Buffy glanced at the clock, 7:00 pm. She started packing up her things ready to go when her office phone rang. Strange, it was past working hours, everyone had already left she had just been working late. She debated just letting it ring but decided against it, could be something important. “ Hello, Buffy Summers speaking.”
“ You know sweetie, you should stop answering your phone like that. Could be some psycho or stalker calling you and if he knows your first and last name…well it’s not a good thing.” The voice on the other end said.
“ Hi Anya. How come you’re calling? Still working?” Buffy smiled ignoring her friends comment. She had known Anya since high school and was happy when she found out they’d be working in the same place even if it was on different floors.
“ Yeah, well I’m just leaving to go see Xander and play a new game he’s going to teach me, it sounded really fun it involves chocolate and…” Buffy cut her off before she could finish.
“ Ok Anya, no details please. No offence but I don’t really want to know about your and Xander’s sexcapades.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“ Fine, just calling to let you know Mr. Pryce wants to see you in his office. And trust me I don’t call him that by choice but he has this whole thing about saying his name so casually to people when I’m his secretary. Gives the wrong impression or something. Anyway I got to go. Talk to you later.” With that she hung up.
Buffy froze. William Pryce wanted to see her? Her boss wanted to see her? Why, after working for him for four years she hadn’t even spoken to him once. Not even for her interview, her department boss had interviewed her. So how come all of a sudden he wanted to see her? How did he even know who she was? This did not sound good for her. ‘Ah, well. This is already the week from hell, getting fired wouldn’t be too unexpected.’
She got up and grabbed her things walking towards the elevator. She punched the top floor and waited impatiently, luckily the buildings elevators didn’t have the customary music. ‘ Thank god.’ Buffy thought before stepping out and walking past Anya’s desk and knocking.
“ Come in.” She heard a deep voice say before she turned the knob.
‘ Let’s get this over with.’ When she walked in however she stood frozen, there was the guy with the bleached hair and the blue eyes from this afternoon, the same one she had yelled at after bumping into and spilling her coffee. This must have been some cosmic joke. ‘ You have got to be kidding me.’ Buffy thought.
***
Spike sat in his office thinking after he left from where he had encountered the petite blonde. The only thing he knew about her now was that her name was Buffy. Which by itself was amusing, how many people actually named their daughter ‘ Buffy’? That was it, he was going to call Anya.
“ Anya can you come in here for a minute?”
Anya walked through the door and stood with her arms crossed. “ What would you like now Spike?”
“ I wanted you to find out about a girl that works here and…”
“ No! Ohh no! I’m not staying here and using up my hours that I could be with Xander to snoop on some girl because you have to find a last minute date!” she interrupted and started to walk away when something caught her attention.
“ But I need to know Buffy’s last name and a little about her!” Spike visibly sighed in relief when he saw Anya halt in her steps and turn around.
“ Did you say Buffy? As in Buffy Summers?”
“ Well I’m pretty sure no one else works here that’s named Buffy.” He paused for a minute. “ Why, do you know her?”
Anya paused before she answered. She knew that Buffy didn’t trust men and didn’t want to get in a relationship because she didn’t believe in love anymore. Well who better to show her it existed then Spike? There was definitely a chance something could happen between them, they were so alike. Screw the whole ‘opposites attract’ thing, opposites also split up just as often.
“ No, not personally. Just talked to her once or twice on the phone in the office.”
“ Ok, well could you please contact her and tell her I would like to speak with her?” Anya just nodded and left the office straight to her phone.
Spike sat back in his chair and waited. What if she said no? What would he do then, he didn’t want to take some random girl of the street, well not like this was any better but at least she worked here so he knew she worked and had an ok life. Or was it worse because she worked here? He sighed and ran his hand through his hair.
He was brought out of his thoughts by a tentative knock on his office door. “ Come in.”
He smirked when he saw the shocked look on her face. It felt like he was looking at someone that had seen a ghost, but it looked cute non the less. ‘ Wait, no, not cute that’s not something you should be thinking you bloody git.’ He reprimanded himself in his head.
“ Please sit down Ms. Summers.” He watched as she sat down silently.
Buffy sat down and wasn’t sure what to do as he seemed to be studying her should she speak or remain sitting there silently? She started to fidget in her seat when neither of them had spoken for what seemed like eternity but was in fact only a few minutes.
‘ Ugh, why am I sitting here like and idiot nervous to talk to this guy? He’s a jerk anyway and this afternoon he didn’t do anything. If I’m getting fired I might as well be myself and not like brain dead Harmony. Wait, Harmony is brain dead but she never shuts up, scratch that idea.’
“ Look, I’m not going to sit here until you decide to tell me why you called me into your office because I have better things to do. If you want to fire me for this afternoon or whatever reason go right ahead.” She narrowed her eyes getting more courage. “ But I can guarantee that the quality of the work in my department will decrease if you do.”
To her utter annoyance all he did was chuckle at her like she had just said the funniest thing he had heard all week. Well to hell with it, she’d rather be out with Willow then sit here and take this from her jackass of a boss. She stood up and started to walk away when he spoke again.
“I’m sorry luv, please don’t go. And believe me when I say you’re not fired.”
She narrowed her eyes with scrutiny as he tilted his head to the side and gave her a sincere apologetic smile. She sighed and sat down once again.
“ So what did you want to talk about Mr. Pryce?”
“ Spike.”
Buffy’s eyes went wide as she looked at him. “ Excuse me?”
“ The name’s Spike. Mr. Pryce was my father and I don’t much like my given first name.” He grinned when she blushed and ducked her face behind her hair before looking up again.
“ That still didn’t answer my question. What did you want to talk about?”
“ Come to dinner with me tonight.” Buffy just stared at him.
‘ Is this guy completely insane? I don’t know who he is, he doesn’t know who I am and he calls me into his office just to ask me to dinner?’
Spike saw the look in her eyes and immediately back pedaled. “ Not on a date pet. I meant to talk, there’s not one in the building anymore and it’s to stuffy in here. Thought it might be nice to talk somewhere else.”
Buffy just continued to stare at him contemplating what she should do. She had promised Willow that they’d have a girls night, and she hadn’t actually had one of those with Willow in a while but she was really curious about what William Pryce would possible want to talk to her about.
“ Please?”
She sighed. “ Ok.”
Ten minutes later she had grabbed her coats and they were sitting in his limousine. With no surprise, once again in silence.
“ So did your parents actually name you Buffy?” Buffy turned to look at him, had she not been surprised by the brake in silence she would have looked annoyed at the least.
“ No, my actual name is Elizabeth and my mom called me Bethy but when I was younger I couldn’t pronounce it correctly so when someone asked me what my name was my reply would always sound like I was saying ‘Buffy’ so it kind of stuck with me.”
She looked away. Why was she even telling him this? Like he even cared, he was probably just trying to start a conversation and you had to go into a whole long answer instead of just saying no and ‘it’s Elizabeth’.
“ Looks like we’re here.” Spike said as the limo stopped and he stepped out. Buffy was about to open the door when the chauffer opened it for her. She got out and smiled at him saying a quick thanks before she walked beside Spike into the restaurant.
The hostess led them to their table and she sat down looking around. Sure Willow was going to be kind of upset that she wasn’t able to be there for their girls night but hey, she’d love to hear about this and the restaurant was beautiful too. “ Willow!” Buffy slumped in her chair. She had forgot to call her friend.
“ I beg your pardon?”
Buffy looked over at Spike and gave a sheepish smile. “ I need to use the phone I forgot to call my friend and tell her I won’t be able to make it tonight.”
“ Here.” She looked at the small cell phone he handed her and took it giving him a quiet thanks. Ok so maybe he wasn’t being as big a jerk as she thought, but hey, they’d barely even talked so she was sticking to her opinion.
She quickly dialed the number and waited for her red headed friend to pick up. “ Hello?” Bingo.
“ Willow, it’s me. I’m really sorry but something came up and I can’t make it tonight.” She paused to listen to see what her friend was going to say.
“ That’s ok Buff, you’ll tell me all about it later ok?”
“ Yeah, I will. By Wills.” She clicked the phone of and handed it back to Spike pulling her hand away like it was on fire when it brushed his.
“ So I guess you’re wondering why I wanted to talk to someone I haven’t even seen before this afternoon.” He clasped his hands together and put them on the table. She just raised her eyebrows and nodded.
“ I’m just going to get straight to the point, it may sound strange but hear me out. I want you to be my date to my cousins wedding.” He paused to assess her reaction. She seemed to be staring at me blankly and her mouth was slightly open. He decided it would be better to just continue. “ I kind of waited until the last minute and it turns out that I need a date. Basically you’d have to pretend to be m girlfriend for a week or so.”
Buffy just sat there stiffly not knowing how to respond to what had just be said. Wow, this was far from being fired. ‘ Willow so totally won’t mind that I ditched when she finds out about this.’
“ You still with me here luv?” He looked at her nervously. He hoped she would just get up and make a run for it because at this point he wouldn’t be surprised if she did, hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
“ Why would I do that?” She asked simply. This was turning out to be some day.
“ I’d pay you of course. However you’d have to be ready to go at about 1:30 am to London England.”
Buffy paused not saying anything for several moments. This was really, really crazy but she could use the money. Especially now, her mom was in the hospital and she knew that she would need money to pay off the hospital bills afterwards and with the small art gallery her mom owned it wasn’t going to happen unless she helped and she could do that without going into her savings. But if she did this then she wouldn’t have.
She took a sip of the wine that had come and been poured for both of them. “ Ok.”
“ Look I…come again?” Spike looked at her bewildered.
“ I said ok.”