From Boss to Bridegroom

He doesn’t owe you any more than that. You’re just his secretary, she lectured herself, trying not to let it bother her as she read the list.

1. Pick up dry cleaning

2. Make enclosed bank deposit

3. Go to florist to hand-pick three arrangements and sign cards: Happy Birthday Deidre. Rand/Congratulations on your promotion, Bunny. I had a great time celebrating. Rand / Thanks for a wonderful evening, Veronica. Rand

There were other items on the list but she was too struck to read them in any detail. Instead she reread the first three things, the third several times, feeling her pique rise higher with each reading.

What did he think she was, his handmaiden? His servant? His social secretary? Laundry and bank deposits and flowers to girlfriends. Girlfriends! Plural. Deidre and Bunny and Veronica.

Did he imagine himself to be some kind of playboy potentate? Dishing out orders without so much as a please or thank-you. Forcing her to write his love missives to other women at the same time she was supposed to play wife with his cleaning and banking?

What nerve. What gall. What—

What was she doing getting mad?

Lucy put the brakes on the things going through her mind, on the anger that was gaining momentum.

You’re just his secretary, she reminded herself yet again.

Granted, she hadn’t assumed the job would entail his personal errands. That wasn’t what she had agreed to and it also wasn’t something she would have agreed to. But that wasn’t all that was making her mad. Every time she read that third item on the list and saw those other women’s names, she could feel her blood boil.