by Brent, Amy
“Yes, sir,” she said. She smiled down at me. “And for you, Miss?”
I stared up at her with my mouth hanging open. She was gorgeous, but there was no pretense or condescension in her eyes. She was there but to serve at the master’s whim. Lucky her.
I finally said, “Um, that sounds fine. I’ll have the same.”
“Don’t forget to warm those buns, honey,” Tanner added with a wink. I saw her smile back at him and immediately suspected there was something more between them. I mean, he was a hot billionaire playboy and she looked like a Victoria’s Secret model moonlighting as a flight attendant. Who could blame either of them if they had mutually joined the mile-high club. I wondered how many times Tanner’s membership card to the club had been stamped.
“So, Miss Carlson,” he said with a sigh. “How was your weekend?” He leaned back in the seat and dug into his pants pocket. His fingers emerged wrapped around the red rubber ball.
“Um, it was fine, Mr. Wright. Thanks for asking.”
“Look, if we’re going to be working together you have to stop calling me Mr. Wright,” he said, making a goofy face. “That sort of title puts a lot of pressure on a guy. Call me Tanner.”
He made me smile, which made him smile.
“Okay, Tanner. Please call me Candice.”
As if on cue, both of us glanced over to find the other passengers staring at us, as if we were performers on a stage and they were the dumbfounded audience witnessing a show they never expected to see. Tanner gave them a hard look and their stares quickly went away.
The attendant delivered our coffee and honey buns. I closed the laptop and stowed it under the seat to make room.
The coffee was steaming hot. I had to let it cool before attempting a sip. How awful would that be, sitting across from a handsome billionaire full of himself and innuendo, then I burn my tongue on hot coffee.
No thank you, that’s one embarrassing moment I don’t need.
Tanner, on the other hand, seemed to have no fear at all of scalding his tongue. He picked up the coffee and blew a cooling breath into the cup, then took a cautious slurp.
“Wow, hot,” he said, smacking his lips. He set down the cup and picked up the honey bun with his free hand and bit off a huge chunk. He closed his eyes and moaned at the taste.
“Have the hot honey buns, people,” he said loudly.
I watched him for a moment. He was almost like a kid; a big, rich, obnoxious kid. He was hot as hell and manly to the max, but there was an innocence there, as well. Maybe he was like me. Maybe the public Tanner and the private Tanner were two very different people. I’d probably never find out, but it certainly was an intriguing prospect.
“So, Candice, let’s talk business,” he said, his tone and expression turning formal again. He sucked the icing from his fingers, then wiped his hand and lips on a napkin.
He said, “Give me your thoughts on the Anderson acquisition.”
“My thoughts?”
“Yes, your thoughts.” He leaned in and peered at me from under his eyebrows. “You’ve read the acquisition documents, I assume.”
I nodded. “I have.”
“And you’re read the company prospectus?”
“I have.”
“And you have our in-house research on Anderson’s financials.”
“I do.” I had to smile at him or my face would crack.
He held up the rubber ball between us on the tips of his fingers and fixed his eyes on it, as if it were a crystal ball that foretold the future.
“So, what do you think? Are we getting a good deal? A fair deal? Are we raping and pillaging their village? Or are we being taken to the bank? What are your thoughts?”
I licked my lips nervously. I knew everyone was listening. Stan would have told me to tell Tanner what he wanted to hear. Juliette would have told me to refer the question to Stan. But I wasn’t being paid to be a yes-woman or to dodge important questions.
I cleared my throat and told him what I really thought.
“Well… Tanner, I think the price you’ve offered is fair, but I do have some concerns about Anderson’s profit and loss statements for the last ten years. There were some discrepancies in the P&Ls that --”
Henry Costas cut me off. “Those P&L’s have been fully vetted by our in-house accountants. There’s no need for you to waste time there, Miss Carlson.”
That was news to me. Reviewing the annual P&L’s since the company opened in 1974 was one of the tasks I’d been assigned, and I told him so.
“That must have been assigned to the task list before the work was done in-house,” Costas said. He looked at Stan. “Isn’t that correct, Stan?”
Stan fidgeted in his seat for a moment. He didn’t have a clue if that was right or not. He hemmed and hawed for a moment, then did what he always did. He said what the customer wanted to hear.
“Yes, I’m sorry, Candice, Mr. Costas is correct. You must not have the most recent task order list. I’ll get that to you as soon as we land.”
The latest task order list? What the heck was he talking about? I had the only task order list that had been assigned; the same task order list as the rest of the team.
I had spent most of the weekend (when I wasn’t sobbing like a baby and stuffing ice cream into my face) studying four decades’ worth of Anderson P&L’s so I would have a jump on things in case I didn’t get booted from the team.
And unless the financials that I’d been sent were wrong, as well, then there were red flags that needed to be addressed.
Tanner seemed to study Costas and Henry for a moment before turning back to me. His forearm muscles flexed as he squeezed the rubber ball. He spoke to me with his eyes. His gaze told me we’d address the red flags on Anderson’s P&L later.
“Other than that, give me your thoughts on the acquisition.”
Before I could answer he swept a hand at the others, who were watching and listening while trying to pretend that they weren’t.
“Listen up, people, because I’m going to ask each of you the same question later.”
I cleared my throat and folded my hands on the table and leaned on my elbows. “I believe the acquisition is smart, given the share price you’re paying, which is $31 a share. That’s $2 over market, but anything up to $40 a share would be a bargain given the value of the contracts and assets that Anderson holds.”
“What about their infrastructure and expansion plans?” he asked. “According to your resume you are one of Goldman’s experts on digital networks and optical fiber.”
I tried to keep the smug look off my face. I wondered if anyone else on the team had even bothered to read my resume. “Their infrastructure is sound, but aging rapidly. They have contracts in place to install fiber optic networks for a number of small and medium municipalities, but the competition to move into major markets like New York, Chicago, and Atlanta, is fierce. Until those systems are in place, their customers are at the mercy of the older wired networks, which could be a concern down the road.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. They all did. He knew exactly what I was talking about.
He said, “And if their old customers are at the mercy of their old technology, those customers might be attracted to a different carrier with new technology like fiber optics that offers greater connectivity and faster speeds.”
“Exactly,” I said, nodding. “It’s not a tremendous concern now, but if companies like Charter and Spectrum install fiber optic networks faster than Anderson, well…”
“They could lure away Anderson’s customers, making the company less valuable than it is today.” He gave me a smile that was not filled with tricks or treats. It was one of admiration.
“Very impressive, Miss Carlson,” he said.
“Candice,” I shot back.
“Right. Candice.”
He swiveled his chair to face the others and bounced the rubber ball on the floor between his feet. “All right then. Let’s hear what the rest of you have to say.�
�
I ate the entire honey bun and drank the coffee as I listened to the older, wiser, more-expert members of the team say basically the same things I just did.
Occasionally, Tanner would glance over and smile, as if saying, “You nailed it, girl.”
I found that I couldn’t keep my eyes from drifting over his body as he conducted the meeting.
Such boyish charm in a such a seriously hot and seriously brilliant package.
Maybe Tanner Wright wasn’t such a douchebag after all.
Tanner
By the time the corporate jet touched down in Tucson, I was certain of three things.
Thing Number One: Henry was wise to hire the Goldman & Stern team to do the final due diligence on the Anderson deal. They were all very sharp and knew the industry well. I was impressed, even though I had to pull Stan’s sharp nose out of my ass a time or two.
Even the angry little woman who looked like she could chew nails, the goofy accountant enamored of the pilot’s cap, and the legal eagle who I think was asleep with his eyes open most of the time, all had good insight and input into the deal.
Thing Number Two: There were red flags in the Anderson P&L’s that clearly Henry didn’t want to discuss in front of the Goldman group. Fine, we’d address those red flags when we were alone.
Sometimes our deals required that we do things, say things, or ignore things in order to keep certain facts and figures out of the public eye. I got the feeling that Stan was caught with his pants down because he underestimated the abilities of their junior consultant.
And finally, Thing Number Three that I was certain of by the time the jet landed in Tucson was that I wanted to get to know Candice Carlson better. Much better. A lot better.
I wasn’t sure exactly what was drawing me to her, but I felt like a moth being lured to a flame. I just didn’t want to get my wings – or other body parts --singed.
Perhaps it was that she was beautiful in an unassuming way. You didn’t have to sandblast the makeup from her face or peel back the layers of her multiple personalities to find the real woman underneath.
She was genuine, sincere, and so unlike the other women I typically spent time with.
She was intelligent, funny, warm, and down to earth. I loved the way her nose crinkled when she laughed at my stupid jokes and how the corners of her lips curled into a smile.
There was no pretense in her eyes. What you saw was what you got. I immediately loved that about her.
Candice Carlson was the real deal.
The genuine article.
The only question was: how do I get someone like her to like someone like me? It was a question asked over the ages by teenage boys, star-crossed lovers, and love struck billionaires used to getting whatever they wanted.
I knew bragging about my cars and jets and money wasn’t going to impress her. No, a woman like Candice Carlson didn’t care about those sorts of things.
I had a winning personality. I was funny and charming and good looking and in great shape. Oh, and modest. I was very modest. And according to dozens of women in the greater Chicago area-- and around the world -- one hell of a great lay.
I could impress her with the size of my dick and my ability to rock and roll all night long, but that was a Phase Two move.
I had to get her to Phase One first.
I had to get her to like me.
Then everything else would fall into place.
Candice
A team from Anderson Telecommunications was waiting on the tarmac when we touched down in Tucson. Tanner and Costas climbed into the back of a stretch limo with the Anderson execs and went one way, and the Goldman team was shuffled into a van driven by an assistant and ferried to the Anderson offices in downtown Tucson.
Even though the rest of the country was frozen solid, winter in Tucson felt like spring back in Nebraska. It was nearly seventy-degrees and sunny as we stepped off the plane. We all peeled off our Chicago-winter coats and left them on the plane before getting into the van.
I spent the entire day locked in a room with half a dozen analysts and a manager from Anderson’s network expansion group. The task was to conduct cost analysis on their major market expansion plans. It was my job to determine if Anderson’s plans were realistic or inflated to drive the acquisition stock price higher.
Stan appeared at the door around six and said to call it a day. I was never so happy to see him in my life. By the time I got settled into my hotel room, it was nearly eight o’clock and my brain was fried.
I stripped off my clothes and hung them neatly on hangers, then went in to take a quick shower. The hot water felt wonderful as it melted away the tension from my neck and shoulders.
I didn’t realize how stressful the day had been, or how my muscles had tied into knots. I closed my eyes and wished that Tanner was there in the shower behind me, rubbing away the tension from my shoulders as his cock slid into me from behind.
My stomach growling forced me back to reality. I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything since the honey bun earlier in the day.
Oh well, save that fantasy for another day.
I turned off the shower and reached for a towel.
I pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and a ratty Harvard t-shirt. Some women slept in nightgowns, some in negligees, some in the nude. I dressed comfortably for bed. I had no one to impress.
I pulled my hair into a ponytail and picked up the room service menu from the dresser. I called down and ordered a cheeseburger and fries and a chocolate shake. When I was out of town, my usual healthy-eating regiment went out the window.
I picked up the remote and settled back on the bed to watch a little television until my not-so-healthy dinner arrived.
* * *
I was thirty minutes into a rerun of The Housewives of Orange County when someone knocked on the door. They called out, “Room service!”
“Just a minute,” I called back. I clicked off the TV and hopped off the bed. I scooped my purse off the dresser so I could give the guy a tip.
When I opened the door, there stood Tanner Wright, wearing a chef’s hat and pushing a cart that held an assortment of covered dishes.
“What the heck?” I asked with a wide smile. “What are you doing?”
“Delivering your dinner, madam,” he said, sweeping his arms over the cart of food as if he had made it magically appear. “May I come in or would you prefer to dine in the hallway?”
I stepped aside to let him push the cart into the room. He directed me to sit on the foot of the bed and made a show of taking the covers off the dishes.
“For Madam Carlson this evening we have a lovely fresh garden salad, which, if I may recommend, you just toss in the trash because it’s really just rabbit food.”
He lifted the silver cover off the first plate.
“As the main course, we have a magnificent filet mignon, garnished with baby carrots and garlic mashed potatoes.”
He lifted the next cover.
“For dessert, we have a lovely slice of strawberry cheese cake and to drink, we have coffee, tea, or…”
He reached beneath the cart and brought out two six packs of beer. “Coors in the bottle, my personal favorite.”
“You’re really something,” I said with a grin. I lifted my chin and let my eyes go around the plates. “It looks like you brought enough for two.”
He mocked a look of surprise. “Did I? Oh my, the kitchen must have messed up your order. I’ll have them flogged at once.”
“I can’t eat all of that,” I said with a shrug. I arched my eyebrows and smiled up at him. “Maybe you’d like to join me?”
Tanner grinned and plucked the chef’s hat off his head. He tossed the chef’s hat on the cart and rubbed his hands together and smiled.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he growled. “I’m famished!”
* * *
Tanner spread the food out on the little table in front of the window and we sat on opposites sides and dug in. We bo
th ate like starving souls. The food was amazing.
We trashed the salads.
The filet melted in my mouth.
The dessert literally made me moan.
For hours, we chatted like old friends as we stuffed our bellies with food and washed it down with cold beer. Tanner talked about his life, how he started the company in his parents’ garage when he was just a teenager, how he met Henry Costas at MIT and convinced him to become his partner, how he and Henry had built the company from the ground up.
There lots of victories, but I could sense a sadness when he talked about his personal life. He’d never been married. He had never even come close. He admitted to being a playboy, but in a moment of reflection, he said he would love to meet the right girl someday and start a family. I watched his eyes as he spoke. The douchebag I’d met the day before was no longer there.
He had been replaced by – dare I say – a nice guy.
Tanner leaned back with his fifth or six beer and sighed. “Yes, sir, it’s been an interesting ride.” He took a sip and flexed his eyebrows at me. “What about you, Candice Carlson, with your snappy business suits and an MBA from Harvard. Why is there no significant other in your life?”
I held the bottle to my lips and tried to be coy. “Who said there wasn’t a significant other in my life.”
“Facebooks says,” he shot back.
The bottle froze at my bottom lip. “Oh, my god. You scoped me out on Facebook?”
He huffed at me. “OMG, you scoped me out on Facebook? Of course, I did. Don’t you know, Facebook reveals all. And according to your relationship status, you are single.”
“Why isn’t there a relationship status that says none of your fucking business?”
“I think there is, actually,” he said with a thoughtful pout. “It’s the one right under ‘fuck off and die’.”
I drained the bottle and he handed me another. Then I made the mistake of telling him about Scott, and how his mother had forced him to break up with me.
“What a pussy,” he growled.
“Oh, you have no idea,” I said, smacking my lips. “Scott took the word pussy to new heights.”