Chapter 3 Asher
ASHER
Is today some sort of cosmic joke? First, the problems with Greenspan, then the lashing from the board, and now I’m stuck with this misfit team that I’m being forced to put my life and my trust in. There are hundreds of millions of dollars on the line for fuck’s sake.
This team better deliver, or they’ll all find themselves fired.
And what is Emily doing, backing up Ms. Hale?
I’ve never seen anything so unprofessional as that woman’s entrance into the meeting.
Does she think this company is some sort of circus?
I wanted to fire her right there on the spot.
I almost did. But I’m on thin ice with the board, and I don’t need any complications.
I’ll simply ignore the shit employees and root them out over the next few weeks—and if they aren’t up to scratch, they’re gone.
I’ll probably end up starting with Ms. Hale.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Matthew.
I’m not continuing this meeting alone. And since he’ll need to be by my side every step of the way in this fun little project, I want him in all these meetings.
Plus, if there’s anyone who’s great with social media and aesthetic, it’s Matthew.
He already helps run several social media accounts for his boyfriend, Devon, who’s an interior designer.
“Yes?” Matthew says, answering my call.
“I want you down here in this meeting. You need to attend all of these meetings with me from here on out. Twenty minutes in, and it’s clear these employees who were hand-picked by the board are shit at their jobs.
I swear the board is sabotaging me to get those shares back.
If this is going to work, you’re going to have to help me. ”
“Done,” he says, hanging up.
I let out a long breath. Fuck this meeting and fuck the board. I am not going to let this team’s incompetence sink me. If there’s one thing I’ve never allowed myself to do, it’s fail.
“Absolutely not,” I snap, tossing a photo down on the table an hour later.
“Can I ask what’s wrong with her?” Emily asks.
“I thought you all were well acquainted with PR,” I growl, what’s left of my patience slipping by the second. “How do you think the public will react to her?”
We’re going through the list of eligible women the board gave to me one at a time.
I know some of the women on the list. I’ve grown up in the same circles as most of them.
I’ve even dated or slept with a number of them.
But the team wants to thoroughly weigh the potential of each of the candidates before they’re crossed off the list. They compiled photos, backgrounds, and any information they could get their hands on for each woman.
And we’re sitting here discussing them like pieces on a chess board.
We’re dissecting everything from their family and connections to their careers and pasts, and any media attention they’ve received.
“I think they’ll be impressed with her achievements,” one of the women, Cara, I think her name is, says. Others nod, and others aren’t as easily swayed.
The team wants to find a woman that has merit, which is fine and good, but they’re also forgetting a vital attribute the woman must possess. And I hate, truly hate, to point it out. Because not only do I not want to look like an ass, but because it should be glaringly obvious.
“Her achievements are impressive,” I agree, “and that is well and good. But what is the first thing the public is going to be introduced to?”
No one speaks.
“Oh, my god,” Matthew groans, his patience slipping right along with mine.
“She’s too plain. I don’t understand why we are still keeping her and a few of the others in the running.
We are here to whittle this list down to the final few candidates, and you all cannot understand that the fastest, easiest way to get rid of those who aren’t a good fit is to simply look at their photos and judge accordingly. ”
Most of the women give Matthew and me withering stares.
“Is this to be some sort of beauty pageant, then?” Cara asks, clearly annoyed. “All you care about is if the woman is beautiful?”
“No, that’s not all I care about. But it is important.” My tone is defensive.
“Oh, yes, because you couldn’t be with a woman who doesn’t look like a supermodel since that’s what you’re used to dating.”
My head snaps to Cara. How dare she? “Get out,” I growl. “You’re off this team.” She opens her mouth to retort. “If you say one more thing, you’re fired.”
Cara shoots to her feet, gathers her things in a huff, and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
“Anyone else?” I bark. “Let me be very clear. I may be a pompous asshole, and I may have dated my fair share of models, but I’m not demanding beauty just for my own sake. If you as a PR team can’t understand why, then none of you are fit to work on this team!”
“If I may, sir,” Ms. Hale says, her voice quiet but steady.
Here we go. Do I need to dismiss one right after the other?
She scrunches her nose as she seems to be gathering her thoughts, and I’m caught between annoyance at waiting for her to speak, and at the surprise that sparks through me at the sight of that expression on her face.
She looks, I don’t even know, but something like cute, or adorable comes to mind.
Which is a crazy thought, because those words rarely to never cross my lips—or even my mind.
There are very few things I cross paths with that I would consider cute or adorable.
“I think what Mr. Langford is alluding to,” Ms. Hale says after her pause, “is the unfortunate, but very real quick judgment of the public. This is Asher Langford—let that sink in. He is New York’s most eligible bachelor, and that makes him by extension one of America’s—and therefore one of the world’s—most eligible bachelors.
And he’s never settled down. He’s never dated anyone for more than a couple of months.
The public is not expecting him to settle down, which is the exact reason this strategy is brilliant.
The shock of The Asher Langford finding love will be a monumental story not only here in New York, but it will be heavily covered by entertainment news outlets across the nation, and probably even the globe.
“The public will expect, absolutely expect, the woman he’s dating to be extraordinary.
And unfortunately, part of extraordinary includes beautiful.
Is it shallow? Sure. But there’s no way around it.
If we try to pair him with a woman who doesn’t have a conventional beauty to her, she will be massacred online.
Think of the internet trolls. Think of what they’ll write and the awful things they’ll say.
They’ll burn her at the stake before they give us a chance to speak on her merits or achievements.
Mr. Langford and Matthew are absolutely correct.
She must be beautiful. Otherwise we’re chucking the poor woman into a sea of sharks and dumping a bucket of blood in behind her.
Do any of you want that on your conscience? Because I sure don’t.”
I’m shocked into silence for a moment. How is it that the bumbling Ms. Hale is the only one to get it?
I meant what I said earlier. Of course I want the woman I’m supposed to be dating to be beautiful for my own selfish reasons.
But what I care about more than that is not ruining the poor woman’s life.
My life is lived on a stage, and whoever I date will be forced onto that stage with me.
And Ella articulated that in a way I couldn’t in my impatience.
“Thank you, Ella,” Matthew says with a relieved sigh. “Finally, someone with some common sense. Hand me the photos. If you’re all too timid to judge women based on their looks, then I’ll do it. I can be the villain we need in this scenario.”
Ella lets out a soft chuckle, and I study her more closely as she pushes the photos near her toward Matthew.
Her smile is mesmerizing. I haven’t seen it yet since the mood in the room has been thick with tension and fear all morning.
I realize with all the talk about beauty that she is, in fact, stunning.
Even with no makeup on. Her eyes are a bright jade green, accentuated by high cheekbones and full, slightly arched brows.
And her lips. I’ve had to look away from them a few times during our meeting.
Even with my annoyance with her, I couldn’t ignore the fact that her full, pouty lips are the kind of lips I would have been imagining all sorts of deplorable things about if she wasn’t my employee.
Fuck, focus.
And maybe Emily is right. Maybe Ms. Hale is an exemplary employee and deserves to be on this team. So far, she and Emily are the only ones who seem to truly understand the task at hand.
After a moment, Matthew takes the lion’s share of the photos and drops them in the trash, then sets just five photos back on the center of the table.
“These are our candidates,” he says. “And if I wanted to be a total bitch, I could probably cut it down to just two. But we might as well go over the merits of the five, just to make sure we’re being thorough.”
Two hours later, my stomach is growling, and a faint headache is forming in my temples. We’ve gone through exhaustive lists and backgrounds of the five candidates and narrowed it down to two, just as Matthew said. I know I should feel relieved, but instead, all I feel is dread.