CHAPTER 26 – SAWYER #2
She let her fingers ease, let the touch go light and then lighter, and then just her palm resting warm and undemanding against Nellie’s pussy. She ran her other hand up and down Nellie’s ribs and waist, the curve of her, just to feel the whole length of her pressed back into her hold.
She kissed her cheek. The soft hinge of her jaw. The corner of her ear.
Head still lolling back against Sawyer’s shoulder, Nellie panted with what might have been exhaustion. Sawyer pressed her mouth to her ear, feeling the fine damp curl of her hair against her lips. “I’m nowhere near done with you yet, baby.”
Sawyer woke before her alarm and switched it off before quietly climbing out of bed.
It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to disentangle herself from those sheets.
Not because she had any desire to sleep any longer, but because a beautiful, beguiling, gently snoring woman lay sprawled across her mattress.
She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
Not the sex, the staying. There had been women over the years, but she had managed the goodbyes with the same clean efficiency she brought to business meetings: a car called, a glass of water offered, a departure made mutual and pleasant before it could become awkward.
Nellie had not been given those options.
She had fallen asleep in Sawyer’s bed, against Sawyer’s chest, and had remained there until dawn.
She slept now with one arm thrown at an angle that should have been uncomfortable.
Mouth very slightly open. A curl stuck to her cheek that Sawyer had stared at for far too long before she shook herself out of it and padded to her closet.
She had work to do. The board meeting was at eight. Gina’s motion was pending and unresolved and required her full attention, which she was not, apparently, capable of generating from her bed while Nellie Fuller lay mere inches away and looked like that.
Of course, Martha was already at her desk when Sawyer came through the elevator doors. “All board members have confirmed their attendance. Josie at seven-fifty for a quick debrief.”
Sawyer set her bag down and stood at her desk, clicking through the overnight email summaries without sitting. “Gina?”
“Has not confirmed attendance.”
“Did you invite her?”
Martha raised an eyebrow at her.
“Send her a reminder,” Sawyer said. “Tell her that her presence is requested at eight-fifteen.”
“Eight-fifteen?”
“She’s not on the agenda. She’s an addendum.”
The corner of Martha’s mouth twitched. “Noted.”
“And Martha—”
She paused, turning expectantly in the doorway.
“Thank you.” Sawyer was looking at her screen. “For calling Nellie.”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to.” Martha walked back to her desk, sat down, and immediately resumed typing.
Josie arrived at seven fifty on the dot. She shook Sawyer’s hand, accepted coffee, and sat at the head-adjacent seat that she’d occupied for six years without anyone ever formally assigning it.
By five past eight, all board members were present and the room had arranged itself into its habitual configurations: Danielle and Patricia whispering at one end, Emery Cho reviewing the printed agenda, Francene Dragova with her hands loosely clasped on the table as if she were holding court.
Sawyer sat at the head of the table and let the room settle.
“Thank you all for making time on short notice,” she began. “As you all know, Gina Marsh filed a motion for a vote of no confidence with Josie as board chair, and Josie agreed the matter should be heard formally. So”—she looked around the table—“go ahead.”
Francene straightened. “I think what we need to address first is the question of—”
“The vote,” Sawyer cut her off. “Call it.”
Josie cleared her throat and opened the folder in front of her.
“The motion before the board is a vote of no confidence in Sawyer Alburn as Chief Executive Officer of Alburn Systems, as filed by Gina Marsh, Head of Development, on the grounds of strategic mismanagement.” She looked at Danielle first. “Farr?”
“Against the motion,” Danielle said,, almost bored, as if she’d decided days ago and found the current moment slightly redundant.
“Cho?”
“Against.”
“Ng?”
“Against the motion.” Patricia set her printed agenda down, deliberately. “For the record, I’d like it noted that I reviewed Gina’s filing in full, and I found the factual basis for the claim of mismanagement grievously unsupported.”
“So noted,” Josie said. “Dragova?”
The pause was theatrical. Francene let it breathe.
She had a desperation, Sawyer had always thought, for wanting to be interesting.
“Against,” she said, finally. “Though I do think there are legitimate questions about the pace and communication of the Phoenix Ridge pivot that we should address in the next governance review.”
“Noted. Dawson?”
Renee Dawson, who had sat in relative quiet at the far corner and who Sawyer privately considered the most useful board member she had behind Josie, because she was one of only three who read the actual financial documents before meeting about them, looked up from the table. “Against.”
“And I vote against the motion,” Josie said. “Motion fails, six to zero.” She closed the folder. “Sawyer?”
“Thank you.” She stood. “The company is going to be fine. The strategic redirection is already underway, the renewable energy partnership framework is in early-stage diligence, and I want you all to see the revised Q3 projections by end of month. Martha will schedule that separately.” She glanced across the room.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some other business to attend to. ”
Josie nodded. She already knew. No doubt she would inform the others of what was about to happen.
Sawyer walked out, and found Gina was in the corridor.
“Ah, you’re here. We weren’t sure whether to expect you.”
Gina’s eyes went to the closed boardroom door and back. She was doing math. She watched it. The calculation of the result in the room, and what it meant for the result of her gamble, and the conclusion those two data points arrived at when placed side by side.
“The vote—” she started.
“Failed.” Sawyer clasped her hands behind her back. “Six to zero.”
Gina’s jaw clenched once, fast, then released. “Sawyer—”
“Gina.” She said her name with exactly enough patience to indicate she intended to use it only once.
“You filed a motion against my leadership to a board I’ve spent fifteen years cultivating over a strategic decision that I have every legal and fiduciary right to make.
I want you to understand that I’m not angry.
I’m not interested in making this dramatic.
I’m telling you clearly: it’s time for you to find a new position. ”
Gina was utterly still. “You’re serious?” she demanded, though the fight had already gone out of it.
“I don’t do anything insincere.” She nodded toward the boardroom door.
“Go in and ask, if you’d like. HR will have your severance package drafted by end of week.
It’ll be fair; I have never been ungenerous with exits, and I won’t start now.
” Sawyer stepped back slightly, opening the hall. “I’d recommend not making a speech.”
Gina looked at the floor. Then at the door. Sawyer noted, with no shortage of disgust, that she didn’t have the guts to look her in the eye before she shuffled back down the hallway and out of sight.
Satisfied, but not smug, Sawyer walked back to her office, sat down, and opened her email. There were forty-two new messages. She read the subject lines in order, flagged four, archived eleven, and was drafting a response to the third when her phone lit up on the desk beside her.
“Good morning,” Nellie’s text read. “You left. I’m choosing to believe this means you’re a committed professional and not that I snore too loudly.”
Sawyer smiled before turning the phone face-down. Ever the committed professional, she finished the email, sent it, and picked the phone back up.
“Your snoring is adorable,” she typed. “I had a board meeting.”
The reply was immediate. “I suppose I’ll let you off.”
At this point, Sawyer Alburn could accurately have been described as smug.
“Try not to miss me too much.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Nellie pinged back. “I’m too busy enjoying the view to miss you.”
Grinning to herself like that cat that got the cream, Sawyer almost jumped out of her chair when Martha’s voice came through the intercom. “Francene has three follow-up questions about the governance review timeline.”
“Schedule a call for Friday.”
“And Josie asked if you’d like lunch.”
“Tell her we can do tomorrow. I’m thinking about taking the rest of the day off.”
“I’ll clear your schedule.”