The Mistake #2
The room was silent. Not a breath. Not a whisper.
All she could hear was her heartbeat, a loud thumping in her ears.
Maybe she had taken it too far. This was a negotiation.
She wasn’t supposed to offend and insult them.
Someone should have given her a quick run-down about what exactly the shock-and-awe tactic entailed. Why wasn’t anyone saying anything?
“My, my, my,” Timothy said, breaking the silence.
She looked up at him then. He looked impressed but his smile was forced and the cold look in his blue eyes told her he was pissed. Probably because she had figured out that they’d tried to weasel them out of millions of dollars with their inflated projections.
“Tyler, where have you been hiding this gem?”
Again, Tyler’s face twitched and his jaw tightened. “That’s not what we’re here to discuss.” He spoke with quiet calm, yet that in itself was intimidating.
As much as it sounded like a contradiction, he used a very passive approach to dominate a boardroom. Right now his eyes were locked on Timothy’s. Whether it was a warning or a dare, Jordan wasn’t sure, but Timothy was the one who eventually backed off.
“Alright.” He turned his attention back to her. “What’s your counter-offer, Miss Shepard?”
The nervousness returned immediately. She was just supposed to do the presentation.
She wasn’t supposed to give the counter-offer.
That wasn’t her decision to make. If she went too low, she would look like a fool and if she went too high, she could cost the company millions.
She was just the accountant. She could give advice but big decisions were always made by Tyler.
But he was just sitting there, not saying a word.
Matthew also offered no help. He sat back with a wide grin on his face. They were both so fucking infuriating!
“Two hundred million,” she blurted out.
“That’s ridiculous!” Alex bit out with disdain. “That’s significantly lower than our asking price!”
It was too low, but rather too low than too high. He was trying to bully her with his abrupt tone, but she was going to stand her ground. “Well, the profits we stand to make are significantly lower than what you’re promising in your projections.”
“Two-thirty-five,” Timothy countered.
“Two-twenty. Final offer,” Tyler said.
Jordan let out a silent breath of relief, happy that Tyler had finally taken over the meeting and the pressure was off her.
Timothy was quiet for an extremely long while, thrumming his fingers on the table, while Alex appeared too afraid to say anything.
“I accept,” he said eventually through gritted teeth and Jordan had to clench her fists to stop herself from bursting with excitement.
“We’ll have our legal team amend the contract accordingly,” Alex said, looking at her like he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her in a darkened parking lot.
Matthew stood up, his grin even wider than before. “It was a pleasure doing business with you,” he said, extending his hand to the other men.
Jordan was the first to leave the room. All she wanted to do was run to the ladies room and scream out the excitement flooding through her.
“Miss Shepard,” Timothy said, gently grasping her arm.
“Did she really just do that?” Matthew asked, gathering his documents. “Did she really just save us thirty million dollars? She was incredible. I knew she would be great, but what she did was out of this world. She was on fire!”
Tyler tried to smile. Using Jordan as the secret weapon was a brilliant idea.
She had handled the meeting better than he could have imagined but watching her outside the boardroom, giggling as she spoke to Timothy Coldwell was a sign that his plan might backfire. This wasn’t something he’d foreseen.
She was supposed to throw him off, but instead it looked like she turned him on.
He’d noticed the way Timothy held her hand when he greeted, the way he stared at her during the presentation, undressing her with his eyes and he was looking at her the same way now.
He wasn’t a fight type of guy, but something inside him was dying to walk up to Timothy and punch him in his smug face.
“I was expecting more of a reaction from you,” Matthew said.
“I mean, it’s almost like you didn’t just watch Jordan cut them down to size.
When Partridge said playtime is over, I knew they were done for and she ripped right into him.
Ty, are you—” Matthew stopped talking and also turned his attention to the door.
“Oh, I see.” He said nothing further, merely tapped him on the shoulder and walked out of the boardroom.
Tyler knew he should leave too. He felt like a stalker, watching them the way he was, analyzing their every move.
Timothy took a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Jordan.
It wasn’t the fact that he gave her the card that irritated Tyler.
It was the fact that she accepted it. He then took Jordan’s hand and lifted it to his lips.
Tyler had seen enough. He stood up and walked towards them.
“Jordan,” he cut in tersely, “don’t you have work to attend to? ”
Her eyes narrowed and he could actually sense her urge to slap him. “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” she responded, each word laced with defiance.
“Fine.” He didn’t argue because he didn’t care where she went as long as it was the hell away from Timothy. Tyler watched her walk away before turning back to the other man. “Easy, Coldwell. She isn’t on the table.”
“That’s not up to you,” he replied with his usual air of egotism. “She’s a free-spirited, ambitious young woman who is very capable of making her own decisions. Besides, I think she’ll…enjoy what I have to offer.”
Tyler punched him then, but only in his mind. “Stay away from her.” He turned and walked back to his office.
* * * * *
Tyler was restless and edgy and could not get his mind to stop racing.
Why did Jordan take his card? What was Timothy offering?
The questions had needled him all afternoon and all evening.
This whole thing with Jordan was so irritating because he didn’t want to be thinking about her.
He didn’t want to think about how amazing she was in that boardroom today.
He didn’t want to think about the woman who was so confident and self-assured—the same woman who, just two days prior, had asked him if he had ever laughed so hard he farted.
Why did she take his card? Did she call him? Maybe he’d taken her out to dinner. And now Timothy is the one watching her unclip her hair and laughing at her silliness…So what? Who cares? It doesn’t matter.
He went upstairs and had a shower. He was supposed to be spending the Fourth of July weekend with Matt and his dad and he was already late. Matt had called a few times already, but he’d been too distracted to answer, too busy obsessing over Jordan to care about anything else.
He put on a semi-formal dress shirt and a pair of slacks as his mind continued running a loop of Jordan and Timothy images.
As he walked to his bed, he noticed the pictures of Trisha on the dresser. Lifting the photo-frame, he studied her flawless face, her make-up expertly applied, her hair salon-spectacular. “You’re the one I want,” he said, tracing his fingers over the glass.
But even staring at pictures of Trisha, couldn’t take away his thoughts of Jordan. The problem was every time he thought of Jordan, Timothy popped up too.
What are they doing right now?
He knew Timothy would not have heeded his warning to stay away from her. They probably went out to dinner. He was probably undressing her with his eyes, kissing her hand while he flirted with her. And then afterwards he’d offer to take her home and once they were alone…
That’s it! I’m going over there.
He grabbed his car keys and stopped.
That’s a dumb idea! The plan is to get Trisha back and Jordan was just the means to do it.
Three dinners and a few games of pool doesn’t mean anything.
I don’t even like her…maybe I kinda like her – but that’s not the point!
She’s a single woman and if she wants to date, she can.
Of course, she can…even if it is that slimeball.
That’s fine. It’s totally fine. It is incredibly fine!
I am so…fine with it…so fine with it. If they went out to dinner, that’s fine, too.
And if he takes her home…and he gets a little frisky and she—That’s it! I’m going over there!
* * * * *
Tyler knocked on her door repeatedly, rang the bell three times, and resumed knocking.
He still wasn’t sure what he would do once she opened the door, nor did he know what his reaction would be if he saw Timothy there, but he knocked and knocked until he heard the locks being undone on the other side.
“Tyler?”
She yawned and rubbed her eyes. They were heavy with exhaustion.
She’d replaced her beige knee-length skirt with a pair of blue jeans, but still wore the white shirt she had on earlier, though now it was wrinkled and the collar was lopsided.
Her dark hair was tousled and haphazardly tied up atop her head, stray curls hanging about her face.
She looked unkempt and untidy and so exquisitely… real.
He’d dated Trisha for three years and not once had he ever seen her look anything other than perfect.
Yet there was something so refreshing about seeing the imperfections of a woman.
In the space of a few weeks, he had seen professional Jordan, casual Jordan, sexy Jordan, messy Jordan, but imperfect Jordan…
imperfect Jordan was something to behold.
“What are you doing here?” she asked tiredly. “It’s eleven o’ clock.”
Is it really that late? This is awkwardly inappropriate. “May I come in?”
She sighed her annoyance, moved aside and allowed him to enter. It was then that he noticed the bunny slippers on her feet.
Bunny slippers! Timothy Coldwell clearly isn’t here, so now what? “Where’s your roommate?”