Descendants.

It had been six days since I woke up in Louis’s house with no idea what had happened the night before or where I was at. We had all gone out to a local diner that was famously kind to high profile customers for breakfast that morning. The diner didn’t allow any sort of technology in their building. If someone was caught somehow snapping a photo of a patron, they would be thrown out on the spot. The boys loved it for that reason, alone. Nevermind that the food was fantastic.

Harry didn’t give me half a glance’s notice for the rest of the day.

The following day started their promotional interviews for the upcoming tour. Tack that on top of tour rehearsals and writing sessions for the next album and we officially weren’t seeing much of them at all anymore. I hadn’t even had a chance to speak to anyone except for Liam, and that was just once for a few minutes, between radio stations.

Karen and I had spent a few days in a serious flat hunt, once I’d decided that London was where I wanted to be. I had to convince her that I would come back to have dinner with her and Geoff at least once a week, and that I wouldn’t become a stranger again. Which was easy enough to do. I’d waiting long enough to find my parents, I wasn’t going to forget about them that quickly.

I eventually found a nice place a couple of blocks from Liam’s house, and felt immediately better knowing that should anything happen when I was home alone, Liam would only be a short distance away. And when he wasn’t in town, Ruth had volunteered to stay at his place to look after things. She wouldn’t be much help if I had an emergency, but Lord knows she’d give it her best shot.

Almost instantly after I got settled into my new flat, I sent out resume after resume trying to land a decent book editing job at one of the publishing houses near my place. It had been several days since my last interview, when I finally got the call I’d been so impatiently waiting for. I got the job at The Spearmint Printing Press, Inc.

Today was Thursday: my first day of work in a couple of months, and my first day of work in England, ever. I knew that I was a good editor. I had an eye for captivating stories and a mind for finding grammatical errors when others overlooked them. But it didn’t matter how good I was at a particular job or how excited I was to be working at a certain place: the first day on the job jitters were always very real.

I stepped into the building and took a deep breath. The smell was distinctly book related and it was one of my favorite smells on earth. It couldn’t be reciprocated in a bottle or a candle. It was the smell of libraries and book stores. More importantly, it was the smell of imagination.

After being introduced to the writers and advertising executives by a very peppy receptionist named Georgia, I was led back to my office to start putting up my things. I knew I had roughly 20 minutes before my first staff meeting, and it would take every second to get my office just the way I wanted it.

“I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting, yet.” A gorgeously deep British accent hummed behind me. Whirling around, I found I was pleasantly surprised with what was interrupting my critical office decorating time. One of the most attractive men I had ever had the good fortune of laying eyes on was standing in my doorway. He was sporting a custom made suit (off-the-rack suits don’t fit quite like that), and he couldn’t have been a day over 32. He was a lot closer to my age than a particular boy band member, that’s for sure.

I sat the books I had piled up in my arms on the edge of my desk and stuck my hand out in front of him.

“Blair Addison. Pleasure to meet you…” I trailed off, without a proper name to call him.

“Blake Majors.” He laughed quietly, shaking my hand in his. He was a tall man, towering over my 5’5” frame by a good nine or ten inches. I had a thing about tall guys. Especially ones with piercing blue-grey eyes like the ones I was looking into right now. They were very attractive. “And the pleasure is all mine, Miss Addison.”

“Mr. Majors!” A frazzled looking young woman came to a screeching halt beside him at my door. She blew the piece of hair that had escaped from her bun, trying desperately to get it to go back where it belonged. “I have all your notes and reports you requested before the meeting.” She handed him a large stack of papers.

“Thank you, Millie.” He chuckled.

“I’ve also got your tea in this hand.” She handed him a to-go cup of tea from the café downstairs. “And your laptop in this hand.” Pulling a laptop practically out of thin air, she handed him his computer before literally running back towards wherever she came from.

“She’s – animated.” I said, dryly.

“Unfortunately for my assistant, I have a necessity for chaos. I enjoy the insanity, but I’m afraid not everyone shares my enthusiasm.” He smiled. Not only had the man been blessed with a good height and a pretty face, but he had either been gifted with straight white teeth, or he’d paid a pretty penny for them. Either way, they were working for him.

Noticing the time on my watch, I grabbed a spiral notebook out of my top desk drawer and the first pen I could find, before closing my office door behind me. Blake and I fell into an easy rhythm of witty banter while we waited for the elevator to take us up to the conference room. I was guessing by his humor and charm, that Mr. Majors was either in public relations, or was a very successful advertising guru. What I hadn’t expected was for everyone to fall silent the second that we stepped into the room.

Scanning the room, I found an empty chair at the back of the space and slid into it, mostly unnoticed. Turning around to mutter something to Blake about the lack of personality surrounding us, I noticed that he hadn’t followed. In fact, he wasn’t near me at all anymore.

Blake Majors was standing at the front of the room, all eyes glued to him, as he forcefully jumped into the quarter’s numbers and who was in desperate need of a restructuring in their department. I wasn’t imagining the woman beside me, shaking in her chair.

He wasn’t in public relations or advertising at all. Apparently, the very attractive young man wasn’t just my co-worker.

He was my boss’s, boss’s, boss.

Notes

Chapter Title lyrics: "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift.