by Claire Adams
“Everything is a disaster.”
That was an understatement. This project could skyrocket us into a whole new level of hotels and resorts. But if we went bankrupt doing it, that obviously wasn’t a good plan.
“Where’s my dad?”
“He’s caught up in a project in China right now. Not one we are working on together. He told me to take care of this and set the budget, but there are too many variables. I don’t know if we should even continue. I’m going to call him when it’s morning there and see what he thinks we should do.”
“Why do you need to call him? Don’t you know how to figure out the variables?” Emmi asked as we moved over to the sitting area and sat down. The tension between us finally eased, and a new sense of calm washed over me.
“The budget is blown. Like, seriously blown. It’s up to five times what we thought.”
“What is Dad going to do about that?” Emmi asked as she raised her eyebrow.
It was an interesting question. What would Teddy do with all this information? I’d never seen him back down from a project once we were this far into it. He certainly loved the property, and we both thought Breckenridge was the perfect location to get into.
“I think he’d assess the property and see if there was another angle we could take. He’d make sure we knew all the possible delays and costs and put together a budget with that information. Then we would run the numbers again and see if we still had the possibility of being profitable.”
“Okay, then why do you need to call him?” Emmi asked as she smiled coyly.
“I’m not the expert. He is.”
“But you’re not starting the building process right now. You are gathering information. You can do this, Declan, and you definitely don’t need my father to babysit you through every decision. I think you need to be more confident in your own skills.”
“Aren’t you just the supreme motivational queen?”
“I really think you defer to a lot of other people for decisions when you know the answers. I’ve only been here a week, but I’ve already seen it pretty clearly.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Do you think you could come with us out to the Breckenridge project? I’d like to have your opinion.”
“As long as I don’t touch your hand while I give it?” Emmi laughed.
“Rosa will me coming with us. I’d like to go through the existing building and see where the big problems are.”
“When are you going?”
“Tomorrow?” I said as I shrugged my shoulders. “I’d like to figure things out as soon as possible.”
“I guess I could go. But only if you promise not to yell at me like that again.”
“Promise,” I agreed.
“Well, it’s really exhausting working with you. I’m glad we straightened this all out, though. I’ll get back to work and cancel your meetings for this week since you’ll be out of town. Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”
“I have no idea,” I laughed. “That’s why I need you. Just go through and make sure things are canceled for Tuesday and Wednesday. We should be back Wednesday night. This is going to be short and sweet. In and out within 48 hours. Then we can regroup and hopefully make some final decisions with your father. He’ll be back for a meeting on Thursday.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Emmi got up and walked to the door, where she stood for a minute as if she had something she was going to say to me. But she didn’t say anything, and instead walked out and to her desk.
I could see her through the glass as she shook her head back and forth and seemed to be chiding herself for something. She was pretty upset, but soon regrouped and got back to work. I had to hope that we wouldn’t have any further interactions like the one we just had. I’d never had a run-in like that with Margery. But then again, I’d never assumed people were thinking that Margery and I were sleeping together.
As I sat back in my large leather chair, I pulled a stack of papers over and let my fingers flip through them as I replayed the whole incident. I had reacted reasonably, at least I thought I had. If she had been a temp or some other unknown employee, I wouldn’t have stood for anything like that. The only reason I’d been willing to apologize was because of Teddy. I valued my relationship with Teddy, and if his daughter ended up upset, I was certain Teddy wouldn’t be happy about it.
Hopefully, our trip to Breckenridge wouldn’t be filled with the same level of drama. I couldn’t afford distractions, drama, or any sort of disruption of what I was trying to do.
Chapter Ten
Emmi
“It’s Monday night. Do your clubs even have business on Mondays?” I asked as Jessica threw another brightly colored dress at me.
“Of course they have business, just not as busy as other days of the week.”
“I’ve got to go with Declan to Colorado tomorrow. I can’t be out late, and I definitely can’t be getting smashed. I hate flying with a hangover.”
“You’ll be flying in a private jet; you won’t feel a hangover,” Jessica laughed as she pulled a tight black dress over her undergarments. “Get your dress on. I’ve got meetings tonight; we need to get to the club.”
I did as I was told and slipped the bright purple dress on. It covered all my important parts, but I still felt more exposed than I liked to be when going out. To tell the truth, I wasn’t in the mood to go out at all, but I wanted to talk with Jessica about my upcoming trip, so it seemed easiest to just go with her that evening.
“You certainly have the best colors in your wardrobe. My closet is filled with black and white and a tiny bit of pink.”
“I used to be like that too, but I found it’s easier to tell people which color dress I’m wearing and they can find me easily in the club. Can you imagine how many women are wearing black dresses in the clubs?”
“So what is it that you have to do tonight?”
“I’m meeting with an independent promoter and a local DJ. We’d like to book them for work this year, but both are pretty stubborn about their rates.”
“Your job is certainly growing on me. It’s nice to get out and do stuff that’s not in an office,” I said as I tried to find some comfortable shoes to wear.
Unfortunately, comfortable heels were not something I owned, and instead I had to slip on a pair of black pumps. My feet were used to the torture, though. I also grabbed a decent-sized purse that could drape across my body so I had a place for my phone and wallet. There definitely wasn’t room for those in my dress.
“Look downstairs; is there a car waiting?”
“Oh, a car? Now you’re getting all fancy on me,” I said to Jessica as I looked downstairs. “Shit, there’s a nice SUV down there.”
“Perfect. Let’s get going,” she said as she grabbed her purse and we both rushed downstairs.
“Why are we taking a car tonight?” I asked.
“My boss didn’t want me showing up in a cab in case the promoter was at the door when we arrived. Wants me to look a little more high-class.”
“Nice! You should tell him to send a car every day. You know, just to make sure you are still high-class,” I joked.
We both slid into the back of the SUV, and the cold leather glided under my legs. I could get used to this level of luxury, but I was sure it was expensive, and I would never waste my own money on something so frivolous.
“So when we get there, I’ll go do my business first. You can hang out at the bar. Is that alright?”
“Of course. I need to plan out what I want to do with Declan on his trip to Breckenridge. I was thinking of some ideas that could fix their remodel problems, but I’ll need to present them to him carefully. He got pretty overwhelmed when I tried to speak up in the middle of a meeting.”
“What do you mean, overwhelmed?” Jessica asked.
“I mean, he was yelling at other staff, and I reached over and grabbed his hand and basically told him to calm down.”
“You didn’t!” she exclaimed.
Up until that moment, I hadn’t thought my actions were all that horrible. In fact, I felt very justified in trying to get him to calm down after the way he was yelling at his staff. No boss should treat their employees like that, especially when they are relying on those employees to give them information.
“What?” I asked as we pulled up to the club.
“That was totally emasculating. I’d never do that to a boss. Ever.”
“Really? I didn’t mean it like that. Well, we talked about it and made up. I think things are okay now. He invited me to come help with the Breckenridge project, and I accepted. It really seemed more like he was worried people would think he was sleeping with me.”
“Of course they would,” Jessica said nonchalantly.
“Why? Just because I’m a pretty young blonde?” I argued.
“Are you really this scarred by your past bosses that you can’t see a legitimate issue if it’s staring you right in the face? You were just hired. You are a pretty young blonde. You told him to calm down in front of other employees. If I had done that to my boss, he would have fired me, and I’m not sleeping with him.”
“Really? You think I was out of line?” I said as we walked past the ropes and into the club.
The bumping sound of the music made it difficult to hear her. So we squeezed together so she could respond to me before going to find her business contacts.
“Yes, you were out of line. That is the sort of intimate touch people share when they like each other. Not when they are platonic business partners. Okay, I’ve got to go work. Head over to the bar there, and I’ll catch up with you shortly.”
“Thanks for your opinion. Maybe I am more scarred by my past bosses than I thought I was,” I said loudly as I hugged her and we separated for the first part of the evening.
The club was dark, and it took my eyes a few minutes to adjust as I walked in the general direction that Jessica had pointed me to. I brushed past a tall man with a dark suit on; he was so tall my head was even with his chest.
“Hello there, little lady,” the man said as I walked past.
I didn’t reply and didn’t stop to talk to him. He was too big for me to even talk to. Size did matter to a girl. A man who was nearly seven feet tall was a giant to me and my less-than-average height. But it was more than that; he was wearing a suit in a club. That just seemed odd to me. Not that normal men didn’t wear suits, but typically they had on a colorful jacket, a casual T-shirt, or some other thing that dressed down the suit. This guy looked more like a bouncer than a guest of the club.
I continued over to the bar area, where I found a stool and climbed up onto it. The chair was leather and plush, which made it much more comfortable than the typical bar stool. The owner of this club must have understood how bad women’s feet would hurt while wearing their heels, because I noticed dozens of chairs throughout the bar area and around the main dance floor.
In the middle of the room hung a large neon lit sign that read ‘The Kiss Club,’ and underneath the sign were couples kissing and making out. The Kiss Club wasn’t a club I’d ever heard of. There was dancing and the normal club-like atmosphere, but people seemed more prone to kissing and making out in public than they were at normal clubs.
“I’ll have a Manhattan,” I said to the bartender loudly when he approached me.
He quickly got to work making my drink as I continued to take in the club scene and then checked my phone. It was going to be impossible to see Jessica in the dark of the club, so I sent her a quick message to tell her where I was sitting. Then I noticed that Declan had sent me a text message as well.
DECLAN: Be ready at 6 am. I’ll send a car to pick you up.
Wow, 6 o’clock in the morning was going to come really quickly. I wasn’t going to be able to stay for long at the club. I still had to pack my things and shower before bed. Plus, I had to go through my boxes that had arrived from New York so I could find some warm clothes to bring with me to Colorado.
EMMI: I’m out with Jessica. I’ll do my best to wake up, but you might have to knock on the door.
DECLAN: I was sending a car, but I’ll come myself. Where are you guys?
EMMI: The Kiss Club
DECLAN: Wow. Have fun.
I stared at his message for a minute and thought about sending him an apology for what had happened earlier in the day. But it was all over and settled, things were back to normal between us, and it wasn’t necessary to bring the issue back up again. I did want him to know that my view of things was so messed up because of the issues I’d gone through in the past. Working with Dan Duncan had messed up my ability to see a boss as a normal person. It also messed up my ability to see normal boundaries between a boss and his employee, although things were a little different between Declan and me.
He was my boss, that was a fact, but he was also a friend of my father’s. As a friend of my family, I did feel like I had a closer connection to him than just some random employee. Plus, we had a big connection after the charity event. But no matter how close our connection was, I shouldn’t have put my hand on his in front of a boardroom full of his employees. That was wrong, I saw it now. I saw how inappropriate it was and how bad it probably looked to the others in the room.
“Want to dance?” the large man in the suit asked as he stood next to me.
“No thanks,” I said as I craned my neck toward the sky to look at the man.
“How about you rethink that answer,” the man said as his large hand wrapped fully around my forearm.
“No,” I said sternly as I looked toward the bartender for a little help.
The bartender’s gaze met mine and then looked at the man who was bothering me. Fear rushed across his face, and instead of offering to save me, he simply came over and asked if I wanted another drink.
“Would you like another Manhattan?”
“No,” I said as I motioned my eyes from the bartender to the large man next to me. I’d managed to pull my wrist away from the guy, but only because he had allowed it. If the large man had wanted to keep a hold of me, he would have been able to do it easily.
“Maybe you don’t know who I am? I’m Kevin Rustman, the owner of this club,” he said, as if that fact would make him less intimidating.
“I’m sorry, I’ve got a boyfriend,” I said demurely as I smiled at the man. “If I didn’t, I certainly would have said yes.”
“Who is he?” the man asked, as if I had to prove myself to this stranger.
“Declan McMillan,” I said quickly.
“I know Declan, I haven’t heard of him having a girlfriend in years,” the man said as he started to dial his phone. “How about we give him a call?”
“Sure,” I said, calling his bluff, “your phone or mine?” I held up my phone to show Declan and my messages from a moment ago. But the man didn’t seem phased and continued dialing Declan’s number.
“Hey, Declan, man! What’s up! It’s Kevin Rustman. How the hell are you?”
I quickly sent Declan a message to save me from this guy and hoped he actually saw it come through while he was on the phone with him. The last thing I needed was some big bully trying to force me to go onto the dance floor with him.
“Yeah, I’ve got a sweet little blonde here who says she’s your lady,” Kevin said as he looked at me as if catching me in my lie.
“Yeah. Oh, really? That’s an interesting twist. Teddy Shields’ daughter? Okay then. I’ll let you go.”
I smiled up at him as if I’d just won a huge battle. Whatever Declan had said, it obviously calmed the man down and instantly made him rethink how he had been treating me. It was a nice touch to throw in the information about who my father was, too. A lot of business people knew my father, and he’d worked with many of them on financing buildings and projects when he was up and coming in the real estate world.
“You’re Teddy Shields’ little girl?” Kevin asked, suddenly deciding to sit down and be kind to me.
“Yeah.”
/> “That’s a great man. And Declan is a real stand-up dude. Why haven’t I seen you around before?”
“I’m pretty new to the area.”
“Her tab is on the house,” Kevin said as he got the bartender's attention. “Anything she wants.”
“Thanks,” I said with relief in my voice.
“Enjoy your night,” he said as he got up and left me there.
I let out a huge breath of relief as soon as he was gone. I didn’t want to think about how things would have turned out if I hadn’t had the connections I did. He certainly didn’t look like the kind of guy who would have been alright with me lying to him.
I felt my phone buzz with a message and quickly pulled it out of my bag to check on it.
DECLAN: We are dating? LOL
EMMI: I needed a way out. That dude was crazy.
DECLAN: You could have just told him who your father was.
EMMI: I didn’t think he’d know him. Thanks for bailing me out, though.
DECLAN: Sure, but that place is bad news. You’ll have to fend off much worse than that if you stay for too long. Want me to come get you?
My heart fluttered at the suggestion. He was probably curled up in his own bed, getting ready to go to sleep. Yet he was willing to come all the way down to this club just to make sure I was alright. Again, he was showing his chivalrous side.
EMMI: I’m okay. Jessica is finishing up some work, and then we will leave. I’ll see you in the morning.
DECLAN: Be safe.
I slipped my phone back into my purse, but I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face. I downed another drink while I stayed close to the bar and waited for Jessica to make her way over to me. Now that I knew what kind of men the club had, I wasn’t prepared to venture alone much at all, and I was a little worried that Jessica was walking around all by herself.
When I finally spotted her up in the DJ booth, Jessica looked confident and unafraid. She had a serious expression on her face though, and at one point seemed to be arguing with the DJ. I turned back toward the bar but continued to look up at Jessica just to ease my mind. My heart thumped hard as I watched her storm off and down the stairs. I lost her as she made her way through the crowd, but she reappeared when she got closer to me.