Heart's Desire Ch 11

Chapter 11

EPOV

“Sookie wait!”

“Selah what the hell was that? Who do you think you are that you could dismiss her like that?” I didn’t even bother trying to hide my anger from my assistant. I hadn’t seen her in almost 2 months and within less than 5 minutes I was ready to choke the breath out of her.

I threw my hand up to motion for her to wait before responding. The aids were still trying to get me back in bed and I didn’t want them to witness this interaction between me and my employee. It was obvious by the speed the two gentlemen were working that they were wishing that they had been assigned to bedpans that day rather than transport.

“Thanks gentlemen, I appreciate your help. Steve, on your way out, could you please ask Ms. Broadway to step in here when she gets a free minute?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Northman, I will tell her right away.” He said as they were exiting the room.

“Thank you.” I turned my attention back to Selah and motioned for her to proceed with her explanation.

“Eric, I don’t understand what you are so upset about. I’m your assistant; it’s always been my responsibility to shield you from any unwanted advances.”

“Unwanted advances? What unwanted advances? There were no unwanted advances from Sookie.”

“Well if she is your friend as she indicated, then I’m sure she understands the need for privacy while we talk business.” What?

“Excuse me? Do you mean to tell me that Sookie presented herself to you as a friend of mine and you still chose to address her in the manner you did?”

“Well, yes… I mean she introduced herself to me when I came in the room and said she was just a friend.”

Just a friend?

Obviously Selah was having a hard time with my line of questioning. She had worked for me for almost 5 years and never in that time had I ever raised my voice to her or questioned her actions in anyway. Now I couldn’t help but wonder if this was truly the first time she had ever done something I disagreed with or was I just too oblivious before? I made a mental note to monitor things a little more closely in the future.

“Selah, I want to say something and I want to make myself perfectly clear.” I paused; looking at her to make sure I had her full attention.

“Sookie is much more important to me than just a friend and you will do well to remember that in the future. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” She said while looking down at her hands.

I heard a knock on the open door and looked up to see Amelia standing in the door way.

“You wanted to see me, Eric? Is this a bad time?”

“Good morning Amelia. No this is fine.”

“Selah this is Amelia Broadway; she is one of the Hospital Coordinators that has been helping take care of me while I am here. Amelia, this is Selah Pumphrey, my assistant.”

“Nice to meet you Amelia. Um, I was wondering, would you happen to know who is responsible for flower delivery in the hospital? I believe this room should be full of flowers right now.”

Damn! Selah was hell bent on pushing all of my buttons today. Has she always been this nerve racking? Amelia sensed my aversion to the topic and quickly came to my aid.

“Eric has been kind enough to donate his flowers to the children here and to some of our less fortunate patients. I assure you the flowers are bringing lots of joy to many people in this hospital.” I never really knew what they did with them when they left my room, but I was glad someone was getting enjoyment from them.

“Selah, did you bring the items I asked for?” I decided to get the topic back on the task at hand.

“Yes sir. Your laptop is here in the bag and your new Blackberry is there ready to go.”

“OK, well thank you Selah. That will be all for today.”

“Yes sir. Um... should I come back tomorrow?”

“No that won’t be necessary. I will call you if I need anything. Thank you.” She nodded, grabbed her bag and left.

This was not the visit I had planned with Selah, things had not gone at all like I had hoped. I had been looking forward to getting caught up on things with the company, but that would have to wait now. They had run it without me for the last 2 months and they could continue to. Right now I had another priority.

“Amelia, please sit.” I said motioning to the chair by the bed.

“How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough to know that obviously something happened with Sookie. Do you want to explain what the hell is going on?”

One of the things I had come to respect about Amelia was her way of cutting through the bullshit. She saw no need to play coy and pretend she didn’t hear part of our conversation and she was loyal enough to her friend to call me out on it.

“Yea…I think I’m going to need your help again.”

TBC