William Pryce, better known as ‘Spike’ tapped his finger against the hard wooden desk looking over the papers in front of him. He turned his gaze to the window looking at the other buildings surrounding his. The sky was a perfect blue with puffy white clouds scattered across it. All day long he would sit in his office located on the top floor shuffling papers and making important decisions.
Not that he didn’t love his job, because he did, being the owner of a successful company wasn’t bad, it did have its perks. But he had found the saying ‘it’s lonely at the top’ to be quite true. He came to New York with his mom and dad from England when he was still young and his father had started the business putting everything had into making it successful. It had worked but not before his mother had died, they had coped with the death and years later his father had died too leaving him with the company.
He looked back down at the papers but didn’t see what was written there as he drifted of in thought again. And then there was the rest of his family in London, how he missed them. Sure he had countless girlfriends and others ‘throwing themselves at him’ as his friends liked to say but it wasn’t the same and none of them were really special either. He sighed, life really sucked sometimes.
He was snapped out of his thoughts when his secretary spoke through the small intercom. “ Spike, Chris is on line 1.”
“ Why would Chris be calling me?…” Spike muttered to himself. “ ‘Ello?” He spoke picking up the phone.
“ Should I be worried that you’re not here yet?” He heard his cousin chuckle on the other end of the line.
Spike wracked his brain trying to figure out when he had agreed to go back to London and for what reason. As far as he knew no one had died, was someone having a baby? No, Elen was pregnant but she wasn’t due in another 3 months, and no one was getting married… His eyes went wide, that was it! Chris was getting married! ‘ Bloody hell my own cousin is getting married and I forgot about it, some family I am.’
“ No of course not. I just lost track of time, that’s all.” Spike replayed when he noticed that his cousin was still waiting for an answer.
Chris chuckled again. “ Of course, just like you to get caught up in your work. Well you better be here by tomorrow it’s two days before the wedding rehearsal!”
‘Bloody hell…’ “ Don’t worry I’ve got the plane already booked.” Ok, so it was a little white lie. ‘ S’ not like it’s a big deal.’ “I wouldn’t miss my favourite cousins wedding! Tell Emma not to worry, because m’ sure she’s the one that put you up to this.” Spike couldn’t help but smirk as he heard his cousin start talking slightly panicked.
“ So now I can’t call my own cousin without having and ulterior motive?!” Chris said indignantly although Spike heard a hint of playfulness in his voice.
He smiled amusedly. “ See you tomorrow.”
“ You better!” Chris smiled.
Spike hung up. “ Bloody hell.” He sighed running a hand through his hair making it come loose into spiky blonde curls. “ Well at least I don’t have to worry about bringing a date.”
“ Think again blondy.” Spike’s head quickly turned to look at his secretary who was now standing at the door giving him a disapproving look.
“ What are you talking about Anya?”
“ Don’t you remember? You got the invitation two months ago and you got me to R.S.V.P, so I did. But I assumed you were going to bring someone so I said you’d be bringing a date.”
His head dropped onto his desk with a little thud. ‘ What am I supposed to do now?’ Slowly he brought his head up and gave Anya his best ‘love me’ look. “ Anya…”
She cut him off. “ Oh no! I am not coming with you to your cousins wedding because you couldn’t even remember it after I’ve reminded you about it for a month and a half. That is, until you snapped at me to stop reminding you because, how did you put it? Ah, yes ‘ I can remember my own cousins bloody wedding thank you were much!’ So now you can deal blondie. Plus I don’t think Xander would appreciate me going to a wedding as your date.”
He looked at the clock on the wall. Wow, time really did move fast, it was now 6:00. Who was he going to get on a flight to London with him in the next few hours to pretend to be his date so he wouldn’t look like the girl Anya said was coming with him dumped him or that he dumped her?
“ You can always ask someone in the office. You could pay them or something.” Anya said before walking out of the room.
Usually he would never do that, getting involved with someone who worked for him was never a good idea, but then again, technically they wouldn’t be involved they’d only be pretending. And it’s not like anyone else in the office would find out… It was settled then. He got of his chair and walked out of his office and past Anya’s desk to the elevator pressing one of the lower floors.
***
Elizabeth ‘Buffy’ Summers sat at her desk looking blankly at her computer screen. She shook herself out of her state and continued typing. She’d been drifting off a lot like that lately, everything was just going to hell. The rent for her apartment had just been raised, her mom was recently sent to the hospital because she hadn’t been feeling well and was now being examined, leaving her worried and feeling horrible that she couldn’t be there. And now Angel had broke up with her, stomping on her heart by cheating on her and leaving her with no faith in men or love what so ever. Why couldn’t life just be easy for once?
She stopped typing and looked at the finished five page long report along with Harmony’s work and Parkers who she knew had put some of Alex’s in there after telling her he’d do it so that she would think he was a great guy and sleep with him. Well, Buffy couldn’t wait to see how that turned out. Why did she do it? Simple, her work was to easy and she finished it to fast, and it wasn’t like she was going to get a promotion anytime soon. William Pryce rarely gave promotions, especially not to people he didn’t even know existed let alone worked for him.
That was one of the things she really didn’t like about him, she had worked there for almost four years now and she had never seen him come down to any of the lower levels and talk to anyone, it was like he felt that everyone else was beneath him. She’d also heard that he was a womanizer, one of the worst kinds of men in her opinion. She didn’t even know how he looked, and the whole promotion? She’d had the same position since she had been hired, also not by him. Not that she was complaining, much. She was used to her job and didn’t mind that it was easy (well maybe a little) because by now it was like child’s play to her and she got paid for it.
Buffy got up from her seat and left her office to get a cup of coffee from the lounge, she grabbed the work with her. ‘ Might as well give them their work back.’ After she finished pouring her cup of coffee she started to walk towards Parkers desk and gave him the report.
He just stared at her for a minute frowning. “ Took you long enough. Man, Alex isn’t going to go out with me if you keep taking that long to finish the work!”
Buffy just glared at him and started to walk away angrily. ‘ He’s not worth it Summers, he’s not worth it Summers, he’s not worth...” She stopped her mantra abruptly when someone bumped into her, or had she bumped into them? She was still angry at Parker and now she had coffee all over her new blouse and Harmony’s work which was now on the floor. She’d stick to blaming the other person.
“ Watch it!” She snapped turning to gaze at the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. And his blue eyes were amazing… ‘ Stop it Summers, you’re venturing into dangerous territory. He’s just like every other heartless guy.’
Spike raised his eyebrows. “ I think you bumped into Me luv.” He looked her up and down and couldn’t help notice a few coffee droplets glide down her skin where the blouse had been slightly opened and disappear underneath.
“ Typical, right because the woman is always to blame, jeez man are such jerks.” She mumbled the lat part and looked down at her blouse with a sigh.
“ That’s not what I meant pet.” He bent down and picked up her paper noticing that it had Harmony’s name at the bottom. He’d met Harmony a few times, all due to her unwanted advances, but what was this blonde spitfire doing with Harmony’s work?
Buffy snatched the paper away from him and stared down at the brown coffee stain that was now covering the top half of the paper. Well, at least she had it saved on her computer. And it was a good thing she had a second shirt in the bag she brought to work today for a quick change of clothes for tonight.
“ Whatever, just watch where you’re going next time.” With that she left walking to her office.
“ Wait, what’s your name?” He shouted after her.
“ Why do you want to know?” She asked turning around and raising her eyebrows still irritated by the gorgeous Brit.
“ Just curious I guess.”
“ Buffy.” With that she turned around and went back to her office trying to figure out why she had just given a complete stranger her name. She decided to blame it on momentary insanity and the hot coffee on her clothes. ‘ Well at least I didn’t give him my last name too.’ The blonde thought to herself before re-printing Harmony’s work.
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A/N: What do you think? The next chapter is when the whole plot kicks off so please review!