Chapter 5 My New Boss

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 college after the honeymoon was over. The 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. A live-in nurse had to be employed because Mrs. Jordan spent more and more time at the office. Then, two years ago, she'd been offered a position in a well-known law firm in New York City, and she'd jumped at the chance. Leo had argued, cajoled, and 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, After all, nobody knew what happened between the couple, they were all hearsay. But reports said he had been cold towards women ever since.

The old housemaid 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," she said, she turned towards the house and made a gesture "Follow me"

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

Mrs. Montgomery bowed out.

He was wearing a light t-shirt and khaki shorts 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 movie star.

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

"No," I said meekly

"Drive behind," 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 hours ago but no, again, never. After driving for 5 minutes into 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, 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 of him as a terrible human being? He seemed rather calm within the few minutes I had with him, Micheal Angelo has never talked to me this calmly and neither was he making demeaning remarks about my weight. His reputation needs to be revised.

Did he read my mind, or did he sense I was getting too 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 occasionally 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 Micheal 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. Thereafter, you can decide if it's worth the money. And that, the pay. That's another thing," he added, smiling. "I pay better than Micheal, what do you say to $19 an hour"

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 sick mother," 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 smaller than you think, privacy is a rare commodity," He said

My mom always says the same thing

"Yes sir," I said

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

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

"You're too kind," I said

"You can be sure I would stay that way, if you don't in any way try to manipulate the presumed kindness to be nonchalant or lie to me. I don't accommodate mediocrity either, I can also be the worst man and boss you've ever worked for"

For the first, 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 workers and honest he had ever seen. " I won't disappoint you," I said

"You had better not, I like you already and would wish for you to work for me for a long," He said with a smile. His smile disappeared just make they came "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 structured 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 time-sensitive. They have to be maintained daily."

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

"Not manually," 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.