“Let me look into it,” I said. “I’ll find out everything I can about him and let you know.”
I got off the phone and pulled out my computer. I spent the next hour digging into Danny and trying to find out anything I could about him. I was sure it would be easy to find some sort of dirt about the man.
From the very first time I met him, Danny had struck me as shady and not trustworthy. It wasn’t just that he was gruff and unpleasant. There were plenty of people like that. There was just something about him that put me on edge. I didn’t put it past him for a second to do anything he could to sabotage his competition.
But I couldn’t find anything. The full hour of scouring every corner of the internet I could think of still left me empty-handed. Finally, I forced myself to stop and push away from the computer. Rubbing my eyes with my fingertips, I turned to Amanda.
“I need a break,” I said. “I’m not really getting anywhere, and it’s just frustrating me. I’m going to go see what my brothers have found out and check on everybody. Would you want to come with me?”
“Sure,” Amanda said.
We went to Mason’s house, and he met us outside. As soon as I got out of the car, he came around to give me a hug. He smiled at Amanda.
“Hey, Amanda, good to see you,” he said.
They had met on a few occasions when Mason came out to San Francisco, but she hadn’t met Ava, yet. We went inside and found Ava in the living room sitting on the floor with baby Robert. He was changing so much it was amazing. He looked distinctly different than he did the last time I saw him just a few weeks before.
He was sitting up now, clapping his chubby hands and occasionally reaching for the stuffed animals sitting around him.
“Ava,” I said when we came into the room, “I want you to meet my secretary, and the savior of just about every element of my life on a regular basis, Amanda.”
Amanda scoffed and shook her head but reached out her hand toward Ava. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Ava said. “How long are you guys going to be in town?”
Amanda looked over at me, and I gave a noncommittal shrug.
“We don’t have a set timeline, yet. I’m here for as long as I need to be to handle everything. Amanda was good enough to agree to come and work remotely from here. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep her, but as long as she’ll stay, I’m happy to have her.”
I noticed a slight flush go across Amanda’s cheekbones.
“I can stay as long as he needs me,” I said. “I am without pets, roommates, or any other obligation. Which I realize now as I’m saying it out loud sounds sad and a little bit pathetic rather than carefree and rife with opportunity as I intended it to.”
Ava laughed. “Well, if you need any girl time while you’re out here, just let me know. We can hang out.”
Amanda laughed and nodded happily. “I will definitely take you up on that.”
“Tom, can we talk for a bit?” Mason asked. “Jesse and Jordan are on their way over here.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go wait outside for them.”
We went out onto Mason’s porch. There was already a small cooler sitting on it, which told me Mason had been doing lawn work that day. This was his style. Anytime he needed to go out into the yard to mow the grass, work in the garden, or anything else, he brought along a cooler full of beer. He reached into the cooler now and handed one of the bottles to me.
A few seconds later, our brothers pulled up and joined us. We started talking about Danny and all the shady things he did. It was worse than I even thought. I wasn’t around as much, so I didn’t see as much as my brothers did. They told me about how he drank the inventory of his own bar with the town drunks, who had moved over to his bar from ours. He would then charge everybody else who came in extra to cover the cost of what he drank.
“So, he’s an alcoholic,” I said.
“Absolutely,” Jordan said. “I’m just getting a chance to see what this guy is all about since I’ve been home the last six months, but it’s ridiculous from what I’ve seen. His place is falling apart, and everybody around town except for his little band of loyal drunks talks about it.”
“He’s probably bitter and jealous,” Jesse said. “We’ve been doing so well, and we never asked him to participate in any of the events.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Mason said. “I did approach him about the classic car night. I thought it was the neighborly and professional thing to do to ask if he wanted to be involved. He immediately turned me down and had a few choice words for me.”
“He threatened you?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say he threatened me,” Mason said. “But he was definitely not pleased about having us in the neighborhood, and he let me know that.”
That was all I needed to hear. I reached into my pocket.
“I really didn’t want to have to do this,” I said.
“What are you doing?” Jessie asked.
“Calling up a friend of mine. He’s a private investigator. He can look into Danny for us,” I said.
8
Amanda
While the guys were outside, I hung out inside with Ava and Robert. He was absolutely adorable, and I couldn’t resist sitting down on the floor with him and playing with his toys. I had the urge to squeeze and tickle every little wrinkle and roll on his chubby body.
Ava smiled when she saw Robert reach over and grab my cheeks.
“You’re really good with him,” she said. “Do you have a lot of brothers and sisters?”
“Actually, no,” I said. “I’m an only child. I don’t really have a lot of experience with babies at all. But they are just so cute.”
“I’m an only child, too,” Ava said.
“Really?” I asked. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one in the world. It’s like everybody I meet has at least one brother or sister.”
“Or a whole hockey team like the Andersons,” Ava joked.
“That’s true,” I said. “I just can’t even imagine what it would be like to grow up with that many people around you all the time. I mean, my parents split up when I was pretty young. Not like a really little girl, or anything, but young enough that I got used to us not being together as a family. It just felt normal to have it be only my mother and me.”
“Your father didn’t stay around?” Ava asked. As soon as the question came out of her mouth, her face went red and her mouth fell open. “I’m sorry. That was really personal. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. That’s a perfectly normal question to ask. Especially considering I know your parents are still together.”
“Yeah, they are,” she said. “It’s pretty amazing. No matter what the two of them face, they are always right by each other’s sides. They inspire me.”
“I think it’s beautiful,” I said. “My father left when I was fifteen. After the divorce, he was just gone. It wasn’t like he divorced my mother but wanted to stay a father. He divorced both of us. He walked out, and I just never saw him again. I think that’s actually what made my mother move us to California.”
“You’re not originally from San Francisco?” Ava asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m actually from Virginia. That’s where I grew up. We moved here a little more than a year after the divorce.”
“I thought I heard something in your voice that wasn’t exactly West Coast,” Ava said.
I laughed. “Well, you should hear me when I’m drunk or super tired. The accent starts coming out big-time. How about you? You’re from here, aren’t you? I thought Tom said something about you and Mason being together since you were kids.”
Over the years, Tom had told me a lot about his family and growing up in Astoria, but sometimes it got difficult to keep track of everyone. There were so many of them and so many stories, it got a little overwhelming and everything blurred togeth
er.
“That’s right,” Ava said. “I was born and raised here in Astoria, like the Andersons. Mason and I started dating when we were young teenagers, but I actually moved away for several years. I went to Michigan and got a really amazing job there. I actually didn’t think I was ever going to come back to Oregon.”
“Why did you?” I asked.
“My parents needed me,” Ava said. “My father owns a construction company, and even though he is far too old to be doing everything that the crew does, he insists on being hands-on with every project that they do. So, he was up on a roof doing some repairs and ended up falling. He broke pretty much the entire lower half of his body. My mother needed some help taking care of him, and so I came home.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Tom mentioned you came back here after being gone a long time.”
“Yep. Then Mason and I reconnected, and the rest is history,” she said, smiling at her son. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Sure,” I said. “Iced tea would be nice if you have it.”
“I do.” She poured us glasses and carried them back to the living room. “So, does Tom talk about the family a lot?”
“He does,” I said. “I hear a lot of stories. He’s very proud of his family. Though between you and me, he thinks everyone should do things the way he would do them.”
Ava laughed as she curled up in the corner of the sofa to sip her tea. “Yeah, that sounds like Tom. When Mason and I were first together, he was so freaked out by the idea of Mason dating somebody who worked for him that he made us sign papers agreeing I wouldn’t sue him if we broke up.”
I stopped mid-sip, my eyes locked on her over the edge of the glass. “He did what?”
“Oh, you heard that correctly,” Ava laughed. “It was pretty ridiculous. But, in the end, I guess I can understand where he’s coming from as a businessman.”
Before I could make any more comments about that particular line of decision making, the guys came back inside. Mason went straight for the baby and scooped him up into his arms, kissing his face until Robert laughed joyously and clutched his father’s cheeks in his hands.
“You ready to get going?” Tom asked, looking at me.
I nodded. “Sure. It was really nice spending some time with you, Ava. And you, Robert.”
“Definitely come back and hang out more,” she said.
“I will.”
As Tom and I left the house, I realized I was starving. My stomach rumbled, and he laughed.
“I guess we forgot to eat,” he said. “I think the hotel restaurant is open for another hour. You want to go grab something?”
“That sounds good,” I said.
We got to the hotel and went directly into the almost desolate restaurant. Only one other table had anybody at it, and it was just an older couple nibbling their way through desserts as they both read books and held hands across the table. I couldn’t help but smile when I looked at them.
And it was the kind of relationship I dreamed of having one day. The kind when you wanted to be with the other person so much you could be doing anything else, but you still wanted to be beside them.
We sat down and looked over the menus. The waitress let us know that several of the menu items had already sold out for the night, so we chose from what was still available and she walked away. As she did, Tom took a sip of the water the hostess gave us when we sat down.
“Amanda, I want to thank you again, so much, for coming out here. I know it’s going above and beyond, and it means a lot to me.”
“You don’t need to keep thanking me,” I said. “This is what you needed me to do, so here I am. It’s fun having a change of venue. It’s like I’m a secret agent on assignment.”
As soon as I said the words, I wished I could shove them back into my mouth. I could not believe I’d said something that stupid to him. Here he was, my older, dignified, and completely gorgeous boss, and I just told him I’ve been running around playing pretend as a secret agent.
He didn’t seem to notice. Or he just had the decency to not make fun of me. I decided to try to drive back some of my dignity with a more serious direction for the conversation.
“You were telling Ava we don’t have any specific timeline for how long we’re going to be here,” I said. “Do you have any idea at all? Even a ballpark?”
“It might be a little while,” he said. “I need to handle all of this and oversee the bar reopening. I think we can manage work from here just as well as we could from the home office if we use somewhat of a creative approach. But I completely understand if you need to go back to San Francisco at any point. You just let me know, and I will arrange for you to go back.”
“I can’t see any reason why I would need to go back sooner than you do,” I said, hoping that sounded professionally willing and not overeager. “And speaking of a creative approach, I know Landon is prepped and ready to be handling the meeting tomorrow morning but are you still considering using videoconferencing to be there?”
His widened eyes told me he had completely forgotten about the meeting.
“What time is that meeting?” he asked.
“Nine,” I told him.
“Seriously, I don’t know what I would do without you. Yes, I still want to do a video conference into the meeting. He is more than capable of managing it, but I want to be there and see how it goes. My brain is just in a thousand places right now, and I barely even know what the meeting is about.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have notes, remember? We can go over them as a refresher.”
I was glad to have transitioned the conversation over to work. It helped him get his mind off the bar and everything going on with that and took the heat off me. I accessed the notes I’d saved to the cloud through my phone, and we went over them as we ate.
We talked about work for the rest of the meal, and by the time we were finished eating, it was obvious we were both exhausted. It had been a long day, and it felt like it all had just suddenly hit me. We went back up to the room, and Tom unfolded the sofa bed.
“Convenient,” he said.
“Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable?” I asked. “You can have the bed.”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I will be just fine out here. Remember, I have the gaggle of brothers. I have slept on sofa beds, cots, sleeping bags, and any manner of makeshift bed more times in my life than I can count. I want to make sure you’re comfortable.”
“Thank you,” I said. I gestured behind me. “Do you want to hop in the bathroom and brush your teeth and everything before I change into my pajamas?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Let me just grab my stuff.”
It took another half an hour for us to jump in the bathroom back and forth and for me to finally get into bed. When I did, I fell asleep instantly.
9
Tom
I was up bright and early the next morning, opting to go down to the gym in the hotel to get a quick workout in. It helped me clear my mind a bit and relieve some of the stress of the last few days.
When I got back to the room, Amanda was up and dressed, ready for the meeting. I shouldn’t have been surprised, knowing she was always the first to the office. I still had a little time, so I hopped in a quick shower and got dressed. When I got back in the room, it was ten minutes until the meeting start time, so I sat down at the desk, Amanda beside me on her own laptop, and started the call.
Landon was the first one to join a few moments later, and then around nine, the rest of the crew joined in. When I had the whole group of investors and team members on, I greeted the group. I didn’t know how many of them could tell that Amanda and I were clearly in the same room, so I figured I would go ahead and let the cat out of the bag.
“I am glad you were all able to teleconference for this meeting today. Landon has been terrific running things while I have been back in my hometown, but just so I made sure I was up-to-date fully, Amanda joined me. Before we get started
, I wanted to express my gratitude to the both of them for going out of their way for me these past few days,” I said.
Amanda looked at me over the lid of her tablet and grinned.
“No problem,” she said, more to me than to the screen. I smiled back at her.
“We always have your back,” Landon said from his tiny box on the screen.
“Thanks, guys,” I said. “Now, I believe Landon has a few updates for us about the marketing campaign and a few new ideas he has been tooling around with. Take it away, Landon.”
For the majority of the call, I stayed back, letting Landon take the lead. He had come up with a few ideas that were very promising, and after I tinkered with them a little, I was certain they could help catapult us into doubling our profits for the rest of the quarter. This was obviously great news to the investors, and the team was ready and raring to go at implementing the changes needed.
After spending some time fielding questions from the investor gallery, I signed off the meeting early and closed the laptop. Stretching my arms high over my head, I looked over at Amanda, who crumpled her eyebrows at me momentarily. I tried to smile, but I knew it was a pitiful attempt at masking the stress. Standing, I went over to the couch and sat down, leaning back and shutting my eyes for a moment.
My thoughts went to the bar and the image of it smoking. It was so devastating, and I felt the loss not only for myself, but for my brothers, too. I needed to get to the bottom of it and this Danny character as soon as possible, and the added stress of the meeting had doubled up on me. I simultaneously felt motivated to figure out what was going on with the bar and wrung out completely dry and like I wanted to go to bed.
Amanda ended the call and turned off her tablet before turning to me. I could feel her eyes on me, so I opened my own and peered at her across the room. When she opened her mouth to speak, I lost track of what she was saying, distracted by her ruby-red lips. Shaking it off, I asked her to repeat herself midsentence.
Taboo Boss: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance Page 5