What Nobody Knew

Part 10

I am happy to report that the rest of the files didn't take nearly as long as I had anticipated finishing. By lunchtime, I was done and had placed all the files back inside the filing cabinet. By then two men came into the office carrying a desk that I was apparently supposed to be using.

"Where do you want it?" The one man was looking at me expectantly.

"Uh..." was my highly intelligent response.

I glanced over at Mr Knight but it seemed I was going to be left alone with this decision.

I turned back to the man who was still awaiting my response.

"Well, I suppose over there would be fine." I pointed to the other side of the room, opposite where Mr Knight's desk was.

Mr Knight cleared his throat.

"Miss Bennet, I would prefer not to have to shout every time I had to discuss something with you." He said coolly.

"Oh, of course, then rather put it over there then?" I told the men whilst keeping an eye on Mr Knight to gauge whether he approved. He simply nodded before continuing with his work.

It would have been so much easier if Mr Knight would just open his mouth from the get-go and say what he wanted rather than leave it up to me to it figure out. 

I watched as the men positioned the desk and add a leather chair that matched the rest of the furnishings of the office. I measured the distance from Mr Knight's desk to mine with my eyes. We were a mere five feet apart.

Geez, when he said we'd be working in close quarters together, he really meant close quarters. I'm going to have to start carrying extra mints in my purse. My love of garlic was certainly not going to disappear just because my boss would be sitting spitting distance away from me.

The two men exited the office and another came in carrying a stack of boxes. I had to assume with all the Apple logos that this had to be the guy from IT. This office functioned like a well-oiled machine. Everyone entered and exited as if by express instructions of Mr Knight although as far as I can tell he had not even looked at any of the workers. Maybe they have worked here for so long that they were able to read his mind as he clearly expected me to be able to do.

"Miss Bennet?" The IT guy asked, peeking at me from behind the stack he was carrying.

"Hi, yes that's me, you can just put those over here, thank you," I motioned towards my desk, which had been completely empty up until this point.

He put the stack of boxes down and turned around with a cheeky grin plastered on his face. 

"Hi, I'm Peter." He said with an outstretched hand.

"Hi Peter, you can just call me Elizabeth," I answered shaking his outstretched hand.

I might be mistaken, but could've sworn I felt Mr Knight's eyes burning on my back. With that, I quickly retrieved my hand and turned towards the magnitude of boxes.

Peter started taking everything out of their boxes and packing them out neatly on my desk. He switched everything on. He looked to be around my age and had curly blonde hair and glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. 

"This is your work phone, business calls for Mr Knight will be directed to this phone if you aren't in the office and it has the work email set up on it as well."

I took the phone from Peter and flipped it around in my hand. It was huge and I didn't even want to know how much it had cost otherwise I probably never would have taken it out of fear that I would drop it. I placed it carefully on the desk.

"Don't worry, everything is insured," Peter said with a chuckle as he started typing on the laptop.

"If you come around here I will show you where everything is." he motioned for me to come around the desk.

I leaned forward to view the laptop screen where he was opening the email. He started showing me where I could find my emails as well as that of Mr Knight. He also showed me where to find the password-protected company files which a select few had access to in the company. I felt that same burning sensation on my skin as before but tried to ignore it and take in everything that Peter was saying and scribbled down all the codes and passwords that I had to memorize. 

"Well, that seems to be everything," Peter said picking up his laptop bag and making his way towards the door with me following close behind. "If you need anything or your computer decides to spontaneously combust, you can reach me at this number." He handed over a card with the company logo on it along with his name and contact details.

"Why thank you, I will be sure to do that," I said with a smile, closing the office doors behind him.

"Miss Bennet," Mr Knight called from his desk.

"Yes, sir?" I replied as I neared his desk.

He laced his fingers in front of him, settling a steely look on me.  

I resisted the urge to start picking at my nails as I came to a standstill before his desk.

"I would appreciate it if you conduct yourself in a more professional manner in the future. This is a place of business, if you want to socialize, do it on your own time."

Was he being serious? That wasn't socializing, I was just being friendly. Was I not even allowed to do that?

I took in his stern expression and got all the answers that I needed. It was a definite no, I was not allowed to be friendly.

"Very well sir," I answered, swallowing the words that threatened to come out. 

I made my way back to my desk and sat on the leather chair for the first time. I pushed away the feelings about how his actions were unfair and his scolding unnecessary. He was my boss and if he felt my behaviour wasn't professional enough, I had to try and suck it up. 

I got right to work going through Mr Knight's emails for the day. 

How was it possible that one person could accumulate 63 emails in half a day? And I'm not talking about spam, these were all business-related, important emails about meetings, arrangements for business trips, documents that needed to be approved and signed. I now understood why Mr Knight needed a PA.

"Miss Bennet, what are you doing?" My head popped up and I looked at Mr Knight who was already staring at me.

"I'm just going through your emails as instructed sir."

"Bring your laptop over here." He said motioning towards the chair in front of his desk.

I looked back at him confused. What was the point of having a desk that was practically right next to his if he still expected me to sit across from him to work?

I really did not want to be any closer to him than I already was.

"We're going to go through it together. We will be doing this until you are familiar with how I expect everything to be handled."

So much for sitting comfortably in my new personally dedicated spot.

I picked up my laptop and took a seat across from Mr Knight. I looked at an open spot on his desk hesitantly but decided against placing my laptop there. That seemed way too familiar for me and what I assumed to be Mr Knight's level of comfort.

Mr Knight folded his hands together on the desk.

"Go to the email to confirm tomorrow afternoon's meeting with the Baxters."