Chapter 35

Rossalyn and Mary stayed in the dining room for the next two hours going over all of Josiah's estates and what Rossalyn thought about the decorations, layout, staff arrangements, and many other details. Rossalyn felt way in over her head with everything Mary was going over with her. She pretty much listened and just approved of everything that was already in place. She didn't feel like anything was her property yet. Most of the estates, six to be exact, she'd never even seen or heard of before their conversation. But she did have one major change she wanted implemented fairly immediately.

"The only real change that I want made in the immediate future is I want an office set up for me. If I'm going to have regular meetings like this I want a space to be able to have the conversations that is a bit more.......comfortable." She told Mary as she gestured to the dining room table covered with documents.

"We can definitely do that, Ma'am. Do you have a specific location for the office?" Mary asked her, unphased by the request.

"In fact, I do. There is plenty of unused space on the second floor. But the rooms feel far too small to be used comfortably as an office for me. I'd like to combine two of the rooms." Rossalyn said as she thought about the two front rooms closest to the stairs. They were arguably the two smallest rooms on the floor, meant to offer more bedrooms, but little comfort in space for both. "Lets go upstairs and I'll show you which two rooms I'm thinking of and go over some ideas."

Rossalyn led Mary upstairs and entered the first door on the right which currently held a full sized bed and small chest of drawers on the opposite wall from the bed. Even with such meager furnishings, the room felt cramped since it had little available floor space to move around in. The room was better suited for a twin sized bed if they were wanting to add free space in the room. If she had a desk in the room, it would leave little room for seating or any other decorations. But if she took down the wall between the two rooms and combined them, it would leave plenty of room for a cozy office. She told Mary of her thoughts and asked for Mary's opinion.

"I think that is a wonderful idea. The rooms on this floor are really only used if some of Mr. Roja's men stay over, which is not very often. Even taking two of the bedrooms away, that leaves four extra bedrooms that are much bigger than both of these available. I don't think this bed has even ever been slept in since the room is much less desireable." Mary said nodding and looking around the room, trying to visualize the changes before they have been implemented.

"Excellent. When can we get started on the construction?" Rossalyn asked her.

"I can have a contractor come over later today. We have people that do these things for us and they rarely make us wait too long before coming over to bid the job. Mr. Roja usually will just pay them whatever they ask for, as long as it isn't too unreasonable for the work being requested." Mary said.

"Great, get that started so we can get the plans together for that as soon as possible. Is there anything else that you need from me at the moment?" Rossalyn asked her.

"No ma'am, I think we've covered everything that we needed to talk about for the moment." Mary assured her then with a brief word of thanks, she left the room to make the necessary phone calls.

Rossalyn made her way to the entertainment room and sat herself at the desk. She searched through the drawers and found blank paper for the printer and some pens. She had an eye for designing and so she set about drawing out the layout of the rooms once they were combined and how she wanted the office set up. She was very engrossed in her work, taking care with all the details so she lost track of time as she worked.

"What are you doing there?" Josiah's voice suddenly came from the doorway, startling Rossalyn, though luckily she didn't have the pen to the paper when he spoke.

"Jeez, where did you come from?" Rossalyn groused when she looked up to find him walking across the room to the desk where she sat. "I'm working on the plan for my office, how I want it laid out and such."

"For your office?" Josiah's voice was confused, though interested as he took the paper she had been working on from the desk to look over it.

"Yes, I figure if I'm going to be in charge of the running of all the properties, I'd like to have somewhere to comfortably do that. It would also help to have somewhere to keep all the documents for everything." Rossalyn said with a shrug.

"This is really nice. You can draw really well." Josiah said, surprised at the drawing of the office layout he was looking at.

"Thank you. But I'm not done with that yet. Can you please give it back?" Rossalyn asked, reaching up for the paper he was holding out of her reach.

"You like doing these things?" Josiah asked, looking at her curiously as he returned the paper to her.

"Designing rooms and stuff?" She asked, confused.

"Yes, or art work. Both, I guess." Josiah answered.

"Yes, I love to draw, paint, I even can do sculpting and pottery. I'm actually a pretty decent wood worker too, if I have the materials. Why?" She looked up at him confused.

"I don't know, I just didn't take you for the artsy type, I guess." Josiah shrugged as he took the seat in front of the desk and situated himself comfortably.

"There are a lot of things that you don't know about me, Josiah. We've only known each other a little shy of four months. The topic never came up." Rossalyn pointed out, rolling her eyes at him.

"Fair point. Are you ready to have lunch yet? It is nearly one in the afternoon." Josiah said then grinned at her stunned expression.

"Yeah, that would explain why I'm hungry. Why didn't you come get me earlier?" Rossalyn asked and stood up from the desk to walk with Josiah toward the dining room for their afternoon meal.

"Because I just got out of my meeting. It ran a little longer than planned. I think we're having chicken salad for lunch, does that sound good?" Josiah asked her.

"Yes, that will be great. So what was your meeting about?" Rossalyn asked, curious as to what held his attention for so long.

"Oh...you'll love this." Josiah said laughing as he pulled out a chair for her to sit then took his own seat. "George wants to combine our families."