Chapter Nine
THE REST OF THE WEEK had considerably fewer fireworks and blow-ups. I didn’t move the credenza, which I could tell irked him, but I wasn’t ready to completely give into him—maybe after a few months, if things went well. I wore jeans to work on Thursday just to test the waters.
He raised his eyebrow at me. “Please don’t wear those to our meeting tomorrow.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” I not so politely responded.
I was actually a little taken aback that he wanted me to attend this particular meeting.
It was with the largest health insurance provider in the state of Tennessee.
They were interested in doing a pilot program using our ad software.
Boss usually handled clients this large, so I was pleased that Mr. Greyson asked me to join him.
In fact, he insisted I do the presentation.
Of course, he gave me pointers and he meticulously went through my PowerPoint and notes.
He wanted me to script out everything I was going to say, but I told him I didn’t work that way.
I always worked with an outline that gave me room to adjust depending on the mood and interaction of those in attendance.
“I need to be organic when I present. Just trust me, I’m good at reading people,” I informed him.
I could tell he didn’t like it, but he reluctantly gave in. I’m sure he had a backup plan in place, in case I screwed up.
When I arrived on Friday, I was dressed to kill. I pulled out the red pumps and a black dress that said, Hello. Mr. Greyson’s red and irritated eyes said just that when he saw me. Yep, he did a double take.
“I know it isn’t jeans, but I hope this works for you.” I smiled wickedly, leaning against Delfia’s desk. She had gone to make some copies.
He cleared his throat. “It’s very appropriate.”
“Remember when I said you need to work on your complimenting skills?”
“To properly compliment how you look would be inappropriate for the office.”
His response totally caught me off guard. “Why thank you.”
His eyes started watering.
“What’s wrong with your eyes? You look terrible.”
“Thank you, Ms. Bryant, for that observation. I’m having a terrible time with allergies. I’ve never had problems before. I even had to take my contacts out.”
“Welcome to the South,” I replied.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked.
I nodded. “Just let me get my laptop.”
He offered to drive to our meeting, and I reluctantly agreed.
It was kind of weird for me. It brought back a lot of memories.
I didn’t have a car my freshman year, and he was my main source of transportation.
I kept reminding myself that memory was of Ian, and I tried to pretend Ian didn’t exist—only Mr. Greyson.
We walked down together and out to his car. To my discomfort he followed me to the passenger side.
“Um . . . this isn’t a date.”
“Sorry, old habit.” His ears pinked.
Yeah, this is why I didn’t want to drive with him, but he opened my door anyway. When he opened his own door, he looked at his hands. “What in the world is all this yellow stuff on everything?”
I laughed at him until he got in and reached up to rub his eyes.
I instantly grabbed his hand without a second thought.
He stiffened at my touch, not sure how to react.
I tried not to react other than to say, “Believe me, you don’t want to touch your eyes.
That yellow stuff is pollen.” Only southerners would understand.
Back West, pollen didn’t manifest itself this way.
I let go of his hand and reached into my satchel to pull out some wet wipes. “Here, wipe your hands off.”
He took the wipe from me and wiped his hands. When he was done, I handed him an allergy tablet. I stocked up on them this time of year. “This will dissolve in your mouth. It should help with your itchy eyes.”
“Will this make me drowsy?” he asked.
“I think what you meant to say was, ‘Thank you, Ms. Bryant.’ Because Ms. Bryant isn’t fool enough to give someone medication that would make him an unsafe driver, especially when she’s a passenger.”
“Thank you, Ms. Bryant.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Greyson.”
After taking the medicine, he flipped down his visor and pulled out a pair of glasses. When he put them on, I found myself involuntarily smiling at him. There was my Ian.
“I know, I hate them, but I can’t drive without them with my contacts out.”
“I like the glasses,” I said quietly. I probably shouldn’t have, but it slipped out.
He narrowed his eyes as if I was being insincere.
“Really, I do.” And unfortunately, I really did.
I turned away from him and looked forward, putting on my own sunglasses.
We hadn’t even gone anywhere, and I was ready to be out of his car.
I kept repeating, this is Mr. Greyson, glasses or no glasses.
I also tried not to remember the marathon make-out sessions that had occurred in his old Toyota Corolla. Boy did I miss that car.
He brought me back to reality when he asked me to run through my notes with him again. I normally would have declined, but under the circumstances, I was grateful to think about something other than him. He threw in some last-minute suggestions, but I assured him I had this.
“You need to trust me. And you can always jump in if you need to. This isn’t only my show, we’re a team.” That sounded so weird to say.
He briefly glanced my way. “I like the sound of that.”
I stared out the window. “Yeah,” I mumbled.
The ride was mostly quiet after that, which was fine with me. It confused me when he was nice to me.
He was super tense as we walked across the parking lot.
“Is this your status quo?” I asked.
“It helps me stay focused.”
“Okay, but at least smile.”
He flashed me a smoldering smile before opening the glass door.
I swallowed hard, trying not to be affected by it. “See, that wasn’t so hard. Remember, you’re in the South now.” I inadvertently winked at him. Stupid Kelli. He would probably send me an email later telling me that was unprofessional.
Together we walked in and headed toward the receptionist desk. “We’re here to see Lorelai Duchane,” Mr. Greyson informed the receptionist. Lorelai Duchane was the CEO and President.
“They’re ready for you in conference room one,” said the receptionist, who could hardly take her eyes off my boss.
When we followed her back to the conference room, she kept glancing back at him, hoping he was enjoying her backside.
It was nice and perky. But Mr. Greyson was all business and kept his eyes forward and to himself.
We entered the conference room to find three others besides Lorelai.
I scanned the room quickly to pick up any cues from my audience.
I always sought out who I really had to sell to because it wasn't always the big boss. It didn’t take long for me to see that was the case here.
I needed to sell the hotshot in the corner, Nicholas Price who was the Executive Vice President.
His stiff posture said he was only waiting to say no. I loved a challenge.
Without being too obvious, I directed my presentation to him and put on some subtle charm.
I inserted Nicholas’s name whenever I could instead of saying things like when Customer A logs in.
It worked quite nicely. He began to playfully banter with me during the presentation.
By the end, I had him eating out of my hands, and he was selling it to Lorelai for me.
Mr. Greyson had, surprisingly, let me do my job.
He said maybe two words the entire time, and they were at appropriate times and blended well with the direction of the conversation.
After the presentation, I let him take over and discuss the finer points of implementation and the mechanics of launching it on their site.
He also addressed any security issues they had.
We really were a good team; I had better people skills, but his technical knowledge gave people confidence that their data was safe with us.
I could tell that Mr. Greyson was pleased with the way things had gone when he smiled at me between questions and more requests for information.
That was always a good sign. Mr. Greyson wasn’t the only man smiling at me.
Nicholas Price kept flashing his blinding white teeth at me and trying to engage me in conversation that was unrelated to our product or presentation.
I might have paid a little too much attention to him.
At the end of the meeting, Nicholas handed each of us his card, but he didn’t let go when I took it.
“My personal number is on the back,” he said, like out of one of those bar scenes in a movie.
I almost expected him to call me baby or something.
He also held onto my hand longer than appropriate when shaking it.
I gently tried to extricate it without appearing rude, even though he was in the wrong.
I could tell his overt advances bothered my ever-proper boss.
To be honest, they bothered me too. Mr. Greyson was pressing his lips together, his face reddening from probably holding back his comments.
I’m sure he wanted to school Nicholas in proper workplace behavior.
As we walked out into the parking lot, I thought Mr. Greyson would be happy, or at least pleased, but he seemed agitated. His shoulders were twitching.
“I think that went very well,” I said cheerfully.
“Maybe too well,” he muttered.
“How is that even possible? What’s wrong?”
He stopped and took a breath. Some of the tension lines in his forehead relaxed. “You did a great job.”
“Thank you?”
“Really, you did. We should go to lunch and celebrate.”
“That would be nice,” came flying out of my mouth. I covered said mouth, wanting to smack myself.