Chapter 1 - The Woman Who Wasn’t Afraid of Graham Mercer
Nobody at Westbridge Advisory bothered learning the new assistants’ birthdays anymore.
There was no point.
The record was thirty-eight days.
Thirty-eight days before Graham Mercer, the millionaire founder and CEO of one of Chicago’s fastest-growing private investment firms, managed to make another intelligent, professionally trained adult decide that unemployment sounded healthier than working outside his office.
One woman had lasted nine days and mailed back her security badge in a padded envelope without a note.
A former executive assistant from a Fortune 500 company made it twenty-two days, walked calmly into Human Resources at 4:17 on a Thursday afternoon, and said, “I would rather sell candles at a farmers market.”
The candidate everyone had been certain would survive lasted thirty-eight.
She cried in the parking garage.
So when Paige Bennett stepped into the marble lobby of Westbridge Advisory at 9:18 on a rainy Monday morning with coffee running down the side of her travel mug, one broken heel tucked under her arm, and three printed copies of her résumé wrinkled from what looked like a fight with the weather, the receptionist actually closed her eyes.
“Please tell me you’re not here for Mr. Mercer.”
Paige pushed damp blond hair out of her face.
“That depends. Is there another terrifying millionaire on thirty-six?”
The receptionist, Lorraine Beck, had watched nineteen assistants cycle through the executive floor in less than two years.
She glanced at the clock.
“Your interview was at nine.”
“I know.”
“Mr. Mercer does not see late candidates.”
“The Brown Line stopped between stations for eleven minutes, a man fainted in my train car, and then the heel of my shoe surrendered to capitalism.”
Lorraine stared at the broken heel in Paige’s hand.
Paige placed it carefully on the reception counter.
“I made the mistake of believing eighteen minutes was enough emergency time.”
“Mr. Mercer will send you home.”
“Probably.”
Paige took a napkin from beside the coffee station and wiped rain from her sleeve.
“But he should get to enjoy doing it himself.”
Something that might have been a laugh almost escaped Lorraine before twenty months of executive-floor survival training killed it.
She pressed the intercom.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“What?”
“Your nine o’clock is here.”
There was silence.
Then a flat male voice answered, “It’s nine eighteen.”
“She knows.”
Another silence.
Lorraine looked at Paige.
Paige smiled as if she were waiting for a table at a diner instead of asking for employment from a man whose senior partners referred to him as “the winter front.”
Finally Graham Mercer said, “Send her up.”
Lorraine released the button.
“You either have remarkable confidence or a serious misunderstanding of danger.”
Paige picked up her broken shoe.
“My mother says those have always looked similar on me.”
On the thirty-sixth floor, Graham Mercer was already having a bad morning.
A healthcare acquisition had developed a financing problem at seven thirty. A managing director had sent him a presentation with three incorrect projections. His legal counsel wanted another hour before signing a major logistics agreement. His mother had left two voicemails.
He had ignored both.
At thirty-nine, Graham had built Westbridge from a borrowed conference room and four employees into a firm managing billions in private capital. Financial magazines called him disciplined. Competitors called him ruthless. Employees, when doors were closed, used several less flattering words.
He did not shout.
That would have been easier.
Graham could make a person question a decade of professional experience by lowering his voice and asking, “Are you certain that is the decision you want attached to your name?”
He was standing beside his windows overlooking the Chicago River when Paige Bennett walked in carrying one shoe.
He looked at it.
Then at her.
She set the shoe beside her chair.
“Long story.”
“I don’t need the story.”
“That makes two of us.”
Graham studied her.
Thirty-one. Two years of college, no degree. Operations coordinator for a regional shipping company. Office manager for a commercial property group. Eight-month employment gap. Then administrative work for a medical supply distributor in Milwaukee.
Nothing about the résumé explained why his HR director had put her on the final interview list.
“You’re eighteen minutes late.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem particularly concerned.”
“I’m concerned about things I can still change.”
She folded her hands.
“I can’t make the train restart eighteen minutes ago.”
He disliked the answer because it made sense.
“Your degree is incomplete.”
“My mother had a brain aneurysm halfway through my junior year.”
Paige said it plainly.
“I left school in Madison and moved back to Green Bay. She needed help learning to walk again, and insurance didn’t cover someone sitting beside her every night.”
“You never went back?”
“I planned to.”
“What happened?”
“Bills.”
There was no self-pity in the word.
Just fact.
Graham looked at the employment gap.
“That explains these eight months?”
“Most of them.”
“Most?”
“She got pneumonia. Then I got very good at sleeping in hospital chairs.”
His eyes paused on her face.
Paige shrugged gently.
“She’s doing better now.”
“Why this job?”
“Because the salary is almost insulting.”
He looked up.
“To whom?”
“To every company that paid me half as much to fix the same amount of chaos.”
For the first time that morning, Graham almost smiled.
Almost.
Paige leaned slightly toward the side of his desk.
“Also, your document system is a disaster.”
The almost-smile disappeared.
“My document system?”
“The cabinets outside your office.”
“You saw them for perhaps six seconds.”
“Eight.”
“They are organized by department and priority.”
“They’re organized by what someone wanted them to look like when they bought the labels.”
Graham’s expression hardened.
Paige continued anyway.
“Your blue tabs say pending. But half of them have handwritten red stickers marked urgent, which means whoever built the system stopped trusting it. Your legal cabinet is arranged alphabetically by client except for three folders grouped by transaction date. Your assistant probably spends twenty minutes a day checking two places for the same file.”
Graham stared at her.
“How would you know?”
“I have eyes.”
“I meant how would you know how long it takes?”
“I used to manage twelve buildings with three maintenance supervisors who believed email was a personal attack. Twenty minutes is conservative.”
A strange silence settled between them.
Graham picked up her résumé again.
“The role has a thirty-day trial period.”
“I was told.”
“Most candidates do not complete it.”
“I was told that too.”
“Did they tell you why?”
Paige glanced toward the glass wall overlooking the assistants’ station.
“Yes.”
“And you still came?”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“I need the job.”
Graham leaned back.
“That is the first sensible answer you’ve given me.”
Paige smiled faintly.
“No. It’s just the first one you expected.”
Something in his expression changed.
“Why should I hire you?”
“Because you have eight assistants doing pieces of one job badly.”
“I have seven.”
“Then one of them quit before I arrived.”
His eyes narrowed.
Paige immediately regretted the joke.
Then, unexpectedly, Graham said, “She quit yesterday.”
“Oh.”
“She said I was emotionally exhausting.”
Paige considered him.
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
The honesty caught her off guard.
Graham placed her résumé on the desk.
“Can you handle difficult people?”
“Yes.”
“Pressure?”
“Yes.”
“Long hours?”
“Yes.”
“Confidential information?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think you’ll last longer than the others?”
Paige looked at the broken heel on the floor.
“I've already had worse days.”
Graham was silent.
Then he reached for the phone.
“HR will contact you.”
Paige stood.
“That means no, right?”
“It means I haven't decided.”
She nodded.
“Fair.”
She picked up her broken shoe.
At the door, Graham spoke.
“Ms. Bennett.”
She turned.
“Yes?”
“Your coffee.”
She looked down.
The travel mug was leaking across her hand.
“Oh.”
“You've been holding it upside down for approximately five minutes.”
Paige stared at the cup.
Then at him.
“You could have said something.”
“I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.”
She smiled.
“So you're difficult on purpose.”
Graham's mouth twitched.
“Interview over.”
“Good.”
She left.
Graham watched the door close.
For several seconds, he remained completely still.
Then his longtime chief financial officer, Daniel Hayes, appeared from the adjoining office.
“You’re smiling.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Graham picked up the next report.
“Get back to work.”
Daniel grinned.
“Forty seconds. New record.”
Graham ignored him.
But when Paige Bennett’s résumé disappeared into his desk drawer instead of the rejection pile, Daniel noticed.
And so did Graham.
Neither man understood why.
Not yet.
That afternoon Paige received an email.
Congratulations. We are pleased to offer you the position of Executive Assistant to Graham Mercer, effective immediately.
There was one additional sentence.
Mr. Mercer has requested that you report to his office tomorrow at 6:45 a.m.
Paige stared at the screen.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
May you like
Then she looked at her bank account.
“Absolutely yes.”
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