Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35
OLIVIA
A fter the visit to the ranch, I spent the next few days in meetings with the camera crew, piecing together the long form content they’d shot. Technically, I didn’t have to be part of that. The crew would keep editing, send it to me for approval, and fix whatever needed to be fixed so that we could post it in a few days.
Yet, I loved reliving my time on the ranch and I figured there’d be a lot less back and forth if I was simply involved while the editing was happening. So I kept at it.
“It’s coming together perfectly,” I told Dave at the end of yet another meeting. “I’m so excited to release it. I have a feeling it’s going to be the talk of the town.”
“Agreed.” He shot me a polite smile.
After catching a few of the more scathing looks Charlie had sent his way on the ranch, he’d been keeping his distance a little more than he had before. Not that he’d been flirting or unprofessional, but it was like he knew, instinctively, that the cowboy had laid a claim and that he was better off respecting it.
I shouldn’t have liked that, but I did. It sent a thrill through me every darn time I thought about it. Maybe it was because none of the other men I’d ever been involved with had acted like I mattered so much to them.
With Charlie, I felt like I more than mattered. I felt like I was quickly becoming everything to him, despite the fact he didn’t know me very well, and that knowledge made me feel all warm and tingly inside.
I was—and always had been—a strong, fierce, and independent woman, but there was still something innately intimate about being protected that way, whether I needed it or not. Being cared for and taken care of . Charlie and I hadn’t quite gotten to all of those yet, but I liked that he was this big, strapping cowboy who thought of me as his woman .
He hadn’t said it in so many words, or in any words at all, but he’d headed off other men that night at the rodeo. If looks could’ve killed, Dave would’ve been about twelve feet under right now, and he had even put himself physically between Colt and me.
“When’s the release supposed to be happening?” Dave asked, cutting into the thoughts that had been making me feel heart-eyed and horny all over again. “Have you got a final date yet?”
I blinked hard, refocusing on his stoic features. “Yeah. Yes, we do. It’s next week. After the conference.”
Lifting my wrist, I checked my watch and extended my hand toward him. “Thanks for everything, Dave. I’ve got to run to my next meeting, but you really have done an excellent job putting it together so far. I can’t wait to see the final product.”
Nodding curtly, he spun on his heels and left, and I headed back into the conference room to gather my things before striding to the much larger meeting area at the end of the hall. The room was already packed with people and I smiled, a whole new burst of excitement shooting through my veins.
Next week was our annual conference, and there was no larger event in the Walker Marketing calendar than that. The firm threw a huge summit every year, inviting other investors, partners, and clients to come and learn about our company and about the different ways to market their goods and services.
Dad had started it over twenty years ago as an indulgence to his passion for people and his love of teaching. The summit was how we kept doing that, and it was only getting bigger and bigger. We had a variety of speakers from across the firm, people in every branch who came to share their experiences and the lessons they’d learned in the last twelve months, and it was a ton of fun to get to know them all better in a more informal environment.
I would be speaking again this year as well. The theme I’d chosen was Authenticity in Advertising . It was something I’d always felt very strongly about, and recent results had proven that it was a solid strategy. It worked—and not only for Anderson Ranch, but for every single client whose account I’d worked on during this last year.
Anticipation flitted through me. As the official future CEO of the firm, what I said this year would have to be impactful. Meaningful. I couldn’t just show up and wing it. I was already preparing and I was confident that I was going to inspire the hundreds of people present to put their trust, faith, and futures in me.
I freaking have to inspire them to do that. Don’t have a choice.
As I walked into the room, a hush fell over it and I grinned when I reached the front, turning to face the Houston executive team, who would be both helping me finalize things as well as attend the conference itself. “Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for coming. I won’t keep you any longer than necessary.”
Connecting my laptop to the projector in the room, I nodded at a guy sitting nearest the light switches. He got up immediately, flipping them to toss the room into darkness. The slideshow I’d prepared glowed on the white screen, and I flicked through the slides one at a time.
“As all of you know, the conference will be hosted in New York,” I started. “We’ll all be traveling there early next week, which means that the most important tasks on your to-do lists here will have to be delegated to senior members of your respective teams.”
I took them through each slide quickly but carefully, making sure to emphasize the information that needed emphasizing. All things considered, I was super excited to be attending the conference, but we needed to ensure that the branch ran like a well-oiled machine in our absence.
It was more important to me than anything else, and that was the purpose of this meeting. To lay out all the facts and all the practical elements of the planning process, and to make absolutely sure we didn’t miss a step anywhere.
Only after I knew all that was taken care of would I really start gearing up for the conference, but I was already excited for it. I was also excited about getting to go back to New York for a week.
While I hadn’t missed the city at all, I missed my mom and my middle sister desperately, and I couldn’t wait to catch up with them in person. I would be busy with the conference while we were there, but I wanted to make as much time as I could for my family.
My mother and I had never been as close as I was to my dad. We were just too different, but in our own way, we had an unbreakable bond and I knew it’d been hard on her that Dad had been spending so much time down here since London and I had moved.
Harder yet that two of her three little girls had uprooted their lives in her city to relocate to Texas, which was a state she’d never really liked much. She’d been here with Dad often in their younger years, apparently, but the lifestyle had simply never appealed to her. Secretly, I thought it was because she’d always been afraid Dad would miss it so much that he’d leave her to come back, but so far, so good.
As I left the office for the day after the meeting had ended, I slid my phone out of my purse and called her. The device connected to my car when I started it. A moment later, my mom’s soothing, calm voice came over the line. “Livvy, oh my baby. I miss you. How are you?”
My heart swelled and I smiled. “I’m good, Mom. I miss you too, though. I’m on my way home, so I thought I’d call to check in.”
“I’m glad you did,” she said on a soft sigh. “I feel like I haven’t spoken to you at all since you went there. How are you finding Houston? Dad said you’ve been working with their biggest client and that it’s been going really well?”
I hadn’t called her often enough since I’d come here, but I’d been so busy that I hadn’t noticed until she’d mentioned it. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll be better about calling, I promise. I think I just got caught up in the move, and the clients, and…”
When I trailed off, she made a soft, humorous humming noise at the back of her throat. “Sweetheart?”
“Yeah?”
“You do know there’s no age limit on social media, right? I’ve got accounts too.”
I frowned. “Yep, I helped you set them up, remember?”
“Well, then you should know that a mother will forever be interested in knowing what her daughter is working on. Dad told me you were on the Anderson account and that you were knocking it out of the park.”
“So you went onto social media, looked them up, and you already know that said client has a son who is a billionaire rancher and is super hot,” I concluded for her, my cheeks growing hot as my teeth sank into my lower lip.
Mom chuckled. “Leave out the part about how hot he is when you’re talking to your dad. He’ll croak if he thought you were flirting with a client, but since you’re talking to Mom for now, let me hear it. Tell me everything. What’s going on between you and the super-hot billionaire rancher that’s made you forget to call even your own mother?”