Chapter 5
5
Christa
“ I ’m in so much trouble.” I sigh as I sit behind my desk.
I have my own office. It’s spacious and airy, flooded with natural light. Clean and elegant, with sleek wood furniture and steel finishes, and a top-of-the-line computer system with six different screens for my coding needs.
“I gave them the list and they sure delivered,” I say to myself as I analyze my desktop carefully.
The door opens, and I shoot up from my seat as if I was just caught trespassing.
“Am I intruding?” Cassius asks with a half-smile, his eyes quick to drill into my soul.
I shake my head. “Not at all. Just getting the lay of the land.”
“First day on the job, Miss Head of Financial Technology,” he says and comes in, slowly closing the door behind him. “How are you settling in?”
“Well, thank you. Although I don’t know why you put me up here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your offices are right next to mine. This is the top executive floor. I’m just here to help develop a new branch that isn’t even fully operational yet.”
“And?”
I’m blushing now. My words aren’t coming out the way they’re supposed to. “You don’t need me to be so close to you. Professionally, geographically, in the building, I mean.”
He chuckles lightly. “We decided on proximity for two reasons. One, the department you’re heading will grow fast, and it will quickly become a key revenue source for us in the next five years. We want to keep a close eye on that. Two, like we mentioned during the interview, you’ll be working with us on each of these projects. We may have a supervisory and advisory capacity, giving you free rein over the actual development, but still… We want to be close. And three—”
“You said two reasons,” I mumble.
“Bonus third reason,” he shoots back. “We want to make sure you’re comfortable here, surrounded by familiar faces. You don’t know anyone else in our company, after all. Do you not want to work so closely with us?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just after what happened during the interview—”
“What happened during the interview?” Amusement flickers in his eyes.
I straighten my back and defiantly meet his gaze. His eyes drop slightly as he admires my cleavage. This pale green shirt doesn’t show much, but my busty figure isn’t easy to conceal.
“I thought we’d agreed on a complete separation between the two.”
“You’re on the same floor as us purely for professional reasons. There. Does that ease your mind?”
“It does, a little. But just as a follow-up on what we agreed on toward the end of the interview…” And what an interview that was; my panties are already wet just from remembering the key highlights. “What happened there can’t happen again anywhere in this building.”
“Fair enough.” Cassius holds back a grin as he takes a few steps toward my desk. “So, you’re settling in nicely, right?”
“Yes. Thank you for providing me with everything I listed. Consider me impressed,” I say, then take a seat in front of my computer. “I can’t wait to take this baby for a joyride.”
“It has the specifications you required. I can see why it fetched a pretty penny, though. I’m pretty sure you could program a moon launch with this system.”
I laugh quietly. “You could devise an entire operation to terraform Mars, too, if you know your algorithms.”
“Good to know. Have you had a chance to go over the briefing materials I sent you to your new Hawthorne email?”
I nod and open my inbox on the main screen. “Yes, I did. I went over everything, and I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what the next few steps are going to be. For the following three to six months, anyway.”
“Mind if I take a seat?” He points to one of the three guest chairs across the desk from me, and I respond with a nod. “As you know by now, we’re in the early stages of developing three products through this branch.”
“That’s right. Two apps, one for online payments and one for cryptocurrency investments, and software for internal banking systems.”
“I know we’re dealing with heavy competition on the first two, but I think we can rise to the occasion if we design an easy-to-use platform. It’ll probably give us a competitive edge.”
“A personal approach would add to that,” I advise. “AI client service is great and all that, but most of the users’ complaints regarding your competitors’ products revolve around the lack of personal interaction. Having representatives easily available, that is.”
“That’s a good point, thank you. I’m making a mental note of that for our HR briefing next month.”
“But I think you’re right. There is still room on the market for a new payment app, especially if you make it available worldwide.”
He gives me a surprised look. “Worldwide?”
“Yes, sir. There are plenty of European and Asian countries that need better alternatives to the existing products. People with bad credit. People who don’t want to put their money in the traditional banking system. People dodging creditors. The latter may be a bit of an ethical enigma, but honestly and based on what I’ve read on community message boards, they’d happily pay in-app fees if it kept them off the banks’ grid.”
“I thought there were several apps that already provide that.”
“Yes, but in several European countries, they’ve already caved in to local authorities’ pressure to merge their interface with their banking systems. It’s left millions of users exposed. There have been mass subscription cancelations over the past six months. We can pick up where they left off because US fintech laws are still a bit of a gray area.”
Cassius seems fascinated, slowly leaning forward as he keeps his eyes on me. “Tell me more. But keep in mind that the fintech law aspect isn’t something we’ll ever concern ourselves with. We’ve got one of the top legal minds on payroll for that.”
“Who’s that?”
“David Walton-Fredricks. You might’ve heard of him.”
My jaw drops. My inner nerd is ridiculously excited. “Are you serious? You’ve got him covering your fintech legal issues? That’s amazing! The man is a genius! I was actually at the World Economic Forum when he gave his talk about financial regulations for cryptocurrencies.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, a couple of years ago. My boss at Perry-Sage was desperate to hire him, but they couldn’t afford his price tag. I’m impressed you were able to—” I pause, my blood running cold as I realize what I just said. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” Cassius asks with a straight face. He heard me alright.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Hear what?”
“You know what.” I raise an eyebrow at him.
He laughs. “Can’t I just pretend I didn’t hear it to keep you safe from an NDA breach?”
I can’t help but stare at him for a while, surprised and soft on the inside as I realize how tactful he’s being. I’m the one whose tongue slipped, yet he’s insisting on discretion and respecting my initial secrecy regarding Perry-Sage. I offer a timid nod and lean back in my chair.
“Thank you, Cassius.”
“Don’t mention it, Christa. You’re safe here.”
That sounds sweet. And wonderful. But I’m not safe anywhere, not while the Mancinis are still free, but I’ll cross that bridge if or when I come to it. Right now, I need to focus on my performance here, on finding a semblance of peace.
“I’ll put together a report on how I can improve each of the products and their developmental processes by the end of the week,” I say.
“Perfect. You can present it to us after your first staff briefing on Friday.”
“My first what?” I blink a few times, rather confused.
Cassius laughs again. “I won’t drag you out in front of people too many times; I promise. But we hold a quarterly staff meeting with all of our executive employees from all of our branches and departments. About a hundred people in total. It takes place in the White Conference Room on the ground floor.”
“White Conference Room?”
“Yeah, we’ve got three large conference rooms and ten smaller ones for client meetings. The White one is for staff events. The Black one is for corporate events, mostly for our steel mills. And the Green one is for press and city officials.”
“Wow, you boys have come a long way since you took over the corporation, haven’t you?” I ask, my eyes bright with awe.
He offers a slight shrug. “We make a good team, my brothers and I. And our father left us a good and fruitful legacy. All we’ve been doing is building upon what was already here.”
“I know he’d be proud of you.”
“Thank you.” Cassius takes a deep breath and gets up.
I expect him to head straight for the door, but he comes around my desk instead, prompting me to stiffen in my seat. My pulse goes on an instant rampage.
He leans closer, and his saffron-infused cologne inundates my senses. I’m paralyzed in my seat, secretly begging him to do something unprofessional because my core has already reached its highest temperature, but Cassius just peers into my eyes and smiles.
“And speaking of Friday,” he says, his voice low and inviting as he places his hands over mine on the armrests of my swivel chair, his touch sending a trillion hot shivers down my spine at once. “How about a dinner date? The four of us.”
“A dinner date?”
“Yes.”
“A dinner date.”
“Don’t they still do that in modern society?”
I nod once. “Yup. They still do dinner dates.”
“Of course, we’ll behave in public,” he replies with a sly grin and inches even closer.
I swear to God, if he kisses me right now, I might actually come.
“So, how about it? You, me, River, and Nathan. Dinner. Friday evening.”
“Oh—okay. That sounds good.”
“Good,” he says and pulls away. “I’ll see you later. And remember,” he adds, opening the door. I didn’t even register the movement from my chair to the door. I’m too busy reeling from the close encounter. “We’re right next door if you need any help. With anything.”
“Thank you, Cassius.”
He gives me one last smile and heads out.
I’m left in heavy, heated silence as I wonder how the hell I’m going to get through the rest of my first day on the job when I am this aroused.