Before the Worst

Chapter 1

"Good morning Ms Ava..." my assistant Christie says to me as she walks me to my office. This is our everyday routine, if she doesn't take a taxi or the car with me, she waits for me at the entrance of the office building, tells me my schedule for the day while walking me to my office. I am 26years old, and I am currently the editor of a growing fashion magazine...

"Good morning Christie... when are you going to drop the Ms, and just call me Ava? I know its formality first, but Ms Ava makes me feel really old...what does my day look like today?"

I know it's not easy working for me. I've heard a lot of things about me... but to be something in this world, you're going to be a lot of things people don't like... I am a 26 year old black female, how much harder does it get? And even with all the obstacles I face, I try make it easy for the staff... I'm a very friendly person; I'm just not the most approachable person when you don't know me personally.

"Sorry, I forget that you'd rather be called Ava... anyway your schedule for today, is a tad bit busy, at half 9 you have an editor's meeting in the boardroom, you also have a meeting with an up and coming designer from South Africa at 10, Nicco Rabatti's assistant called to confirm the meeting, says that he is only available this afternoon, so I booked you for that too..."

"Oh, is that all? I don't have any more meetings?"

"Uhm, well you did, but I had to reschedule them because Nicco prefers to do interviews throughout the entire day, and he's expecting you at 11 am..."

Seriously? Who is this guy? I mean I've heard he's the biggest douchebag in New York City... but is he serious? I can't be missing out on meetings because of him? I have work to do... I'll just have to give him a piece of my mind when I see him...

"Hello...Ms... I mean Ava... are you okay"

"Yes, thank you Christie. I kinda just zoned out there for a bit. I'll be in my office until the editor's meeting"

Walking away from my assistant I thought of my life. I love my job and what I do; being an editor for a fashion magazine at such a young age isn't so easy. This industry is filled with many weird and evil sharks and they bite. But I try and I try very hard, I hardly have a social life because my first priority is the magazine and its success... and now this asshole Nicco Rabatti wants to slow me down... I can't seem to put a face to the name... what does it matter? I've decided that I don't like him. Who does he think he is anyway?

I have an hour to kill until my 9am, time to start working. This month's issue is really awesome; our fashion spread is inspired by 10 young and booming designers, who've just entered the industry. I need to organise the story board for that... I have a few pieces from our writer's to read too. Let's get started with that...

Picking up an article by one of the interns, I quickly read through it, I like this piece; it's about shoes and what they say about us... I need to speak to the writer tomorrow, better get Christie to set up an appointment.

"Yes Ava"

"Hey Christie, can you please book a meeting for me with Nicole, the intern, for tomorrow... after lunch?"

"Okay, will do"

"Thanks..."

As I was about to read through another article my phone rings, the biggest mistake I made, was answering without checking the caller i.d. now I have one of my girlfriends chewing my ear off. Why me?

"AVA!"

"Gee Lee, I can hear you." I say while rolling my eyes. I silently laugh to myself, because had she been there, and seen me rolling my eyes at her, she would have flipped out at me...

Lee and I continued to chat; we probably would have been on the phone longer had I not checked the time. I got off the phone with Lee and got my stuff together and quickly headed to the boardroom for the meeting. How am I going to do this, these meetings usually last long, I just hope that we can fit everything in. An hour seems like much, but it's not really, with brainstorming and going over the ideas that we have and perfecting things, it's really not.

I've been in the boardroom for 45 minutes already and we're not getting anywhere; this is when my job sucks. When the ideas lead us to dead ends, very little is accomplished.

I quickly excused myself from the meeting and headed to my meeting with the South African designer. She has the most beautiful clothing I've seen in a long time. I even tried on a few of her dresses, my body felt so great wrapped up in all the different types of materials. We even had time to chat a bit. I really like the girl, we ended up switching contacts, said we'd keep in touch. With 30minutes left to spare I called Christie to confirm my 11 o'clock.

With that confirmed, that gave me 30minutes to head to the jerk's office. 25minues later, I arrived at one of the most beautiful buildings I've seen in a really long time. I quickly made my way into the building and took the elevator up to the 15th floor. When the doors opened I couldn't believe my eyes.

This looks like one of those custom made offices that you see in the movies, only difference is that the decorations in this office look like artefacts you'd find in a museum. How much money do these people make? I mean I'm pretty sure that these kinds of things don't come at a cheap price.

I walked up to the receptionist's desk, and sitting behind the desk was an old woman with grey hair and the friendliest face I've seen in my whole life, these people are rare, it's so refreshing. Just from looking at her, I could tell that she was a really beautiful woman in her days, not that she's not now, she looks really good, she even kind of looks like Juliet Andrews.

"Hi, I'm Ava Jones; I'm here for my 11 o'clock appointment with Mr Nicco Rabatti."

"Ah yes, I'm Mary, Nic's assistant and part-time mother, he's expecting you, please have a seat while I let him know that you're here. I'll be just a minute."

And two minutes later (I checked) she returned with a smile on her face and said "Alright he's being a baby, but he's ready to see you, I told him that this is one interview he can't pass out on. I'm pretty sure that you two are going to hit it off"

"We'll see about that" I said under my breath. We walked past a few offices and now we're face to face with big oak doors. Mary then turns to face me and says "he's actually a very nice guy, he isn't as bad as the papers and gossip magazines make him out to be. And I know he may seem like a big arrogant jerk for making you spend the entire day with him just for an interview, but he has his reasons."

I look at her and nod my head. I didn't know what else to say, I guess she took my nodding my head as a go ahead to open the door. She entered his office and said "She's here, and you better be on your best behaviour", she walked out and said to me "Well have fun darling, hope to see you again".

I stepped into the office and there was a man in a very nice suit sitting at his desk with his head bowed down signing some papers. I stood there for a full minute (yeah I counted) waiting for the man to acknowledge me, I mean come on, Mary did tell him that I'm here, shouldn't he be waiting with a smile on his face, ready to be interviewed? Is this guy really trying to test me? I turned around walked to the door, opened it and slammed it, turned back around, staring at me was the best looking, most beautiful and the hottest man I've ever seen in my whole entire life. And his face was covered in total shock from the scene I just pulled. Well THAT got his attention.

On the other side of the city Nicco Rabatti, one of the city's most eligible bachelors was sitting in his office starring at the skyline, thinking about his life...his love life...

I'm Nicco Rabatti, rich, not bad in the looks department, great personality, very accomplished, yet I can't seem to meet my perfect girl, a woman who won't love my money first, who won't want to be with me because I'm a rich bachelor/playboy. Why can't I just find a woman whose going to love me for me? Most girls I meet want to sleep with me, hoping that I'll propose the next morning asking them to have my kids, and no matter how much of a jerk I am, they keep throwing themselves at me. At first I enjoyed having so many good looking women throwing themselves at me, I felt like I was the best thing since wrestling, I felt like I was untouchable, and look that feeling is nice for a certain period, but it's not a feeling

I like present all the time.

I hate coming home to an empty house, I hate not having someone to touch, someone to call my own. I just want to settle down now; I'm tired of being the douchebag playboy.

And that's why I'm doing an interview later today; I just want to set the record straight. I'm not the guy that the media makes me out to be. I'm excited to do this interview, and that's why I asked Mary to postpone any appoints I had set for today. This interview is to be done from afternoon till evening. I just hope that the person doing the interview is a guy; I feel that will make things easier for me. The interviewer will be easier to bond with ...seeing as he's a guy and all, I mean we guys pretty much have a 'bro code' that gets us through a lot of sticky situations. And guys are easier to bond with.

"Nicco, your 11 o'clock is here, should I let her through?" my assistant Mary says to me.

Did she just say "she", are the gods against me? Have I seriously been so much of a bad boy? I tried to put on the best face I could master up.

"Uhm sure... Mary...you can bring her through". Even that sounded sour and strange to me, the tone sounded so unfamiliar to my ears. And the expression on Mary's face just pretty much confirmed my thoughts.

"Look, she seems like a very nice girl, I'm pretty sure the interview will go very well. You don't have to worry about her twisting your words, I did a background check on her, and she's clean. She seems like an honest person. Let's just try this out, see how it goes."

I just continued starring at Mary like she was a foreign species of human.

"Okay then, if you're going to act like I'm not here, I'll just do as I please. Prepare yourself, because I'm bringing her in. And don't be a jerk!"

What the hell does she mean? Mary is supposed to be on my side. This isn't how it's supposed to be. Dammit.

And now I'm feeling nervous all of a sudden, is this normal? What if the interview doesn't go as well as expected. Pretending to be busy, I quickly grabbed a few papers on my desk, and pretended to read them, and just as I was about to say a silent prayer, Mary stepped in to tell me that she's here, then she told me to be nice again. If I could I'd roll my eyes at her, but I passed that chance and settled for staring at the papers in front of me instead.

I guess Mary got tired of the non-responsive me because she pretty much just walked out without saying another word.

I spent the next couple of minutes trying to convince myself to look up, and just as I was about to look up, I heard the loudest sound in years. And when I looked up, there was a woman starring at the door. Boy does she have a great body. Maybe 'great' doesn't begin to justify how beautiful her body is, she's got this apple bottom ass and curves in all the right places, long legs, wrapped in black leggings...the things I would do if I were those leggings. Can she turn around and face me? I wanna see if the front looks as good as her back...

Wait for it, here she comes, she's turning...and there it was, the most beautiful face I've ever seen in my whole entire existence, even with her staring at me like I'm dead meat still makes her the most beautiful woman I've see, and she's still turning me on? Does stuff like this happen often? Shouldn't people that look like this be arrested? Her top lip is shaped like Cupid's bow, her bottom lip is nice and plump, and I just felt like sucking on it until forever and more ended. Her eyes are a dark shade of brown, the warmth and emotion in her eyes is like none I've seen before. Everything about this girl is new to me. I want her and I want her now. I shook my head, instantly ending my thoughts and I guess that shook her off even more.

"How dare you sit there, behind your desk, in your nice navy suit, pretending to be busy and ignoring me? I'm here to interview you; the least you could be is welcoming or at least pretend to be interested. I had to reschedule most of the appointments I had set for today because you requested that I spend half my morning and my entire afternoon..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa lady, now you just..."

"Lady? Are you serious right now? You don't even know the name of the person interviewing you? Are you that much of a jerk that you don't even care to know about others?"

Gee this woman is feisty. I like. Mary and my mother are the only other women that shout at me, and that just doesn't count. Most of these women can't even stand by their arguments.

"Now, I'll have you know that I know who you are, I know your name, and I know all I need to about you."

"Really now? What is my name? Huh? Don't have an answer... thought as much. I can't deal with this right now, I have better things to do with my time, and thank you for wasting my time... it really does mean a lot."

She walks out without saying another word, without looking back at me. I can't believe this. Next thing I know, Mary is walking into my office, talking about how I dare do this, this was my perfect chance to set the record straight, can't I be serious about life for once; I need to send her flowers to apologise for my erratic behaviour and so forth. I mean looks like Mary is pretty much on team 'hate on Nicco'. Don't know how, but I need to fix this.

Oh my goodness... I can't believe I just did that. Did I, Ava Davis really do that? Did I really just walk out of an interview? LOL... really?

I guess he had that coming though, something was bound to happen. And I mean you can't blame me for my reactions, I think I would have reacted the exact same way had someone else done the exact same thing. Maybe I overacted just a bit? No Ava girl, come on now, your reaction was called for. How dare he ignore you? Doesn't he know how busy you are? Clearly not.

Am I seriously having a conversation with the people in my head? My goodness I'm going crazy. All this shit happened in one day. I do expect an apology though.

Its only 12pm, and all my other appointments have been rescheduled, I mean I pretty much have the day off, but in my world none of that exists. I headed back to the office; got all the stuff I need to work from home or wherever I was planning to work from. I grabbed some lunch and some cheesecake from a local café just around the corner from work, then headed back to my loft in SoHo.

I love living in Soho, I love being surrounded by the creativity and the many shops too. Living in SoHo pretty much comes close to living in a different world. The vibe here is different. I don't know anyone who lives here, but I feel like I fit in just fine. I pretty much just spent the rest of my day working at home. At about 5:30pm I walked to the local Chinese take-away joint.

Chinese and Italian are pretty much my favourite foods. I ordered fried rice, Kung Pao Chicken, beef with Broccoli two spring rolls (one chicken and the other pork), fried dumplings it didn't take long for my order to get ready, just as I was about to leave, I heard a voice so sexy, yet so familiar, and when I looked up, there was Nicco with two of his guy friends.

The first thing that came to mind was how to sneak out without being seen by the jerk. I don't want him to see me at all. So I pretty much devised a plan in my head on how I was going to sneak out, and it worked, well so I thought, I made it out the door, that must count for something right? Don't think so, a couple of seconds after I walked out, I heard someone shouting frantically and I just kept on walking, pretty sure that the person wasn't calling me. And then I heard someone jogging behind me, I turned around to find the handsome face of Nicco Rabatti staring at me.

"Hey" he sounded out of breath when he said that, what, pretty boy not fit?

I tried to act like I couldn't be bothered.

"Hello Mr Nicco"

'Mr Nicco' really Ava? Come on girl, you can do better than that. Well at least I kinda got a reaction from him; I mean his face kind of says it all. He doesn't look too happy.

"Ah, Hey."

So I guess this is what awkward silence between two people of the opposite sex feels like? We've pretty much been starring at each other for a while now. So I decided to break the silence and the awkwardness.

"So, as much as I enjoy standing here and staring at you, I have work to get back to."

Did I just say that? Really? Who says such? Now it sounds like I'm bipolar. Why do things like this have to happen to me? I do enjoy looking at this beautiful man. His eyes are a beautiful blue mixed with the softest grey, they are totally hypnotizing, I wouldn't mind staring into those orbs all day long. And those lips, they look so soft and totally kissable and I love the fact that he has full lips that kinda look like he's pouting.

His nose looks like a work of art Michelangelo would be proud of. His hair is jet black and is just above his eyebrows. This man is beautiful; his body resembles one of a swimsuit model, lean and muscular accompanied by a tall frame. He actually looks like he's JUST come from a fashion photo shoot.

Yummy... Me want some please. But I'm obviously not going to tell him that. And I guess I've been zoned out for a bit because next thing I know, I have one manly hand up in my face.

"Did you say something?"

"Well yeah, I just wanted to apologise for how I treated you this afternoon. I really didn't mean to make you angry or anything like that. I mean I was kinda having a tough time and..."

So when the dude tries to apologise my stupid smartphone starts ringing, blasting Beyoncé's Naughty Girl. How embarrassing right? I know.

"Hold on a bit, I gotta take this"

I guess his smiling at me was a signal of his 'go ahead'...

"Hello"

It's Kelly, one of my other closest friends. Is today like call your friends day? Don't get me wrong, I love my girlfriends, but them calling around this time, could only be a method for disaster. For the past year, my girlfriends have been trying to hook me with these weird guys. Do I walk around with some sign that screams "desperate, willing to date any type of guy", and every time they tell me about a guy they always start with "This guy is so perfect for you", and 10seconds into the date I'm just not feeling him.

I knew Kelly was just gonna go on and on, and I mean who wants to have a conversation about their none existent love life in front of a hot ass guy? I mean I was pretty much getting uncomfortable.

"Yeah I'm fine Kelly..."

"No, I told you I'm so tired of the blind dates you set me up on."

"Yeah well you keep setting me up with the wrong guys, and I'm just so tired. I don't think love is meant to be mine... Yeah I know that everyone deserves to be loved, and I know I'm a great girl, but I just can't do blind dates anymore... I'm trying to be happy Kelly. I don't need a man to make me happy or to make me the woman I am or could be... Look, I'm kinda busy, I can't talk about this over the phone, but just DON'T set it up, and even if you do, I just won't pitch."

"Yeah okay. Love you too Kelly. Yeah I'll try making it. Bye."

As I ended the call I quickly realised that I was standing with Mr Good looks, this was so embarrassing for me, I mean now he pretty much knows that I am a loveless loser, who has such bad luck with love that her friends need to set her up on blind dates. How much more humiliating does this entire situation get?