“Well, two reasons: one, I get in trouble when I use my phone here apparently, and two, in a nod to your advanced age, I was going old school.”
I narrowly avoided laughing outright. She was so damn sassy. Her apology had seemed sincere, and the fact that she could keep up with my note passing sarcasm regarding my age made me want to raise a glass to her and make a toast.
I was stunned to feel my blood heat at her cheeky remark, to note the blush staining her cheek and her throat. I had embarrassed her, but she had given it right back to me instead of backing down, cowed by my rank. I did grant her a half-smile. She took up her pen and poised it above the paper, ready to write.
Throughout the meeting, I kept glancing at her. Her attention always rapt on the speaker or taking swift, messy notes on her legal pad. It had been a long time since a woman intrigued me so much.
I couldn’t resist noticing the sweep of her elegant neck, the curve of a dark curl that had escaped its hairpins to nestle along her collarbone. I wanted to brush it back, tuck it back in its pins and put my mouth to the hollow of her throat there. I shook myself. Nowhere in Robert’s Rules of Order did it list the procedure for sucking the alluring neck of a new employee. I was fairly certain that it was expressly forbidden in our corporate conduct manual.
I went to lunch with a few of the directors. One of the newer additions, a legend whose father had started on the board when the company went public years before, said he was uncomfortable with how the new hire answered me. Before I could calmly inform him that I had a sense of humor and my ego wasn’t so easily bruised. Besides, the chairman, Alex Barnes, took care of it.
“Brent isn’t fragile, Nate. He jokes around with his staff. He’s gotten to where he is through hard work, and he doesn’t demand artificial signs of respect.”
“Although if you want to genuflect every time you see me, I’ll allow it,” I said wryly, and they all laughed.
“I still forget and kiss his ring from time to time, “ Alex joked.
We talked over our role in an upcoming global conference on responsible commerce in Taiwan. Our COO was on board to attend and be the keynote speaker, which suited me perfectly. I enjoyed travel, but at this point, I was bored of delivering some version of a hopeful speech to a roomful of half-drunk executives who would have applauded just as much if I’d just stood there reciting the alphabet backward. Some of the delegates would be there because they wanted to embrace stewardship, others just wanted free drinks and accommodations on the company’s dime. I was past caring about which ones were which. It’d tilted at those windmills myself a decade ago, and I had grown a bit jaded around the edges. I had no less energy, no less passion, but a hell of a lot less patience.
“Nate,” I said, “your dad once told me that the way he knew he was getting old was when he stopped suffering fools. So I think I’ve reached that ripe old age because I’m delighted to send another executive to the conference. I won’t have to stand in a buffet line for bland chicken and oversalted rice, and I won’t have to listen to the same half-baked ideas in a dozen speeches.”
“He never suffered fools, don’t listen to him,” Alex declared.
“I guess I was surprised you let her talk to you like that, but I think you were right. You’re building rapport with staff and that breeds loyalty. Brand loyalty, as we know is—”
“It’s not brand loyalty. It’s company culture,” I interrupted. “And culture is the single most important asset you have. It’s where your energy belongs because a positive and compassionate culture attracts and keeps the best people. It makes them more productive and glad to be more productive. They’ll do more than you ask, and they’ll be grateful for the chance to do it. My grandmother used to say, you have a lot of choices to make in life, and most of them boil down to—am I going to act like a decent person or not?”
“You should give the speech in Taiwan. You’re full of grandmotherly wisdom,” Alex said.
“I am nobody’s grandmother,” I said, “and if she were here, she’d probably slap both of us up the side of the head for the way we talk. She’d call it mischief and nonsense.”
“Your mischief and nonsense are worth billions,” Alex countered.
“She wouldn’t care. She was a terrific woman, my grandmother. In her honor, I think we should order steaks.”
“Did she love steaks?” Nate said.
“I doubt she ever ate one. We didn’t have that kind of money. We ate a lot of Hamburger Helper when I was growing up,” I said.
“You’re kidding. I knew you were self-made, but I assumed that meant you went to Yale on a scholarship instead of a family endowment.”
“I went to a state school, Nate. And worked my way through. But my lack of an Ivy League pedigree hasn’t held me back much. Socially, if you didn’t go to Wharton, you’re lesser, but being one of the ‘lesser’ billionaires isn’t a hardship to me. I take pride in the fact that I know what it’s like on both sides. I’ve been poor—like the electricity was shut off poor. “
“Remember the furor about ten years ago when all our employees were raised to fifteen dollars an hour minimum?” Alex said, “everyone in the industry had a fit, said we’d go bankrupt. We’re still here.”
“But nobody who works for me has to sleep in their car or eat ramen every night and that’s a matter of pride. So teasing doesn’t hurt my ego, but anyone on my payroll suffering because I was a miser—that would be a source of shame.”
We drank to avoiding shame.
Speaking of shame, I couldn’t help thinking that I should be ashamed of the way I’d looked at Cat Sherman, ashamed of the way I had wondered how she’d taste.
3
Cat
The next day, my third day as an Astley Corp. employee, I asked Kim if I could go apologize to the CEO in person for texting in the meeting.
“I still want to know what you were texting,” she said archly.
“No. You don’t. It was stupid, and I’d like a chance to tell him privately that I know it was a mistake. It won’t happen again. I realize a CEO doesn’t have a bunch of space in his schedule for junior staff to grovel about their mistakes, but I’d appreciate a chance if you think of anything.”
“You could take him this,” she said. Kim took a document off the pile on her desk, paper clipped it and put it in a folder, “here. Tell Millie I told you to hand-deliver it to him.”
“Doesn’t that sound like I don’t trust her to give it to him?” I said.
“Look, do you want an excuse or not?” Kim asked.
“Yes, I do. Thank you. I’ll be right back unless he makes me scrub the Turkish carpets for penance.”
“I don’t think you’re even allowed to get them wet, so I doubt it. But if he has you bleach the tile grout in the bathrooms, be sure to get the part behind the toilet,” she teased.
“Haha,” I said flatly. I dodged into the bathroom to check my reflection and fluff my hair. I went up the elevator, the blood singing in my veins with the excitement of seeing him again.