6. Olga

Olga

S ix months earlier…

I stared at the eviction notice in shock. How could this be happening? Again. I paid my rent on time and I was a model tenant. Oh my God! I shouldn’t have bought that new designer handbag! I was going to need money to put down a deposit on a new apartment. And to pay the movers…

This was the absolute worse time for me to have to move. My boss and I were right in the middle of a complicated real estate deal, and I was also in charge of setting up his new charitable foundation. I barely had time to eat, let alone pack up all my worldly belongings and tour apartments.

Feeling myself start to hyperventilate, I pressed my fingernails into my thighs and forced myself to take deep breaths until the panic receded. Pushing out of my chair, I headed for a conference room in the back of the building. It was a drab, windowless room in an otherwise tasteful and cheerful building, and we usually only used it for auditors and people we didn’t like. It was the perfect place to make a personal phone call.

I worked as an assistant for billionaire real estate magnate Mark Barone, although ‘assistant’ was a bit of a misnomer. The title made people think I took minutes and answered the phone, but that was the admin assistant’s job. I was essentially Mark’s right hand person, working on project management, supervising the administrative staff, and stepping in wherever he needed me, including doing the legwork to set up his new charity. My job was hard to define, which is why Mark and I had never come up with a better title. That’s okay though, he paid me way better than the title suggested.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as good of a saver as I should be, something that was going to come back to haunt me now that I was going to have to move. Again. It was the third time I was having to move in five years, which was really putting a crimp in my ability to save up to buy a house.

After closing myself up in the conference room, I found my landlord’s phone number in my contacts.

“Mr. Roberts?” I asked when the landlord answered the phone. “This is Olga Pavlenko, from the Admiral Building.”

“Hello Olga, how are you?”

Even through the phone I could hear the forced casualness of his tone.

“Well, I’d be better if I hadn’t just received a thirty day eviction notice. I don’t understand.”

My landlord sighed deeply. “I’m sorry dear, my wife is going into long-term care which, as I’m sure you know, is very expensive. I’m having to liquidate several of my properties to pay for it.”

“But thirty days?” I asked. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a nice apartment in a decent neighborhood in this city? Especially one that accepts cats?”

I’d live in a cardboard box on Lower Wacker Drive before I’d give up my cat. Which I might have to do, given the rapid pace at which rents had been increasing over the last few years. It was either a cardboard box or a move into one of the neighborhoods farther away from downtown, many of which were a bit shady. As a woman living alone, I was adamant about living some place safe.

“Believe me, I would give you more time if I could, but I have a motivated buyer and, as I said, I really need the cash,” my landlord explained. “I tried to convince the buyer to take on all the current tenants, but they’re planning to rehab the building and turn it into condos.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “Okay, well will you at least be returning the security deposit?”

“Yes, be sure to leave me a forwarding address and I’ll send it to you within thirty days of move-out, or when the property closes, whichever happens first.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I’m sure the landlord could hear the misery in my voice. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you must have some connections who can help you find a place, right?”

“Oh. Sure. Yeah. Goodbye.”

I put my head on the table and tried not to cry. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find a new place, it was just going to be a big hassle and a huge expense, something that would tax my already meagers savings, and require time off work.

I thought of my landlord’s suggestion that I use my connections. He had no way of knowing that I worked for a billionaire and my sister was married to another billionaire, but even if he did, there was no way I was going to my boss or my brother-in-law for help. I was thirty-five years old, I needed to stand on my own two feet, not go crawling to the people I knew asking for a rescue.

My phone beeped with a message from Mark letting me know he was leaving the office. It was early for him, only five thirty, but ever since he’d run into his high school crush Lainie at their twenty-fifth reunion and fallen in love with her, he’d been keeping more reasonable hours. Now that he and Lainie were married, she expected him home by six o’clock most nights, something that he happily agreed to. He was totally whipped, but Lainie was awesome and she’d been good for him, so I couldn’t fault her at all.

Since most of the office was gone I had two choices: head home and start scouring the rental listings or drown my sorrows. My mother would tell me that wallowing was a waste of time, but sometimes a girl needed a good wallow.

Remembering that a new bar had opened up on the next block last month, I decided to indulge in a dirty martini – or maybe two – before I faced up to the reality of my situation. I’d heard that Sweet Cocktails made strong drinks, and that’s just what I needed.

The bar wasn’t very crowded when I got there. I looked around, noting that it was a classy place with high end furniture, soft lighting, and tasteful framed photos of various cocktails on the wall. It was perfect for this neighborhood, the kind of place where you could meet a blind date, have happy hour with friends after work, or go for a girls’ night with your friends.

I made my way to one corner of the bar, knowing that when you were a woman drinking alone, it was best to stay to the side where you could get the bartender’s attention easily if someone was bothering you. There were several guys in suits sitting alone at the bar or nearby tables, and I had no desire to fend them off tonight, even though I could feel a couple of them checking me out as I walked by.

A tall man was behind the bar, doing something in the cooler. My eyes took in broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and impressive forearms. When he turned around my mouth turned dry. Damn, he was good looking. Maybe I wouldn’t mind being picked up tonight after all. There was nothing like a good hard fuck to release the tension of a stressful day.

The bartender had short dark hair and a well-kept short beard – one of those that were basically a circle of beard and mustache around the mouth, but with a clean-shaven jaw. Did they call that a goatee? Whatever it was called, it was perfect for him. I wasn’t normally a fan of facial hair, but it suited him.

His eyes were dark, his cheekbones sharp, and his nose was the slightest bit crooked. There was something a bit familiar about him, like maybe he’d been an actor, or we’d gone on a blind date or something.

When he gave me a smile, his light brown eyes crinkled in the corners, and I felt a jolt of something…lust, love, who knows? Whatever it was, I had the strangest feeling that I was meant to be here today to meet him.