White Hart Lane

Aurora POV:

I drove towards south Jacobsville, in the direction of the biggest and the most beautiful house in the town.

Leo Jordan lived in a huge white Victorian house. Local gossip said that his wife had wanted it since she was a child, living in a poor section of Jacobsville. She’d married Leo right out of high school and started to college after the honeymoon was over. College had opened a new world to her eyes. She’d decided to study law, and Leo stood by and let her have her way, sure that she’d never want to leave Jacobsville. But she got a taste of city life when she went on to law school in San Antonio, and she decided to work in a law firm there.Nobody understood exactly why they decided to have a child in her first year as a practicing estate lawyer. She didn’t seem happy about it, although she had the child. But a live-in nurse had to be employed because Mrs. Wright spent more and more time at the office. Then, two years ago, she’d been offered a position in a wellknown law firm in New York City and she’d jumped at the chance. Leo had argued, cajoled, threatened, to try to get her to turn it down. Nothing worked. In a fit of rage, she moved out, with their son, and filed for divorce. Leo had fought it tooth and nail. she’d presented him with divorce papers, demanding his signature, which also required him to remit full custody of his five-year-old son to her. He’d gone wild. I knew better than to trust what I heard, Afterall nobody really knew what happened between the couple, they were all hearsay. But reports said he had been cold towards women ever since.

The old house maid welcomed me when I drove in through the gate. I guess an old woman doesn't exactly count.

"Are you Miss Hardy?" She asked

"Yes"

"Mr Leo has been waiting for you" she said, she turned towards the house and made a gesture "follow me"

"I would take it from here Mrs. Montgomery" Mr Leo said appearing literally from nowhere.

Mrs. Montgomery bowed out.

He was wearing a light t-shirt and a khaki short that barely covered his knee. To look at him, though, I thought, Jordan Leo seemed very self possessed and confident. He was tall and bronzed with a strong face, square chin, deep-set dark eyes and blondish-brown hair which he wore conventionally cut. He had the physique of a rodeo star, which he’d been before his father’s untimely death and his switch from cowboy to cattle baron.

"It wasn't hard to find this place" He said, it was more of a statement than a question. Offcourse not, it's the biggest house in Jacobsville.

"No sir" I said meekly

"Drive behind me" he said and walked towards his car.

I hurried to mine too.

He drove down a road deep into the vast amount of land behind his house. It was often said the Leo family encompasses a good part of Jacobsville. I would have argued that two hour ago but not again, never again. After driving for 10 minutes on the road, We got to the Leo Farm.

He ran purebred red angus cattle, well-known in cattle circles for their pedigree. He had all the scientific equipment necessary for a prosperous operation, including high-tech methods of genetic breeding, artificial insemination, embryo transplantation, cross-breeding for leanness, low birth weight and daily weight gain ratio, as well as expert feed formulation.

He had the most modern sort of operation, right down to lagoon management and forage improvement. He had the most modern computers money could buy, and customized software to keep up with his cattle. But his newest operation was organic ham and bacon that he raised on his ranch and marketed over the Internet.

I was staggered at the high-tech equipment in the office he maintained on his sprawling ranch as he showed me around.

“Intimidated?” he drawled, smiling. “Don’t worry. It’s easier to use than it looks.”

“Can you operate it all?” I asked, surprised.

He shrugged. “With the average duration of secretarial assistance around here, I have to be able to do things myself,” he said calmly.

I looked at him in awe, how can anybody think him as a terrible human being. He seems rather calm within the few minutes I've him, Michael Angelo has talked to me this calmly before and neither was he making demeaning remarks about my weight. His reputation needs to be revised.

Did he read my mind or he sensed I was getting to comfortable. Either way my expectations were never high, I wasn't exactly expecting a rosy treatment.

He gave me a long look and stuck his lean hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Aurora, I’m not an easy boss,” he confessed. “I have moods and rages, and sometimes I blow up when things upset me. You’ll need nerves of steel to last long here. So I won’t blame you if you have reservations.”

“I worked for Michael Angelo for over a year.” I said with an arched eyebrow

He chuckled “They say he’s worse than me”

"The devil himself will shudder in his presence"

he nodded

"Okay. If you’re game, we’ll give it two weeks. After that, you can decide if it’s worth the money. And that, the pay. That’s another thing,” he added, smiling. “I pay better than Michael, what do you say to $20 an hour. It can be increased if I'm satisfied with your work."

I was rendered utterly speechless.I would never be late on the car payment or house rent again. I could afford more medical attention for mom, without having to worry when my next pay would come. " That is extremely generous sir" I finally managed to say.

"That's to make it worth the aggravation" He said with a smile " I heard you have a sickmother" He said

"Yes si...r " I stammered " How did you know sir?" I couldn't help but ask.

"I have my ways. I run a little background check on my potential workers, to see if there's anything I should be worried about. I may hate your ex boss but I won't hire a liability to prove a point"

"I understand sir, but you never thought I would ever work for you 2 hours ago. How did you have info about me already"

"Jackobsvile is a lot smaller than you think, privacy is a rare commodity here" He said

My mom always say the same thing

"Yes sir, I understand" I said

"What I had wanted to say, you can get off work early, perhaps 4pm to have enough time to take care of your mother" He said "After you've completed a day worth of work"

I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't day dreaming. It was becoming too good to be true. I would finally have the chance to register and attend gym I've always wanted to. I woke up this morning worried and sad I had no job, now this.

"You're too kind sir" I said

"You can be sure I would stay that way, if you don't in any way try manipulate the presumed kindness to be nonchalant or lie to me. I don't accommodate mediocrity neither, I can be also be the worst man and boss you've ever worked for" He said sternly

For the first time I saw the traces of his dark side, but I wasn't worried in any way. I wasn't lazy or dishonest, I could be one of the hardest worker and honset he had ever seen. " I won't disappoint you sir" I said

"You had better not, I like you already and would wish for you to work for me for long time" He said with a smile. His smile dissapeared just as quickly as they appeared

"And Miss Hardy, under no conditions should you fall in love with me" He said with an arched eyebrow

I gulped hard, taking the time to observe his perfectly structure and devilishly handsome face " I won't sir, I won't fall in love with you" I said, more to myself than him

"Come on then, and I’ll show you around the equipment.”

It was fascinating. I had never seen anything like the tangle of spreadsheets and software that ran his empire. Even the feed was mixed by computer. I was worried at first if I would be able to run everything myself

“Not that you’ll have to concern yourself with the organic pork operation,” he added quickly. “I have three employees who do nothing except that. But these figures—” he indicated the spreadsheet “—are urgent. They have to be maintained on a daily basis.”

“All of them?” I exclaimed, seeing hours and hours of overtime in statistics before me.

“Not by hand,” he replied. “All the cowboys are computer literate, even the old-timers. They feed the information into handheld computers and send it to the mainframe by internal modem, right from the pastures,” he told me

I just shook my head. “It’s incredible,” I replied. “I hope I’m smart enough to learn all this, Mr. Leo”

He smiled approvingly. “There’s nothing I appreciate more than modesty, Miss Hardy,” he replied. “But, You’ll do fine. Ready to get started?” he asked

“Yes, sir!” I replied.

It was a short day, mainly because I was so engrossed trying to learn the basics of Leo Jordan's agricultural programs, I lost track of time, it was a bit late by the time was done. I concluded by the end of day I liked my boss. He might have a bad reputation, and she knew he could be hard to get along with, but he had saving graces.

For the first time I managed not to think about Mr. Angelo through out the afternoon, but he did manage to sleep back into my mind in the evening on my drive back home.

My mother smiled at me from the sofa, where she was watching her daily soap operas when I walked in “Well, how did it go?” she asked.

“I like it!” I told her with a big smile. “I really do. I think I’m going to be happy there. And, besides that, I’m going to be making a lot more money. Mama, we might even be able to afford a dishwasher and I can get you more medical attention! Not only that I would be allowed to get off work extremely early too, I can home very early to take care of you,, you won't have to stress yourself to make dinner."

Mrs. Hardy sighed. “That would be lovely, wouldn’t it? But I told you I love making dinner ”

"Well, I don't want you to. The Doctor you mustn't be stressed in any way"

"He never said I should become sack of vegetables" she said, rolling her eyes hilariously. "But Leo Jordan was full of surprises. That certainly isn't the man I heard so much about his cruelty"

I kicked off my shoes and sat down in the recliner next to the sofa. “I’m so tired! I’m just going to rest for a minute and then I’ll see about supper.”

“We could have chili and hot dogs.”

I chuckled. “We could have a nice salad and bread sticks,” I said, thinking of the calories.

“Whatever you like, dear. Oh, by the way, Mr. Angelo came by a few minutes ago.” She said like it was the most casual words she had ever uttered

My world came crashing down around my ears. I’d hoped to not even hear his name, at least for another few days.

"What did he want" I asked my mother nervously

The older woman picked up a white envelope. “To give you this.” She handed it to me, I sat staring at it.

“Well,” I murmured. “I guess it’s my final pay.”

Mrs. Hardy muted the television set. “Why not open it and see?”

I didn’t want to, but my mother looked expectant. I tore open the envelope and extracted a check and a letter. With my breath in my throat, I slowly unfolded it.

“What does it say?” her mother prompted.

I just stared at it, unbelieving.

“Aurora, what is it?”

I drew in a breath. “It’s a letter of recommendation,” I said in utter disbelief

“I can’t believe he actually gave me one,” I said huskily, my heart racing from just the thought that he’d backed down that far.

“I didn’t ask for it.”

I stared at the check too.

"It's a full month pay, mom. The check is a full month pay. I barely worked for two weeks."

"I guess he isn't the devil afterall" my mom said “He told me that,” my mother replied. “He said that he felt really bad about the way you left, Aurora and that he hoped you’d be happy in your new job.”

I looked up at my mom, hating myself for being so happy with these crumbs of Micheal's regard

He said Libby and Mabel were splitting your work for the time being. He’s going to advertise for a new secretary,” she added.

I sighed. “I hope he’s happy with whichever poor soul gets the job,” I said.

“No, you don’t. I know you hated to leave. But, dear, if he doesn’t feel the same way, it’s a blessing in the long run,” her mother said wisely. “No sense eating your heart out.”

Trust my mom to read like an open book, afterall she was my mother.

“That’s what I thought when I quit,” Aurora admitted. I got to my feet, putting the letter and check back in the envelope. “I’ll go fix something to eat.” I said "Did you tell me him where I was working?”

Mrs. Hardy shifted on the sofa. “Well, dear, he looked so pleasant and we had such a nice conversation. I thought, why upset the man?"

I laughed helplessly. “What did you tell him, Mother?” I asked

“I said you were working in a local office for a very nice man, doing statistics,” she said with a chuckle. “He didn’t actually ask where. He started to, and I changed the subject. He said as long as you are not working for Leo Jordan"

The smile wiped out of my face. Offcourse that was all it was about. It was just him trying to get me not to work for someone because of his ego. How could I have expected more from him, he was the most selfish man to ever exist. I headed to my room before my saw my pale face"

“You could make a pot of coffee,” my mother suggested. Her voice trailing me

Safe in my locked room. I brought out the envelope again and fished out the letter of recommendation, I imagined it was Mr. Angelo's heart and tore it into a million pieces before dumping it in the trashcan. I stare at the check for a long time.

"I won't be move by the money, it was less than what I deserved for putting up with him for so long, the mental distress he put me through and every emotional turmoil I went through because of him" I muttered. I carefully placed the check in a book for safe keeping.

I went back to the living room.

"What about the coffee" my mother asked

I gave her a glare. “You don’t need to be drinking caffeine.

“Don’t we have any decaf?”

It reminded me too much of my ex-boss, and I wasn’t enthusiastic. But my mother loved coffee, and missed being able to drink it. She didn’t know about the coffee wars in Mr. Angelo's office, either.

I forced a smile. “I’ll make it for you” I said, and left my mother to the soap opera.