Chapter 1 #2
“Oh! Um, uh—” I mumbled as bits of doughnut tumbled out of my mouth, the white powder cascading down the front of my suit. “That would be me. Johnathan Torver. CEO of the Torver Group.” I held out my hand to the woman and promptly pulled it back after noticing the white powder covering my fingers.
“The CEO of the Torver Group starts meetings with his hands covered in doughnut powder?” the woman asked, without even so much as a hint of mirth.
“I’m afraid so,” I said with a laugh, trying to settle back into my usual confidence. This woman was making it difficult. Her dark brown eyes never left me for a second, as if she was only waiting for me to make another false move. “And you are?” I asked.
“Samantha Doyle,” she said, and took another shameful look down at my powdered hands. “And I suppose a proper handshake is out of the question.”
“You’re Sam Doyle?”
“Not used to female CEOs?”
“No, I am, I just thought, I was just picturing, you know…”
“It’s fine,” she said. “To my friends, I’m Sam, but in business, I’m Samantha.”
“Yes,” I said. “Um, I—”
I suddenly realized I couldn’t quite get the words out of my mouth.
There was something unusual about the way she looked at me.
I realized that I had never really had a woman look at me in such a…
belligerent way. I was so used to women laughing at all my awful jokes, throwing me compliments, or laying a stray hand on my arm. But this woman…she wanted war.
I realized I was still staring at the floor dumbstruck when the door creaked open and Gabriel walked in.
“Morning,” he said, and pretended to look through his briefcase with the bashful look of someone who feels like they just interrupted something.
The rest of the Torver Group filed in on one side of the table, and the people representing Wordsworth took their seats next to Samantha.
There was a feeling of tension in the air, and even the way Samantha sat was beginning to intimidate me, and admittedly, intrigue me.
It reminded me of old portraits of queens in history books.
It was only now that I noticed that she was actually quite an attractive woman.
I could imagine her outside of her job, with her hair falling down her shoulders over a sweater and a pair of jeans, and the idea made her feel a little bit less intimidating.
I didn’t like that I kept forgetting that I was the one in charge here. I had the upper hand! This meeting was about me laying down my terms, so why was--
“May we begin?” Samantha said, and I jumped in my seat.
“Long night, huh?” Cassidy said, and winked. Samantha and her colleagues turned to me with a questioning and disappointed look. I was going to kill him.
“Up late preparing,” I said, swiftly taking back my authority, and I could have sworn I heard Gabriel hold back a chuckle.
“Anyways, Gabriel has the documents pertaining to the legal aspects of the acquisition, and I, of course, have my own terms for how both of us will successfully make the transition.” I smiled up at Samantha, who met my eyes with a piercing stare.
“Mr. Torver,” she said. “I hope you’re open to treating this meeting as a negotiation, and not a lecture.”
I shuffled my papers in my hands and looked up at her with amused disbelief.
“If you like, but it’s a bit difficult when you don’t have anything to negotiate.
” I smiled smugly towards Samantha’s frown.
“We saved you from going under, remember? We’re here to tell you how we do things here at the Torver Group.
” I smiled at her with a facetious grin.
“Unless you want me to take our offer back?”
Samantha and I both suddenly looked up at the whole table staring at us wide-eyed.
“Of course not,” she said. “Let’s continue.”
The meeting rolled on for another hour, another hour of tense stares, sweaty palms, and passive-aggressive comments.
It seemed endless. And the real shame of it was, it would have been so easy if it hadn’t been for Samantha and her war-mongering.
When all of the necessary topics had been discussed, both groups of employees filed out of the room slowly, leaving only Samantha and I seated at the end of the table.
An uncomfortable silence suddenly settled upon the room.
“I’m gonna go to the break room and get some coffee,” I said as quickly as possible, shooting up out of my chair towards the door like a kid desperate to get out of class.
“Hey,” Samantha said sharply, and I froze, removing my hand from the doorknob to find her facing me. “I didn’t appreciate that.”
“Appreciate what?”
“What went down there. You embarrassed me in front of my employees.”
I scoffed. “Embarrassed? Embarrassed you how?”
Samantha shook her head in disbelief. “Oh please, that patronizing attitude of yours, ‘you don’t have anything to negotiate’, I mean, what was that?”
I sighed and tried to reason with her. “Look, Samantha, you know how these acquisitions work. The power is just not in your hands anymore.”
“Your daddy buy you that sanctimonious attitude too, huh?”
“Woah. Hey,” I shouted, gripping the office table with my hands. “I built this company from the ground up. I didn’t start out with money, okay? I made every penny myself.”
Samantha looked down, and I may have even sensed a bit of shame in her. “Look sorry, you just have this, I don’t know, careless rich boy attitude and I guess I made some assumptions. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t forgotten your behavior at the meeting today.”
I sighed. “Look, Sam.”
“Samantha. You call me Samantha.”
“We have to get along if we want this acquisition to work for both of us, okay? And clearly the Wordsworth Company meant a lot to you. I get that.”
“Of course,” Samantha said, and smiled up at me weakly. She walked out of the conference room without so much as a look behind her.
I threw myself back down in a chair and tossed a crumpled ball of paper in the trash can across the room, only to have it bounce off the edge on to the ground. “Careless rich boy attitude. Psh,” I muttered. This would be a long and painful process.
* * *
“Okay,” Gabriel said the second the doors of his Jaguar closed in on us at the end of the day. “You have got so much explaining to do.”
“About what?”
“’About what?’” Gabriel chuckled. “Says the guy who almost had angry sex on the meeting room table with the hot new Wordsworth CEO.”
“Woah woah woah…okay buddy. Slow down. ‘Angry sex?’ There was a lot of anger, but no sex, trust me. That woman is a piranha.”
Gabriel just laughed. “Oh please.”
“I don’t get it. Dude, seriously. What are you talking about?”
“The entire office was talking about it afterward. It was insane, man.”
“Please elaborate, Gabriel, before I punch you in the face,” I said, losing my patience.
“You two didn’t take your eyes off each other that entire meeting. It was intense. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Gabriel looked a bit too excited talking about this, and it made me both uncomfortable and annoyed.
“Intense hatred, my friend. That’s all.” I leaned back in my seat, ready to go home and be done with today once and for all.
“You’ve got to admit she’s hot though.”
“I really do not like her in that way, Gabriel.”
“Aw come on man, you’re not blind.”
I shrugged, realizing Gabriel would not stop bugging me until he got the answer he wanted. “I guess if she weren’t trying to kill me, she’d be okay.”