She Stole My Job… And My Nightmare! novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Hallway
A new hire laughs at Hallie's $150k job in front of Payroll, so Hallie hands it to her, hands over four phones, and Elliot walks in and tells her to take her coat off.
The new hires were crowded around the Payroll window, laughing too loud for a corporate hallway, when I came out with my check.
I tried to slip past them to the elevators.
The HR coordinator caught my sleeve. "Hallie, wait. You have to meet our newest. This is Ivy Dalton."
"Hi!" The girl in front took my hand in both of hers.
She had a blonde ponytail, a tote bag from a coffee shop, and a lanyard that was still creased from the package.
"You're Hallie Brennan. Everyone says you run the forty-first floor."
"I answer the phones," I said.
"She answers Mr. Maddox's phones," the HR coordinator said. "All four of them."
Ivy's eyes went wide at that.
"First day," she said. "I'm so nervous I practically ran here. I already learned he takes his coffee black with one sugar. Is that right?"
It was right.
I didn't think about how she knew. The kitchen staff on forty-one talked.
A man from Accounts stopped beside us with a latte and glanced at my wrist.
"Don't let her modest act fool you, kid. She clears a hundred and fifty a year. And that's an Audemars Piguet. The boss gave it to her."
Ivy looked at the watch for a good while.
"A hundred and fifty?" she said. "To schedule meetings and carry a man's drinks?"
Somebody in the pack laughed.
"I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be rude," Ivy said. "It's just that it sounds like the easiest job in the building."
She said it sweetly, with her head tilted, and she meant it.
"Honestly, I'd do it for half. I'd do it for free if he let me sit up there."
"Would you?" I said.
"In a heartbeat!"
I looked at the check in my hand.
Four years ago I had taken the job because it paid for my sister's rent and half her debt.
I was supposed to schedule meetings.
What I actually did was stay within thirty feet of Elliot Maddox from seven in the morning until he let me go.
He ordered my lunch.
He read my texts over my shoulder.
He had put a tracker on my work phone and told me so himself, in the same flat voice he used to order a car.
I had handed him three resignation letters.
He tore each one in half, put the halves in the tray, and said, "You leave when I say."
And every night at two a.m. my phone rang.
It was never about work.
He asked, "What are you doing?"
I said, "Sleeping."
He said, "Good," and hung up.
Four years of that.
I had stopped telling anyone, because nobody believed that was the scary part.
Ivy was still beaming at me, waiting for tips.
I thought about warning her.
I thought about it for the length of one breath.
Then I thought about the third time he'd torn my letter in half, and how calm his face had been.
So I gave her my job.
"You're right," I said. "It's easy. Come upstairs, I'll start you now."
"Right now? Really?"
"Before he comes back from the board meeting. He likes things already running."
The coordinator frowned. "Hallie, we haven't finished her onboarding."
"I'll finish it," I said. "I'll put it in writing."
I took Ivy up in the elevator.
She talked the whole way. She was from Ohio. She'd slept on a friend's couch for six months. Her father had been laid off twice.
I liked her.
That is the part I'm least proud of.
On forty-one I showed her my desk, the long one outside his glass office.
I gave her the four phones, one at a time.
I gave her the calendar binder and the key to the lower drawer, where he kept his blood pressure pills and the Tuesday reports.
I wrote down the coffee order anyway, and under it I wrote: Do not be late with it.
"Is that it?" Ivy said, grinning.
"That's it."
I took the watch off.
I had worn it for a year because he had asked me to, and it had never once felt like mine.
I put it in the top drawer, face down, and I closed the drawer.
Ivy sat in my chair and spun it halfway around.
"I can't believe this is happening."
The elevator chimed behind us.
The forty-first floor went quiet. Phones kept ringing and nobody answered them.
Elliot Maddox walked out of the board meeting with his jacket open and his phone in his hand.
He was tall and his hair was dark, with a pale scar through his left eyebrow.
He did not raise his voice.
He never did.
He looked at Ivy in my chair.
He looked at the four phones lined up in front of her.
Then he looked at me, in my coat, with my bag over my shoulder.
"Mr. Maddox, this is Ivy Dalton," I said. "She's your assistant now. I sent HR my notice an hour ago."
"I didn't read it."
"You don't have to."
He crossed the floor.
He stopped one step from me, and every person on forty-one found something to look at on their screens.
"Take your coat off, Hallie," he said.
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