NOELLE
Noelle sataround the conference table in the marketing meeting with her boss and her seven coworkers, talking about the ad campaigns they had running for clients and new ad campaigns they had coming up, taking notes about everything that had to do with her job as the copywriter. Assignments were made, deadlines were given.
And then, at the part where her boss, Jack, who was standing with his tablet in his hand, would typically wrap up the meeting by asking if anyone had any questions, he shifted from one foot to the other and then glanced down at the tablet. Then he placed it on the table and looked out at them, putting his hands in his pockets and looking a little uncomfortable.
The uncertain body language seemed out of place for a boss who was always very professional and businesslike and instantly made everyone pay a little more attention.
“I need some help outside of work for a project unrelated to work, and I’m wondering if any of you might be interested in the job. You would be paid—”
Noelle’s hand shot into the air.
Jack glanced at her, pausing his sentence only momentarily before forging on. “—time and a half, and it would be eight to ten hours a week until the end of the month.”
Noelle raised her arm as high as it would go as her brain started doing the math without her even telling it to. That would probably be everything she needed to get her car fixed, and it wouldn’t involve working in a retail environment that would practically be exploding with Christmas. If that wasn’t a giant Christmas miracle dropped right at her doorstep, she didn’t know what was.
Wintermiracle, she mentally corrected herself. Fortune smiling down on her. Divine intervention.
It would be so nice to drive her car again!
“Okay,” Jack said, nodding at Noelle, “it looks like we have one person interested. Is anyone else?”
Noelle looked around the conference table. A couple of people looked thoughtful, but most looked uninterested or maybe even overwhelmed with work and the holidays. Lennox looked like he was considering it for a moment, then changed his mind. Bridget seemed to turn her nose up at just the thought of working more hours. She could probably put her arm down. Jack got that she was very interested.
“And that was our last item of business. Noelle, do you want to come to my office, and we’ll talk more about the job?”
As she grabbed her stuff and walked to his office, her mind ran with possibilities of what the job might be. It wasn’t spending extra time doing her regular job—he’d made that clear. It couldn’t really be organizing files or anything like that, either, since he said it was unrelated to work. Whatever it was, overtime pay was something she couldn’t pass up.
Why was it that walking into Jack’s office made her feel like she was being “called on the carpet?” It was a funny expression, mainly because most of the building was carpeted, but Jack’soffice wasn’t. His was modern and sleek, like it belonged in a magazine. A couch sat on one side, which should’ve made the place feel homier, but it didn’t. It was leather with angled lines, and even though it had a small rug in front of it, even the carpet had clean lines and a short pile.
Poster-sized images of award-winning ads they had created hung framed on the walls, along with the awards, scaled to the same size. The only personal item in the room was a framed picture on his desk, but it faced him, not the side of the desk she was on. She always wished she had the guts to pick it up and look at it—to get a glimpse into what was important enough to him to be the only thing he deemed worthy of entering his workspace.
Everything was neat and tidy and organized, too, which was so at odds with their work in a creative business. No one else’s desks here looked so orderly. It made her uncomfortable. Out of her element.
“Have a seat,” he said as he shut the door behind her and went around to sit at his desk.
She took a seat on the leather chair, which, for the record, wasn’t soft, even though it was padded. How she hadn’t totally blown her interview in this same room a year and a half ago was beyond her. She’d felt just as out of place back then.
It didn’t help that her boss was intimidatingly good-looking. He had those strong shoulders that looked so incredible in a suit. In the few times she’d seen him just wearing a dress shirt without the jacket, they’d looked even more impressive. Dark hair, dark eyes, strong jawline—he had it all.
Anyone would agree that he was a very beautiful man. But he had a stiff exterior that hid what he was like on the inside, and he never cracked. They all knew what kind of a boss he was—a very fair one—but no one knew what he was like outside of work, and he never gave any clues.
“I’m going to cut right to the chase here, Ms. Allred. My sister has Acute Myeloid Leukemia.”
Noelle gasped.
“She’s convinced she’ll make it through, but she’s been going through the most intense part of treatment right now and is pretty sick. She has a five-year-old son—my nephew, Aiden. Do you have any experience with kids?”
Her brows drew together. Was he looking for a babysitter? Why would he ask work colleagues for that kind of help when he could go to a site or app for caretakers? She hesitated. “I do. I have nine nieces and nephews. Two of them are five-year-old boys.”
He nodded. “Good. My sister said that Christmas is a magical time for five-year-olds, and she doesn’t want him to miss out on any of it just because she’s sick. She asked for assistance in providing him with a magical Christmas. What I would need you to do is to help give that to him.”
Noelle immediately stood. “I’m sorry; I can’t.”
Jack looked shocked by the abrupt ending of the negotiation. He stood, too. “Why? Is the pay not good enough for something like that? I can offer you more.”
“It’s not that. I just can’t.”
He cocked his head slightly. “I assure you, Noelle, that my nephew’s a good kid.”