10. Matt
10
MATT
N egotiations like the ones we’d engage in with the Gammon representatives could take up to a year. The more complex the needs of a potential client, the more meetings and discussions were expected to be had.
I counted on a few months of back and forth with them to secure their account. They only sought a marketing firm for one company, one brand of products. If they wanted us to take over more, then other arrangements could be made later on. In fact, I looked forward to that being a possibility, that as the new CEO, I would be in charge of delegating new teams and crews to handle more of the Gammon needs.
For now, we had to get through the hurdle of the first meeting. The team got together for the last week of the month to prep and rehearse this very situation. I had faith in the guys. Rupert, Brad, Eli, and Tom collaborated well with each other. They had with Janice as our fifth wheel to round it out, too. Loren was a new addition, but other than Tom’s annoying habit of hitting on her, she fit in all right.
Not with me, of course, but that was another matter I didn’t have time for. I had no patience for her to get defensive. Or stubborn. I loathed pushovers, but at the same time, I was the boss.
We headed to the Gammon building together, and I was confident we could impress them. Nothing was set in stone. We left a lot of leeway for changes, counting on their feedback at this early stage of brainstorming and mapping out criteria of what they were looking for. Still, we came prepared with enough meat on the bones. We weren’t emptyhanded, showing up and expectant for general direction. I liked to come on strong and preemptively offer visions of what we could offer or adjust.
“I like that,” Eli said as we waited for an elevator to descend for us in the Gammon building.
I had to stifle my need to avoid them now. I couldn’t damn well take the stairs and let the team ride up the twenty floors without me.
We all looked over at Eli as he pointed at his head, indicating to Loren, whom he’d complimented, that he was praising her elaborate braids.
I’d noticed them too, wondering how long it had taken her to perfect it. Did she wake up early, too nervous to sleep in her first big meeting working for me? Those twisted strands of gold had to have required an hour of attention, with how thick and long her waves were.
“Thanks, Eli.” She smiled sweetly at him.
“Looks beautiful,” Tom added quickly.
I rolled my eyes. That man couldn’t let anyone compliment her without trying to one-up what they said.
“I don’t know about that,” Loren argued. “But they’re neat and make me feel ready to tackle this meeting.”
I saw the merit in that. Her hair was back almost in a warrior manner, like she was battle ready and wouldn’t let something like her hair be a trivial distraction. Athletes did hairstyles like this. And it was beautiful. I liked it best when she left it down, tumbling over her shoulders. Now that my attention was on her, I couldn’t help but imagine messing up the fine knots and twists until it was a wavy curtain.
Spread over my pillow, too. As she reached?—
No. Stop.
I exhaled hard through my nose, proud that I was at least getting quicker at dismissing these errant thoughts about her, these wandering visions of her similar to the night I’d met her.
“How about after this meeting, we celebrate with lunch?” Tom asked her.
The elevator beeped before it opened, giving us all a purpose to enter and not pay attention to Tom. Loren didn’t. She seemed to use the sliding open doors as an excuse not to have to reply.
“Hmm?” Tom stood next to her, elbowing her gently.
“No, Tom,” she replied. How she could still be this good-natured about it and not snap at him was a miracle. She had the patience of a saint, putting up with his attempts for a date.
“It’s time to focus,” I reminded him. “We’re here for a meeting, remember?”
He smirked at me.
“Not to prioritize our personal schedule. You’re on the clock. So act like it.”
The more Tom tried to break Loren down to give him a chance, the more I realized I hated it because I wanted her. I regretted being unable to have another chance with her, to make our one-night fling something else. I doubted two nights would be enough, either.
I was careful not to come on too hard, though. I wanted to tell this man to stop bothering her, but I felt like I didn’t need to since she was taking it in stride and deflecting him herself, without my help. And if I were to tell him to leave her alone, would I be doing so because I was jealous and wanted her for myself? That wouldn’t be right, either.
Regardless, my warning to Tom stood. If any of them were distracted, it could cost us this meeting. We were all on the clock, and I expected all of us to act like it. This was go time, with not a second to spare for anything but concentration on the project.
We’d hammered down the details, arguing up until last night, actually about the colors and fonts in the presentation. Brad and Rupert seemed indecisive about some word choices, too. Yet, we’d compromised and prepared the show to share. Tom finalized the slides and ensured us that all of our meeting notes from the conference room yesterday would show in what we brought to the Gammon folks now.
By the time we reached the correct floor, Tom had toned it down. He could be a pain in the ass, too goofy and quick to show off for being the center of attention, but that also made him the opposite of me. I was often too stern, too serious, always uber-focused on work. For that reason, I didn't mind keeping him on select teams, aware that a balance for more laidback people could make us stronger as a whole.
The same logic applied to Loren, as well. She was sweet, polite, and super conscious of her words and mannerisms. Even though she held a mutual dislike for me, she was soft-spoken with others. Like John had implied, she was a natural at making people feel at ease.
It paid off for this meeting, too, and I was damned glad we had her to smooth out the edges of arrival. While introductions went well, I couldn’t help but notice that the representatives were all female. They gravitated toward her, and I knew that assigning her some speaking parts would help. I usually took the helm. I was great at public speaking, and I enjoyed the challenge of persuading prospective clients to listen to me and believe what I was selling.
Loren didn’t waver under the pressure of speaking in front of the Gammon reps, either, and it seemed like smooth sailing.
Until we got halfway through the presentation. We both stood at the front of the conference room, alternating our lines and pointing out the things we’d prepared so far.
But nothing seemed to be in sync. Wording had been changed, and we ended up talking over each other in our haste to correct what was supposed to be on the screen, but that turned into correcting each other or reminding the other about why we’d decided to revise any certain point.
The fucking colors weren’t consistent. All the fonts had been changed from what we agreed upon yesterday, and I quickly felt like an amateur. It didn’t help that Loren would try to charge ahead and put me in my place, telling me why we’d revised anything in the first place.
Rupert, Brad, and Eli noticed. They cringed and shook their heads slightly, as if giving me and Loren cues to watch our attitudes toward each other. We weren’t at our building. Our potential client was in our audience.
Tom couldn’t stop cringing. Every time I glanced at him, he was quickly scribbling notes, likely marking where he’d screwed up in the final prep stage of this show. Honestly, he wasn’t the only one at fault. We all were, collectively, but dammit, couldn’t Tom have checked things over to make sure it was consistent?
“As you can see, the traditional blue versus pink themes?—”
“Are outdated,” Loren inserted, smiling at the Gammon staff. One member, a redhead named Emily, nodded and grinned at her.
“And that’s why we are open to your input as to how strongly you want to portray the Gammon line as neutral or stick with more tradition. There are options…”
I sighed, giving in and letting her take charge. She was at ease, not at all thrown off by the awkward tension rising between us as we learned that our visuals weren’t what we thought they would be on the screen.
She made them laugh. Several asked follow-up questions, which we both answered. More than once, they complimented her on her clarifications and making the information we presented more “user-friendly” for them to digest.
I couldn’t be mad at her, not for slipping in to save the meeting with her casual go-get-’em mentality. While I was used to being the boss and taking charge, I felt like she’d proven more than her determination to focus on work. She’d shown how she could use her peppy, sunshiny personality to smooth out hiccups and make sure everyone was getting along and wanting to hear more.
Back at the office, though, I had to step up and point out where we could improve. I gave them credit. I never yelled at them out of any little dick energy or the need to feel bigger and superior to them. However, there was room for improvement.
Rupert and Brad also offered advice on where to fix things, and Eli spoke carefully without belittling his teammates. Tom took the blame, apologizing for mixing up the details in the “final” of the presentation.
“But…” He sat back and shrugged before rubbing his chin. “It’s not exactly easy to follow what is the final decision.” He tossed his pen to the notebook he’d been referencing on the table. “You challenge all of us on every little thing?—”
“That’s my job. To supervise,” I retorted.
“Or micromanage,” Loren tossed in, a little too sassily for my liking.
“I don’t micromanage.” I glared at her, daring her to repeat that accusation.
“Yeah, no,” Eli said. “He doesn’t. I mean, this is your first project with us, but it’s his style.”
Loren didn’t seem to hear him. She locked into a stare down with me.
“If your ‘style’ is to demand the final word in every single thing, I’d call you more of a?—”
“A word, please,” I bit out, gesturing to the door.
She furrowed her brow. “We’re having words in here.”
“Now,” I ordered.
She huffed out an exhale but obeyed, sulking out of the room with me.
“You’d call me a what?” I demanded as soon as the door closed.
She didn’t speak up, glowering at me almost like a petulant child. She wasn’t. She was a grown, brilliant, and capable woman. It ate at me that she’d have any room to criticize me while I was tempted to admit how much I was awed by her first performance in front of a future client.
“Nothing, Mr. Richards,” she quipped.
I gritted my teeth, annoyed that she’d revert to that formal bullshit. That wasn’t my style, either. We were a team here, and even though I was the leader, I didn’t need to be spoken to like I was separate from them.
“You want to suggest that I’m being too harsh?” I taunted, leaning closer.
She didn’t shrink back. Nor did she flinch or scowl. Staring straight back up at me, she kept her expression cool and calm.
And it pissed me off. It pushed me over the edge and snapped the thin thread of patience I had left.
Why couldn’t I get any professional, polite smiles from her? Why couldn’t she bend and cave to the obvious frustration she had to have for me with this bickering?
I knew how passionate she was. I felt it. I heard it. She gave it all to me that night. Her smiles, her laughter. Then her moans and slight grimaces of pleasure-pain as she came.
Since we encountered each other here at the office, though, I got nothing but a shell of the woman I damn well knew she was.
“You want to nag me for being some kind of an asshole of a boss?”
Still, she didn’t react. This woman would not shy away or wilt under pressure from me. If anything, she tipped her chin higher, defiant.
“Tell me!”
“I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Ri?—”
I stepped closer, forcing her to retreat before she’d fall into me. Inches remained between us. Scant inches that I could cross with one swift reach. Our faces were a breath apart. I felt the soft heat of her exhales and wanted to pull her closer to feel the warmth from her soft, lush body.
Fuck. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to grab her by the arms and haul her up against my chest to ravish her until I got a goddamn reaction.
Glittering in those jade eyes was desire. She stared up at me with stubborn resistance, but I didn’t miss the longing she couldn’t completely mask with us standing so close together.
One more move. All I had to do was tilt my head down and?—
Knocks sounded on the door.
Now I reacted. I jumped back. Reality returned, and I blinked at the crash back to where we were. It was too easy to assume we were in our own little bubble. That it was just the two of us lured together under this spell of lust. We had been instantly aware of each other from the first moment we laid our eyes upon each other. And that fire hadn’t sizzled out between us.
Not here.
I took one more step back, needing a buffer between me and the now-blushing Loren. We were at work, right outside the conference room where our team was sitting, watching us through the glass walls.
They saw it all. This lapse in my sanity and judgment to almost kiss this sexy, smart blonde who'd captured all my thoughts. Who endeared me to her with her resilience on the job.
Dammit.
“Maybe we should…” She cleared her throat, still affected by that almost-moment.
“Yeah.” I gestured for her to precede me back into the conference room. She was blushing too badly to be expected to say anything, so I did. I redirected the team to the lists of fixes they could implement, then left to continue my work back in my office.
Obviously, it was too risky to corner Loren for a private word or two.
My concentration was shot for the rest of the evening. I stayed in my office, trying to focus on the things I wanted to review, but every time I noticed a jotted-down note or phrase from her on the shared electronic docs, I groaned at the reminder of the woman I wanted and couldn’t have.
She hovered at the periphery of my attention, and I felt half crazy when I caught sight of her gathering her things to leave for the night.
Unsurprisingly, she was the last team member to leave. That was how dedicated a worker she was.
I sighed, leaning back in my chair as I watched her walk down the hallway.
If I wasn’t able to banish her from my mind, I was only left with the option of wondering what it would be like to have her again.
Here, on my desk. Her lying back and those golden waves splayed out on the wood.
I got harder the further I fell into one of my favorite fantasies.
Everyone would be gone. Just me and her, late at the office like usual.
Because I’d be damned if I wanted to let another person see her in the throes of hot sex.
She’d prop her feet up on the edge of the desk before I grabbed her hips and pulled that sweet ass until it hovered at the edge, wide open and waiting for me.
I groaned, feeling the pressure of my dick hardening more.
“Stop.” I rubbed my eyes and shook my head.
I would drive myself insane with these daydreams.
As difficult as it was, I had to stop wondering what it might take to push her into reacting to me, showing me another display of that passion I had no right to miss.