Chapter 8
Gosh. His secret weapon might actually be his charm. I’m doing my best not to like the guy, but I’m losing the battle. I’ve insulted him, belittled him, and he’s still smiling at me—those insufferable dimples just adding to the affront.
And apparently, the smiling is infectious because my lips rebelliously curl up in a smile of their own, while my stomach responds to the wink by flipping in on itself.
“You’re smiling,” he says. “That’s progress.”
I stuff my mouth with risotto to wipe the smile off my face, and force myself to concentrate on eating.
Thomas lets me be for some time while we eat in silence.
When he speaks again, he almost makes me jump in my chair. “Have I earned the benefit of the doubt? Truce?”
I shake my head, conceding deceit. “You’ve at least one thing in common with your father.”
He wipes his mouth on his napkin. “Really, what’s that?”
“You’re really hard to say no to.”
Our eyes lock, and I’ve no idea what’s going through his head, but his gaze seems suddenly more alert, more intent. And I don’t like the way I’m responding to it. Still, I don’t look away.
He breaks the eye contact, eventually, taking a long sip of water, which is not much better, as now, I’ve gone from obsessing over his eyes to finding myself staring fascinated at his Adam’s apple as it bobs up and down in his throat. A sexy, manly throat that I catch myself wondering how it’d feel under my lips if I kissed it. Smooth or rough with stubble?
I stand up abruptly, making my chair scrape on the floor and dropping my napkin on the table, and excuse myself to the restroom. I enter the small room and lean my back against the door for a second before heading to a stall and locking myself in.
What is wrong with me?
I’ve never been sensitive to macho charm. In all my past relationships, I’ve always formed a mental bond first. Physical attraction came in at a distant second. Good looks never even factored in that much in my choosing of a partner. But Thomas Mercer is making me think things I never even thought myself capable of—like how easy it would be to pull him by his expensive tie into this stall with me and kiss the charming smiles right off his stupid face.
And if even bathroom stalls are eliciting prohibited fantasies, I should really get a grip.
Inhaling deeply, I exit the stall and head to the sink to splash my face with cold water. Next, I dab my neck and behind my ears. The coldness seeps into my skin, soothing my nerves.
I need to get a hold of myself and nip this unexplainable attraction in the bud before I do something stupid. I can be a professional. Be civil to Thomas Mercer, show him around the lab, teach him a few buzz words so he can appear more robotics savvy than he is, and then send him on his merry way in three short months.
Easy peasy robot squeezy.
I pull a few loose strands of hair behind my ears and head back to the table.
“We have a deal,” I say, sitting down. “I’m going to teach you as much as I can about robotics in the short time we have.”
He seems skeptical of my change in attitude. “And in exchange?”
I shrug. “It won’t be bad to have the future CEO’s ear in case my division’s work needs support.”
“See?” he says with an open smile that causes my heart to double its beat. “Win win.”
When we re-enter the lab, everybody else is back to work, and most heads turn our way. Mainly curious glances with two glaring exceptions. Garrett is staring daggers at Thomas. And Maria is looking at me with a dreamy grin I don’t appreciate one bit. She even mouths a “Wow” at me and pretend-fans herself.
I scowl at her in a “cut it” way and brace myself to make an official announcement. I clap my hands loudly. “Attention everyone, please pause your work for a minute and listen.”
Once all eyes are on me, I present Thomas to the group. “This is Thomas Mercer; he’ll be staying with us for the next three months as an observer.” I’m not sure if I can already divulge the news that he’ll become our new CEO to everyone—I can trust Maria but maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it to her either, so I keep the introductions vague. “Please give him full access to your current work and make him feel part of the team. We’ll be making rounds of the various workstations now for you to meet him personally as we go by. Please return to your posts.”
All the engineers and programmers scatter back to their stations, and I turn to Thomas.
“Word of warning, getting a rundown of all the products at once might feel overwhelming. We’re working on a million different things.”
He gives me a confident smirk. “Do I need to take notes?”
“That won’t be necessary. I gave my presentation to the board on the state of the department only last month. I can forward you the PowerPoint, which summarizes pretty much everything. And you can also study the full report.”
He leans in to whisper in my ear. “Will there be an interrogation afterward?”
His warm breath skims down my ear to my neck. In response, goosebumps run down my spine and arms, despite the heat in the room. I collect my wits and face him, whispering back, “From me, no. I’m the only head of department who doesn’t want your job and the only friend you have here.” I lower my voice still. “But you can bet Briggs will try to trip and humiliate you any chance he has.”
“Briggs?”
At Thomas’s confused frown, I add, “He’s the head of production and heir apparent to the throne until you showed up.” I poke his chest.
Bad move. My finger makes impact with a wall of solid muscle.
I pull my hand away as if burned and finish my speech. “So I suggest you take your time in RD seriously and also that you familiarize yourself with the organizational chart of the company you’re going to lead.”
“Hey.” He raises his hands defensively. “I was only appointed to the job yesterday. Give me time.” He winks. “I promise not to disappoint.”
My heart stutters in my chest. Because of the wink. For the way he’s looking at me as he promises not to disappoint.And because of those darn gold flecks in his eyes.
I ignore all these reactions and move on to business.
“Come on, then.” I walk to the workstation next to the entrance and gesture to the man sitting there. “This is Kevin. He’s been with the company for the longest time on this floor and has been working on our arc welding industrial robots for the last three years.”
They shake hands, Kevin gives us an introduction to his work, and we move on, going station to station and meeting everyone.
When we get to Maria’s bench, she’s waiting for us with a grin splitting her face cheek to cheek.
“Hi,” she says, sounding slightly out of breath. “I’m Maria.” She offers her hand eagerly.
They shake hands, and then Maria turns to me saying suggestively, “Strong handshake, I like it.”
I roll my eyes and ignore the gratuitous comment. “Maria is our mobility team leader. She’s in charge of automated guided vehicle systems, mobile platforms, and mobile robots—the mechanical arms on wheels, in short.”
Maria looks at Thomas from under her long, dark lashes. Could be because he’s so tall and she has no other option. But the way she’s sensually biting her lower lip tells me the move is deliberate. “Looking forward to working together, Mr. Mercer,” she purrs.
“Please, call me Thomas,” he replies with a warm smile.
And before Maria can fully swoon, I push him forward to our next stop. We make our way through the lab in a semi-circle, going station by station, exploring designs, and talking to people. When we complete the first half of the circle and before moving on to the second half, I bring Thomas to the center of the room.
“This is Ari, our industrial robots team leader, she’s in charge of”—I mimic the robot-like movement with my arm—“all our static mechanical arms like the big guy in the center of the room.”
Thomas turns to study our biggest robot. “What’s the development on this one?”
“We’re trying to simplify his input system so that it will no longer be necessary to program space coordinates into the machine. Instead, we want to use AI-enabled 3D vision to perform location and mapping functionalities. In short, we want to turn it from a complicated numerical control machine into something even an idiot could use intuitively with no training needed.”
“The new guy could probably help test that functionality.” The grating comment comes from our left, suspiciously close to Garrett’s station. I narrow my eyes at him while silence falls over the lab.
Thomas zeros in on Garrett as well. “Excuse me—I didn’t catch your name, what was that you just said?”
Everyone stops working, and all eyes turn to Garrett. He’s turned tomato red up to the tips of his ears, but he’s staring back at Thomas with an air of open hostility.
You could cut the tension in the room as the two men square off with each other. I do my best not to roll my eyes at the measuring contest about to take place. That’s why I prefer to work with women; we don’t need to assert our dominance. But Garrett and Thomas look like two vicious wolves baring their teeth at each other, ready to fight for the role of alpha of the pack.
Just when I’m panicking the staring contest will never end, Garrett speaks. “I said…” He spits the words out in irritation. “I said…” Under Thomas’s unyielding stare, Garrett caves. “Never mind.”
Thomas waits another two full seconds, jaw tense before he acknowledges the other man’s submission with a terse nod.
Garrett might be a good listener and a great problem solver, but an alpha he is not.
Crisis averted, Thomas turns again to Ari. “Apologies for the interruption,” he says in a calm, friendly tone as if he hadn’t just turned the lab into an episode of Animal Fight Night. “Why don’t you walk me through the program?”
Ari explains how we’re trying to make the robot follow simple pointing directions from position A to B, but also how the optic reading system is still getting confused, making the system unreliable.
“Do you think it’s a hardware or software problem?” Thomas asks, proving maybe he’s not a total idiot.
Ari sighs. “The hardware is state-of-the art; I’m afraid our programming isn’t keeping up.”
They talk some more, and when they’re done, I check the time. We’ve been at this for three hours already. Guess we could all use a break and pause our tour of the lab until tomorrow. In reality, I want to avoid having to witness another incendiary interaction between Garrett and Thomas, since Garrett’s station would’ve been next in our path. Both of them will probably need at least a day to cool off. So instead, I ask Thomas, “How about we finish the tour tomorrow?”
“Yeah, that seems like a good idea.” He catches my drift right away. I imagine he was so hard with Garrett to let everyone know he wouldn’t tolerate being made a fool of. But a good leader knows not to rub salt in the wound. A sour employee serves no one.
Begrudgingly, I award Thomas a mental gold star for empathy.
“Okay, I can share a web folder with you and put in the presentation and report on all our projects I was telling you about.”
“Perfect.”
Then another thought strikes me. “Are you keeping your office upstairs or are you moving down here?”
Thomas looks around as if he hadn’t thought about it either. “I’d better move here. Get the full-immersion experience.”
“Mmm, okay, my office is the only closed-off one. But I can leave it to you and transfer to a different workstation until you move on to your next rotation.”
“Nonsense, I’ll have a second desk brought in,” he says with a sense of finality. “We can share.”