid used first thing in the morning, every morning.

I’d once found him in there, shirtless.

The image was BURNED on my brain.

“I don’t care how many men would die to have you in your bed,” Reid was saying to Emmy. “Go find one of them.”

“What?!” Emmy screeched.

I winced.

There was a moment of silence and then, “I called you in here to discuss the charges on my store tab. I’m not a man you can use like this, Emmy.”

“Use you? I’m using you,” she said indignantly. “As if you aren’t using me. Reid, I’m at your bloody beck and call. You do realize that’s not how normal relationships work? They’re about give and take. Outside of the bedroom, you’re all about take. Surely, a little compensation for being one step up from an escort isn’t a lot to ask.”

“An escort?” he replied coolly.

I knew that tone. If Reid wasn’t happy before, he really wasn’t happy now.

“Yes, an escort. And I’m worth more than that. You think you can break up with me? I’m breaking up with you.” Footsteps moved toward the door and I skittered quickly back to my desk, staring at my computer like I hadn’t been eavesdropping.

The door to Reid’s office opened and I heard Emmy say, “You’re an unfeeling bastard, Reid, and you’re going to die alone for it.”

I tried not to let my jaw drop in shock at her awful snipe.

She stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her with a little slam. She cut me a dirty look and strolled away.

“Good riddance,” I called out to her as if I was calling