Chapter 7 Linc
LINC
I now understand the expression, “golden handcuffs.” Staring out of the upper-floor window of this glass aerie at the city below, I’d rather be anywhere than trapped up here in a bird cage. Well, almost anywhere.
As the morning circles back in my mind, I think about the conversation with my father and regret agreeing to this—even if it came with a plan to find something my mother was looking for, to complete her search.
I resent his expectations for me when I have a perfectly good career doing something I love.
Then there was the interaction with my new assistant. Juliana. My mind is so scrambled, I can’t think about much more than surviving the day. This situation already has me bitter and I’m taking it out on everyone within spitting distance.
I’ll take a two-hundred thirty-pound man skating my way with a stick over this any day. But a woman that’s probably about five and a half feet tall with blonde hair streaked with a hint of summer strawberry and light freckles across her nose? I don’t stand a chance.
The fact is, I don’t want to be here. My original plan was simple: survival of the fittest. Fake it till I make it, suit up and embody the polished and demanding, self-important, condescending executive, and get through this stint without incident—all while completing my mother’s search.
But scrubbing my hand down my face now, I know that’s not happening. Channeling corporate boss energy, complete with power trips, makes me feel like a complete jerk.
Like my father.
So, Plan B: is to make my assistant’s life so miserable she complains to HR and they fire me. Never mind that I’m not technically on the payroll, so who knows if that’ll work.
But it’s too late to turn back now.
Don’t get me wrong, Frank Andresen has his good moments, but I’ve watched him work enough to know that he didn’t build a billion-dollar company by being a softy who outfits his employees’ bicycles with training wheels when they should come equipped with the ability to ride a unicycle.
There is no staff game room or siesta space in this building.
Once, at a work dinner I went to as a teen, I recall Maxine Drecken, his second in command, likening Meridian’s personnel to being nothing more than disposable livestock at a cubicle farm.
Dad didn’t disagree, so I took it as assent.
But that’s not who I am. I play right wing for the Ottawa Outlaws.
We’re a brotherhood and the only way to win is if we do it together.
Over the years, some players have come along who’re in it entirely for personal glory.
Of course, we all want to do our best, but if we don’t operate as one unit, the whole thing goes off the rails, er, skates, as it were.
So why did I just tear into my new assistant? Simple: I don’t want to be here. I belong on the ice, not behind a desk, playing corporate theater. But it’s not like I have another option.
She dared me to get rid of her and I don’t blame her for not wanting to put up with my ugly mug every day. She probably had a nice office somewhere else in the building—kept an adorable candid photo of her significant other with his arms around her and a bowl of seasonal candies on her desk.
I stagger. Hold on. Yes, she most certainly did.
A desk covered in crinkly Lindt chocolate truffle wrappers.
It can’t be. I glance over my shoulder with a quiet and unsettling certainty that the woman I flirted with on the phone when the call to my father got lost and misdirected is none other than the woman with the sweet-as-chocolate voice.
The intercom buzzes. I noticed Juliana ordinarily has the voice of a contented kitten, but when she talks to me, she sounds like she’s fixing for a cat fight. “Mr. Sullivan, a Sir Bīri?? the most highborn, undefeated, handsome, eternal herald of hockey …”
What is he doing here?
I break out in a sweat as, from the reception area, my teammate’s accented voice dictates his ridiculous—and fake—royal name to my assistant and very likely will follow up with a request for her number.
The man is like a fly to pretty women. You can’t keep him away, yet somehow, despite his bombastic nature, he convinces the sweetest women to date him.
He’s going to take the snot out of me for occupying this office. Instead of sending him in, I press the intercom button. “Be right out.”
Smoothing my tie, I fling the double office doors open like I’m raiding a medieval castle. Only Bīri?? isn’t there.
My assistant stares at me apologetically. Biting her very plump lower lip, she says, “He asked if there was another entry.”
I do my best to seem unruffled. Having the guys barge in and blow the cover I’m trying to keep by blabbing about being a nepo baby or NHL player is the last thing I need.
“Where did he go?”
She points a slender finger toward the hall where the side entrance to my office is. Presumably, she told him.
“Thanks a lot, Yulia.”
She cocks her head. “Now you’re just stretching. Is that even a name?”
I crack my neck because she’s right. I could use a stretch. Hit the gym, run off this tension.
Her eyes narrow. “My name is Juliana.”
I’ll do my best to forget that and the unsettling gray of her eyes. Eyes like my favorite kind of ice, but they’re not at all cold.
Best to keep my distance. Feign indifference.
Giving my head a shake, I turn back to the problem at hand which includes but is not limited to tracking down my teammate, finding out why he’s here, and getting him to leave as discreetly as possible.
From behind, I hear the telltale creak of a chair.
Turning back to my office, I slam the doors and bear down on Bīri??. With his hands clasped behind his head, he tilts back and kicks his huge, filthy boots on my desk.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss.
“Rescuing you.”
I wipe the dirt off the otherwise pristine surface. “I don’t need rescuing, but you will if you don’t take your grubby boots off my desk.”
He chuckles and doesn’t move, but his gaze skirts the door to the reception area. “In that case, I’m here to save the damsel who you’re keeping locked up in this ivory tower.”
“She’s not locked in? Damsel?” Feeling wrapped around the spokes, I try to get my head on straight. “Bīri??, you can’t be here.”
In his ribald and stilted way, he says, “It’s officially summer. A beautiful day. My cousins and I are going full throttle on the lake.”
“I told you, I have to—” Read reports? Populate spreadsheets? Make my father another million?
“Icing on the Lake is gassed up, the cooler is stocked, we’re just waiting for you, eighty-three.”
Glancing out the window, the sparkling water does look inviting. Through the crack in the door, I glimpse my assistant illuminated by the glow of her computer.
What would she do?
I mean, if I left. Not whether she’d go boating with her friends instead of doing her job.
As for that, it’s hard to say. She was spunky earlier, firing back at me when she commented on having already submitted the report to me.
Then she followed up with a sassy little comment about me staring at my own reflection.
Trust me, that’s the last thing I want to do. I much prefer hiding behind my beard.
Cutting into my thoughts, Bīri?? says, “You look like such a dweeb in those glasses.”
I angle my gaze at him and then jut my chin toward the window. “Feel like going skydiving?”
His brow furrows, confused for a moment, before he registers the threat, not that I’d ever throw someone off a building. “Ha ha. Come on. Let’s go. You can play hooky this once.”
But it’s my first day. The clickety clack of my assistant’s fingers flying across her keyboard brings to mind her dare to get rid of her.
But what if she got rid of me? If I get a bad report, perhaps my father will see that I’m not made for the corporate world and let me go—no severance package necessary.
Smirking, I say, “Actually, yeah. That sounds good.”
Bīri?? drops his boots to the floor and launches to standing, letting out a bark of laughter. “I didn’t think you’d cave so easily. Let’s roll, troll.”
I breeze through the main office doors, but when I reach the elevator, my teammate and current partner in crime isn’t beside me.
Turning around, the hockey player who could somehow charm ice off the rink is sweet-talking my assistant. She smiles and laughs—maybe nervously. Flirtatiously? I can’t tell.
Striding back the way I came, I say, “Bīri??, shall we?”
He extends his elbow toward my assistant, an invitation for her to loop her arm through.
She steps back slightly. Smart girl. The guy goes through women like I go through skate laces.
“I probably shouldn’t—” Her eyes flick toward mine and then away.
“Shouldn’t what?” I ask.
“Juliana is coming with,” Bīri?? says as if that should’ve been obvious.
I glower. “What? No. She has work to do.”
My assistant crosses her arms in front of her chest. “It looked like you were leaving.”
“We are.” My teammate winks. “All three of us for a day on the lake. You won’t be sorry.”
I reply with a sharp look that suggests he’ll be sorry if it isn’t just the two of us who exit this building.