The Contract
Chapter One
“Nooooo,” Molly groaned as she slid the pants up. They hitched at her thighs, pulling at the seams as she tried to pull them further up. “Fuck, I knew it.”
“Suck it in.”
Molly glared at Olivia, who was sitting on her bed, chewing gum lazily as she watched Molly struggle. “I can’t suck my thighs in.”
“Can’t you flex your muscles or something?”
“The pants don’t fit, Liv.”
This was great, just fucking great. Her first big interview out of college and here she was, unable to squeeze into the only pair of dress pants she had in her closet. Twenty-one, well over thirty thousand dollars in debt for school, and exhausted from working mind-numbing retail shifts, this was supposed to be her big break and now the only thing that she was breaking were the zipper on her pants. The rain outside pelted against the window sill, the leaves outside brushing against the glass from the wind. Molly shook out of the pants, and then sat on the ottoman. “I can’t believe I gained so much weight.”
Liv cocked her head to the side, her sandy hair falling onto her shoulder. “Didn’t you buy those in freshman year or something?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Okay, then you should’ve gone shopping. The official retirement age for all pairs of pants is four years. Why didn’t you tell me this interview was today?”
Molly sighed, rolling her dark hair into a messy bun atop her head. Tendrils escaped the rubber band and fell down alongside her cheeks as they always did. She had definitely messed up. She had been so caught up in the Aiden fiasco that she had lost track of what was actually important – the interview, which was happening today. In an hour. Before Molly could even speak, Olivia groaned.
“Don’t tell me – Aiden?”
“He’s been calling me every day, Liv.” Molly took off her glasses to put in contacts over her green irises instead. “It’s hard to act like I don’t care. Because I do.”
Liv wasn’t having it. “Molly, this ex-boyfriend of yours still lives in his mother’s basement and plays World of Warcraft as a profession. It doesn’t matter if you care. You have to move on.”
“I used to play World of Warcraft too. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Yes, but you outgrew it in high school. And now you have a degree, and an interview at one of Toronto’s most successful consulting firms. You broke up with Aiden because he’s been holding you back. When was the last time he ever took you out? All you two do is hang out in his family’s basement. Don’t forget that now because you’re starting to miss him.”
Molly bit her bottom lip, trying to hold back the feeling of panic that was gnawing away at her; her current job didn’t pay enough. Bills were stacking up. Loan repayment started next month. Rent was also increasing next month because the landlord had suddenly decided he would extort them for all he could. Convocation was just around the corner, where everybody would be flaunting their new jobs – and she didn’t have one. An interview today, on top of a breakup with the only guy she’d ever dated. And now her pants didn’t fit. Her chest felt like it was hurting from the stress. “Can we talk about Aiden another time, Liv? I need to find something to wear to this god damn interview.”
“Here, wear one of my waitressing dresses – you can’t go wrong with a black dress and a blazer.”
“As long as it’s not…” Molly frowned as Olivia passed her a short, tight black dress. “As long as it’s not this.”
“Wear it!”
“I’m going to look like a tramp.”
Olivia scoffed, “no you won’t. Especially with a blazer and heels. Can you try? Please? For me?”
“This is manipulation,” Molly muttered, rolling her eyes at Olivia’s pleading face. Her roommate, and best friend (and also her first cousin), was notorious at getting what she wanted. She’d gotten away with murder so far in her life – not literally murder, but she could probably get away with that too if she wanted. Begrudgingly, and mainly because she was running out of time, she slipped the dress on. Black, with a high neck, it fit snugly on her body. The sleeves ran up to her elbows, and despite the length of them, she felt as if the dress didn’t cover nearly enough of her body.
“Wear it with this,” Liv put a blazer over her shoulders, and then squealed. “Yes!”
Molly stared at her short frame in the mirror. Five-two, a hundred and twenty-five pounds, with her long hair in a bun, she looked like “a secretary. I look like a secretary.”
“A sexy secretary.”
“The job is for a consulting firm.”
“Well, you gotta look like them if you want to be one of them, don’t you?” Liv raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms, “these guys dress to the nines. You can’t go in walking like a shmuck.”
“What are you saying?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying. You did an undergraduate in history and political science, Molly – you aren’t exactly fashion forward.”
“Excuse you -.”
“If we keep arguing, you’re going to be late.”
“Ugh. Fine,” Molly grumbled, letting the gnawing panic rumble away in her as she slipped on a pair of heels, and grabbed her purse. She didn’t have time for this. Her size two pants were no longer fitting so the dress would have to do. She had done barely any preparation, having spent all of her free time working at the library or moping over Aiden, but she would do a crash course on WTA Consulting in the Uber on the way there. God, she was fucked.
“Good luck!” Liv shouted as Molly ran out, spraying the closest bottle of perfume on herself, and grabbing a random shade of lip stick.
xx.
Her nerves continued to gnaw away at stomach as she sat in the back seat of her Uber ride. It was a fourteen-minute ride to downtown Toronto, and they were already halfway there. Autumn had brought with it a slew of rain and wind, forcing browned leaves to snap off their branches and fall onto the ground. Even though it was only September, it was already getting chilly, and Molly tugged down at the end of the black dress, wishing it was thicker, longer, and heavier. Her bare legs felt very naked and she crossed them in an attempt to make that sliver of self-consciousness go away. She had two missed calls on her from, both from her dad, which she deftly ignored, unable to deal with that pile of baggage at the current moment.
She was still scrolling through the information on WTA Consulting and the more she read, the more nervous she became. It had started on the west coast around sixty years ago, and its offices had spread across Canada the more successful it became. It was officially as large as the “Big 4” consulting firms in Canada and was competing head to head with Deloitte and KPMG for market capital in its target industries. They worked for massive corporations like Goldman Sachs, the Department of Defense, and even giant private social media firms like Facebook and Twitter. Smack in the middle of the financial district, she’d seen their headquarters a billion times, a fifty-floor building crafted out of glass windows and steel trimmings.
“You gonna get out of the car or what?”
Molly snapped her head up, “Are we already here?”
“Whaddaya think?”
Jeez. He was getting a low Uber rating. “Thanks,” she muttered as she scrambled her way out of the Uber.
Only realising that she had forgotten an umbrella when the pellets of rain began to drop on her head, she cringed internally as she ran inside the massive front lobby of WTA.
Shit. Now she was wet too.
Today was not going her way. Trying not to show her internal break down, she rubbed her blazer furiously, trying to get the wet spots to blend in with the rest of the blazer.
“Can I help you?”
She looked up to see a receptionist smiling at her bemusedly.
“I have an interview,” Molly cleared her throat and straightened her back, “it’s with the strategy division. For 1PM.”
“Just go up to floor forty-two. Please sign in here, and I’ll give you a badge.”
Deep breaths, Molly, she thought to herself as she signed her name under the names of a dozen other interviewees and penned her signature. She just wished she wasn’t wet. And had her pants. And had also prepared for more than five minutes. God, this was Aiden’s fault. If he hadn’t kept her up all night trying to work out their problems, then she would have actually spent more time on this.
“Where’s the bathroom?” She asked as she took the badge from the receptionist. She needed to sort out her hair, put on her lipstick, and try to use the hand drier to dry off her wet outfit.
“When you reach the forty-second floor, take a right and you should see it straight away.”
“Okay, thanks,” she breathed out nervously as she headed to the elevators.
The building was more intimidating from the inside than it was from the outside. The floors were dark marble, a jarring difference from the glass walls and the high and white ceramic ceilings. There was a chill in the air, as if the heating hadn’t been turned on yet. Whether it was on purpose or not, (she thought) the cool definitely didn’t let you feel comfortable, and instead, kept you on your toes.
She stepped into the steel elevator and pressed forty-two, hoping no one from the interview would see her before she had a chance to clean up. The ride up felt incredibly fast and Molly felt her heart race faster as the doors dinged open to reveal the interview floor.
She immediately headed into the washroom to take a look at herself. God, she looked so disheveled. Untying her hair, she tried to brush it out with her fingers, letting her loose waves fall down her shoulders and down her back. She took her lipstick (unfortunately it was a shade of red) and dabbed it on her lips. Then (after praying no one would come into the bathroom), she squatted under the hand dryer and tried a series of positions so that the dryer would make all of her dry again.
She was halfway through a deep squat and leg raise when the door to the bathroom opened and she immediately straightened up and left the dryer.
Taking a deep breath, she ran her hands over the dress and tried to relax. It was just an interview. She was going to be ok.
Making sure to take in a few deep breaths, she checked herself in the mirror one last time (she looked almost decent), before going to the front desk.
An uncannily similar receptionist greeted her, golden WTA letters glinting behind her on the glass walls.
“Can I help you?”
“I have an interview with a Miss Jennifer Casteo?”
“Ah right,” she pulled open a book and made a concerted show of looking through the names listed on the sheet of paper. “You’re Molly May?”
“Yes.”
“Jennifer unfortunately called in sick today,” she gave a disingenuous frown, “The flu. However, Mr. Harding generously offered his time to interview you instead. The job is for the team he’s been pushing for, so he’s got a vested interest in who gets picked. He’ll be just down the hall on door number 4201. He’ll call you in when he’s ready.”
“Mr. Harding?” Molly felt her heart drop to her stomach. “As in William Harding?”
The receptionist gave another disinterested smile. “Yes, exactly.”
As in, the CEO of Toronto’s headquarters. Harvard law graduate, associate professor of University of Toronto’s Global Strategy Lab, and the youngest CEO of a major consulting firm in Canadian business history.
“Alright, thank you,” Molly gave a smile but felt as if she couldn’t even feel her heart anymore, it was pounding that fast. William Harding?
She was ready for the interview to go poorly, but she hadn’t mentally prepared herself for total humiliation.
Her fight or flight instincts were roaring at full gear, and she fought against the urge to simply turn around and head back down.
Her feet were moving on auto-pilot but she felt her thoughts running a mile a minute, and her heart was hammering now. As in the William Harding who had just posted for photographs for Forbes magazine and had recently sat on UNHR panel arguing for tech start-ups to start engineering AMR machines to fight a possible onslaught of global disease pandemics?
Her butt found the seat of a chair in front of the door she’d been directed to, but her body felt frozen in place.
Why was she wearing this god damn skin tight dress?
She pulled at the hems, wishing it would grow five inches to cover the bottoms of her knees. Suddenly, she was also incredibly aware that she’d gained five pounds in the past year, and that her hair was still slightly wet.
She didn’t know Jennifer but suddenly found herself hating her for catching the flu and calling in sick. Was this even allowed? Weren’t there levels of managers who would have been asked to interview her before the goddamn CEO did!?
She was in the middle of an internal panic attack when the receptionist poked her head over the side of her table and called out to her, “You can head in now.”
Nervousness in full force, so much so that her fingers were tingling, she slowly got up and headed to the door. Expecting the next forty-five minutes to be a complete disaster, she took a deep breath and turned the door knob.
Chapter Two
He was sitting behind a glass table, the vast room around him fit with minimalistic furnishings and design. The wall sized window behind him looked out onto the lake, with the CN tower and Rogers Stadium in view on the west. She barely took it in, too focused on the fact that she was standing in front of a guy she had just read an article about.
He was wearing a dark navy suit, a simple cream shirt buttoned up inside of his blazer. His lean six-foot-three figure seemed to loom over the desk, his dark hair and grey eyes contrasting with his tanned skin. His four-o-clock shadow was already coming in, and he was rubbing a hand over his jaw as he looked down at some papers.
“Hello,” the words seem to barely come out of her throat. She couldn’t think of what to say. The only words running through her mind were Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He looked up from his papers, his laser focus settling on her as if only realising that she was there now. His jaw was unsettlingly sharp, and the Rolex watch on his wrist seemed to glint at her aggressively. She was painfully aware of how poor she was compared to him. Only thirty-three, and he already owned millions.
“Ah, Miss May, pleased to meet you. Please sit down.”
It didn’t sound like he was pleased to meet her. If anything, he sounded vaguely irritated that she was here. His voice was low, and deep, and she found herself trying to recall the interviews of his that she had watched on Youtube where she noted his dangerous sharpness in his voice.
“I’m sure you’ve been told of the situation. Jennifer couldn’t make it today, and I’m very vested in the outcome of the human rights strategy team that we’re hiring for. I hope you’ll be able to tolerate me interviewing instead.”
Was that supposed to be a joke? Her mind was reeling a mile a minute, and she tried to decipher whether she should be smiling. Unable to think properly, since she was still absorbing the fact that she was sitting across from him, she simply stared back at him. She was taken aback by how dangerously handsome he was, more so than he appeared in videos and photos. He had definitely broken some hearts on his way to the top.
“How was your morning?”
The question caught her off guard, and she brushed a tendril of her hair behind her ear, “It was good. Just got my monthly TTC pass, so that takes care of transportation for the next thirty days,” she was horrified at the words coming out of her mouth as she was saying them, and she prayed her couldn’t see the flush that was warming her cheeks, “how was yours?”
“Haven’t picked up my monthly TTC pass, I’m afraid,” he gave her a bemused smirk, and then leaned back in his chair. Holding a pen in his hands, his focus was unnervingly entirely on her. “I don’t have much time unfortunately, so let’s keep this brief. Why should we hire you?”
Why did this feel so mortifying? She cleared her throat to start talking, wishing her heart would stop pounding in her throat. “I spent four years studying history and political science at the University of Toronto, so I’m very vested in human rights issues and I’ve always wanted to work in a consulting firm -.”
“So does every other person who graduates from the Political Science department at UofT” he cut her off, “what makes you different?”
Feeling miffed at the jab, she felt some of her nerves settle in response, “well, I graduated at the top of my grade -.”
“So you’re good at memorising and regurgitating information on a test.”
Her eyebrows narrowed, partly in confusion, but more so in annoyance at being cut off for the second time. She had watched his interviews; wasn’t this guy supposed to be nice? “Yes, I am good at focusing and memorising, but a lot of the work I did in my undergraduate degree involved critical thinking and analysis.”
“Critical thinking.” He repeated, with no inflection to imply whether it was a question or a statement.
“Yes,” was he doubting her already? She straightened in her chair, starting to feel annoyance creep in further, “I created my own methodology in my last year, which was published by Toronto’s leading think-tank. It analysed the intersection of -.”
“We don’t write essays at WTA, we consult.”
“Yes, I’m aware -.”
He crossed his ankle over his right knee, looking relaxed, “and we don’t need more academics here, we need people who are able to properly understand the reality of the target markets and asses real life situations to create practical solutions for the problems at hand.”
She suddenly felt all nervousness dissipate, replaced by pure frustration. Did this guy invite her here just to insult her? “My thesis was presented to the department of defence at last year’s NSO summit and was considered for implementation by the state department. I would call that a realistic assessment of the problem at hand, since it led to very real outcomes.”
“Hm.” He stated, in his very matter-of-fact way, his eyes assessing her. “But this would be your first job out of school.”
“Yes, it would but -.”
“So why shouldn’t I hire someone with ten years under their belt, with field experience?”
She narrowed her eyes, “Wasn’t your first big consulting job right out of school?”
Silence.
Shit.
“Yes it was.” He uncrossed his legs. “It says here that you volunteered as a consultant for WHO.”
“That was last summer -.”
“Was it unpaid?”
“Yes, but -.”
“Have you ever had a paid full-time position?”
“Not yet, since I just graduated two months ago, but I have a lot of experience -.”
“So the answer is no.”
“The answer is no, but I’ve done a lot of case studies -.”
“Anyone can do a case study.”
“My professors can attest to the fact that -.”
“I don’t want to hear from a professor. I’d want to speak to at least one manager whose had you as an employee.”
“Any place that I’ve volunteered for -.”
“This isn’t boy and girl scouts of Canada. We’re one of the leading consulting firms in Canada. What makes you think that we would hire someone straight out of university with no paid consulting work experience, no real-life field experience, and no experience managing a portfolio of clients? I’m surprised Jennifer picked you for an interview, if I’m being honest.”
The phone rang, and he picked it up before she had the chance to respond. She gritted her teeth, trying to hold back her anger. This was ridiculous. She hadn’t gotten a word in edgeways, and now he was taking a call.
She sat there, watching him as he talked about some metrics, and some meeting, and some golf game, feeling her stomach clench in frustration. What was this? Some type of interrogation mixed with humiliation tactics?
He was on the phone for a solid two minutes before he hung up, and he looked back at his sheet, looking (incredulously to her) bored. “Okay, look Molly – I think we may be looking for someone for a bit more experience, but we’ll keep your resume on file if something comes up that we think you may -.”
“Excuse me, no.”
For the first time during their conversation, he looked slightly bemused. He looked at her again, as if somewhat surprised. “Excuse me?”
She was shocked that the words had come out of her mouth. To her own horror, she heard herself talk on, “You’ve barely given me five minutes, and I think you’ve been incredibly rude, in fact,” she tried to bite down the apology for calling him rude and steamrolled on. “I graduated not only top of my grade, but in the top 2% of the entire cohort – something that you didn’t do when you graduated from UWO, if I remember your LinkedIn profile correctly. I have a 4.0 GPA, which I worked very hard for, and I’ve had to deal with men like you the entire time – guys who think they’re too good for anybody else, who go to the frat parties, but charm their way into the good graces of influential people. No, I haven’t worked for a consulting firm before, but I’ve stayed up for nights on end to finish projects, so I know what it takes, and if you’d just let me talk for a few minutes, you’d know that I’ve already been scouted by McKenzie, but I rejected them because their work environment wasn’t what I was looking for.” That last part was a lie, but there was no way he would know.
It was only when she was finished talking that she realised what she’d said, and she sat in morose silence as he simply watched her. It had been like word vomit, had rolled out of her mouth without filter, fueled purely by the irritation and frustration at being steamrolled over for their entire interaction.
He didn’t say anything. In fact, he leaned back in his chair again, looking pensive. Finally, he spoke. “Guys like me.”
Another statement.
“Yes, guys like you.”
“Describe guys like me.”
Ugh. What was this? “I don’t think that’s appropriate, Mr. Harding.”
“Go on, I won’t be offended. I find this highly entertaining.”
She gritted her teeth, “I misspoke.”
“No, please,” he nodded to her, looking engaged for the first time. “I’d love to hear.”
Had his eyes just flickered down her body? It had been brief, and she had barely caught it, but she had definitely felt his gaze skim over her chest and hips. Suddenly, she felt incredibly aware of her wet clothes, messy hair, and rosy lips.
She felt an unusual flush rush through her body, and she shifted in her chair, pulling down the hem of her skirt. “Well…” she trailed off, not knowing what dangerous waters she had just waded in to. “Men like you think that they have the world in their hand, and that they can treat people whatever way they want. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to start from the bottom, and to bust your ass working a part time job balancing full time school, while trying to pay for rent, and buy monthly TTC passes – which are really overpriced, by the way.” She swallowed, feeling his steady gaze incredibly unnerving. “You rely on your good looks to get what you want, and I’m sure a lot of women have made a lot of bad decisions where you’re concerned. And I feel sorry for them, because it’s clear from our conversation, you’re a little self-centered.”
Welp. Had that really come out of her mouth? Well, she had already blown this shit-show of an interview, so it wasn’t like she had anything to lose.
“Hm.” He stated again, amusement flickering again in his eyes, “well, that really isn’t a good first impression I’ve made on you then.”
“No, you haven’t,” she squirmed, suddenly wanting to leave. Why did it feel like she’d suddenly prodded a wolf in his den with a sharp stick? “No offense, or anything.”
“None taken,” he smirked, his grey eyes glinting. “What about you Miss May? Are you impervious to making bad decisions?”
What in the world did that mean?
“I would say I’m quite unreceptive to bullshit,” she felt like she was in a twilight zone, and very much like Little Red Riding Hood wading into the territory of the big bad wolf, “I’m the best person you could hire for this job, and you’ll be making a mistake not to hire me.”
“I’ll take that into consideration.”
“Thank you. Now, if you’re done with the questions, here are my references,” she waded out a sheet of paper from her purse and placed it firmly on his desk in front of him, “it was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Harding.”
“Pleasure is mine,” he grinned, and she swore there was a mischievous smirk in his smile, as he stood up to shake her hand.
She felt a tingle in her throat as their hands met, his firm hand enveloping hers. She withdrew it as quickly as she could, feeling as if she had been just burned by a flame. She wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.
“The receptionist will see you out.”
“Have a good day,” she responded as she turned around and left the room.
She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Molly didn’t look at him again as the door clicked shut behind her. Standing outside in the hallway, she simply stood there and tried to take a deep breath of air.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck had just happened?