The Billionaire's Assistant

Chapter 2

She'd first met Emma during her last year at Crefton University, but Emma wasn't a fellow student. She, Conner, Brent, and a few others were part of a demonstration for change, chaining themselves to trees on campus to protest the impending instillation of an oil rig in the South Pacific with the potential to create devastating environmental consequences for the already near extinct flora and fauna native to the sea's smatterings of small islands. As an environmental science major Kat was well aware of the proposed devastation, but she, much like everyone else she knew, didn't consider herself capable of taking any action. What could be done? The oil conglomerates and their shareholders would be the ones to make the final decisions, they had money and power and political influence beyond what Kat could imagine, she knew that. So why were these people with their faces painted green chained to trees? What did they actually think they were accomplishing?

She always walked by the solid, shady maple where Emma had constrained herself on her way to her wetlands ecosystem course, and after hurrying by without offering more than a quick, polite smile 2 days in a row, Emma stopped her.

"Hey," she said, nodding her chin towards Kat in lieu of gesturing. Her arms were pinned to her side and the chain was wrapped snugly about her slim waist, the heavy padlock (the keys to which the protestors had ceremoniously destroyed as a testament to their commitment) resting on her hip. "Hey," she repeated when Kat looked about a bit nervously.

"Yes?" asked Kat in a low voice, taking a small step closer to where the woman stood with her back pressed to the trunk. The woman gave her a conspiratorial grin. "It's ok, it's ok," she said with a laugh behind her pleasant voice. Kat took another step forward without thinking, inexplicably drawn toward the inviting tone. "I was just gonna tell you I like your pin," said Emma, nodding this time towards the plain black backpack that hung from one of Kat's shoulders. A small, white lily pin was affixed to the bag's zippered pocket, and Kat looked down at it as if noticing it for the first time.

"Oh, yea," she confirms, as if Emma had simply been ensuring that she had it. "I mean, thank you. It's me, the flowers. I mean, it's my name." She winced internally at the awkwardness of the sentence's construction, but Emma just smiled wider. "Oh," she crowed in recognition. "Lilies, your name is lily." Kat reddened. She'd been shy all her life and often struggled to explain herself in ways that made sense, her nervous energy jumbling her words and thoughts whenever she spoke to someone new.

"No," she squeaked out, attempting to steady her voice as she went on. "No, my name is Kat, but my middle name is Lily. The pin was actually my dad's, my mom named me lily cause he loved lilies and he loved flowers and he..." She cuts herself off mid sentence, realizing she was rambling. Emma was watching her with interest, her head cocked as the young woman overshared. When the silence had extended long enough for Kat's palms to begin to sweat, Emma laughed again, a beautiful, musical tinkling that instantly flushed the anxiety creeping into Kat's chest.

"Cool, acknowledged Emma cheerily, dismissing all awkwardness as the brightness in her voice radiated through her face. Kat smiled too, and as they looked at each other the mirth they saw reflected back at them made them both giggle. Kat felt an instant connection, an instant draw towards her energy, and suddenly the chain at her waist seemed less pointless and more powerful than anything Kat had ever been a part of. She was still a few feet from the base of the tree's trunk but was slowly inching closer, Emma's face coming more clearly into view from underneath the boughs' leafy shade.

Emma was a small woman, she couldn't have been more than 5'3, but Kat hardly noticed her stature. She had an enormous, attention-dominant presence that wouldn't allow her to remain overlooked, acting as stilts of sorts to elevate her small frame into a commanding one. Her face, currently covered in streaks of green paint as all the other protestors were, was striking, and despite a round softness to her cheeks her elegant bone structure made her look distinguished. Her eyes were wild, dark brown and unreadable, but filled with the same subtle glow that seemed to pulse from within her, that emanated from her skin. She had thick, dark eyebrows that shifted seamlessly with her many expressions, and beneath them her dark eyes were made to look even more mischievous. Her face was dotted with a smattering of freckles that marched across her nose and collected on both cheeks, and her long, dark hair was woven in a thick braid whose tail reached the small woman's hips, its circumference wider than Kat's forearm.