by P. W. Davies
Christian’s fluctuating mood was still a riddle. He was attracted to me. Interested, definitely. But two steps forward and one step back with every exchange. Clearly, there was a reason behind it. Without more to go on, Victor wagered there was something Christian had been trying to keep from the forefront of his thoughts that had risen to prominence by the end of the evening, making him more closed-off.
Victor was comforted by that because it meant that Christian hadn’t been distancing himself for any reason related directly to their evening. Meaning, his secret was still safe. For now.
He would tell Christian that he’d never slept with another man before they found themselves stumbling into a bedroom. If at that point the other man decided it was best to part ways, Victor would find a way to be alright with that. There was no guarantee that his first time at bat would be with a person who could understand and respect his lack of experience for what it was.
Something, though, told him that Christian would be the type to understand. Victor just had to convince him that he was certain of what he wanted, and that what he wanted was Christian.
No longer smelling of sweat, he toweled off and headed for his closet. He ignored the shelves of jeans and lightweight cotton shirts in favor of the rows of suits, though he was tempted by the idea to enjoy the feel of something other than linen against his skin. Belt, socks, polished shoes, and a tie made the ensemble complete. Towel placed on its hanger and closet door closed, he moved through the condo to retrieve his phone from where he’d left it on the counter. He pulled up his newest contact and swiped open the keyboard.
Christian had responded late in the night. Victor had seen it first thing this morning. Part of his run had been spent considering how to answer.
Tomorrow night? I will keep your alcohol preferences in mind.
Text sent, he resolved himself to waiting for another response. Which meant the best way to spend the rest of the day was elbow deep in work.
After making himself a more substantial breakfast and cleaning up the dishes, Victor returned his tablet to his briefcase and walked toward the door. He paused briefly, debating one more thing before making good on his departure.
Opening the closet in the entryway, he retrieved his helmet. No sense in wasting a perfect day for a ride.
He considered what he would say to Evie if she commented on his growing rebellious streak again. Which brought his thoughts back around to Christian and the pending messages.
Telling himself this was the best way to not notice the passage of time, Victor headed to the garage, looking forward to climbing onto his motorcycle and heading to work.
After spending an hour at his desk, Victor went to look for Evie in her office. She was seated at her desk and he spoke without any preamble after passing through the doorway. “I asked him out.”
She held up a finger to indicate he should wait, and then pointed to the phone at her ear. Victor stepped further into the office but made certain to stay silent, not knowing who she was having a conversation with.
“That sounds lovely,” Evie said after a short silence. “Thank you. I won’t forget.” She pulled the phone away and pressed the button to end the call.
Victor raised an eyebrow.
“I have my own projects while we’re sorting through this acquisition. Now,” she said, pushing back in her chair. “Did my ears deceive me? You asked Nathan out?”
His expression faltered. “Ah. No. Not Nathan.” Seeing her skepticism, he continued. “Blue-eyes. Whose name is Christian. And is from your side of the pond, I believe. If I’m using that phrase correctly.”
“Like you have any doubt.” Evie smiled, her eyes sparkling. “I assume from your general up-tempo look he said yes.”
Victor nodded. “He did. We had a drink together before parting ways last evening. Sorting out when we can see each other again for another round.”
She smiled, and Victor suspected it was for more than just the prospect of him having a date. Not-a-date? It is just drinks. He turned his mind away from that train of thought just as Evie spoke. “You surely got more than his name and his origins in the first evening.”
He shrugged. “More than that, yes, but less than you might think.” Victor explained some of the intrigue and mystery around the man, like his penchant for drinking whiskey, working a job with late hours, and being observant of the people around him in a way that was significant.
“Definitely not your normal fare,” she commented. “I say that not to deter you, but because I think it looks good on you. And I will be exceptionally cross if you don’t continue keeping me posted.” A chime sounded on her computer and she quickly dismissed it. When she immediately stood, Victor realized it was a warning bell for their first meeting. “More later. Briefing Nathan now. Wooing clients to follow.”
He chuckled and stepped aside to let her pass, then followed her toward the elevators.
Their trek forced them past Samuel’s office. Victor spared a glance as he considered whether they should wait for him before heading up to the meeting, but he found that Samuel was more focused on a phone call than the presence of his fellow associates outside his door. “Monday,” he said. “That is the earliest I can meet with him. I have too many other things on my plate and yes, they’re more important than him.” His gaze flicked toward Victor, the meeting of their eyes brief, and though Victor caught a flicker of nervousness from the other man, he carried on without pausing to listen any further.
He caught up to Evie at the elevators. Both watched lights as they waited for the next one to arrive.
“Nathan told me about your plan to rewrite one of Bechtel’s divisions into R&D,” she said, resuming their conversation on the topic of work. “The general associates are going to love you.”
“I’ll make certain they have a good night out afterward,” he said, glancing at her. “If they knock it out of the park, I might splurge on Fogo de Chão.”
“You spoil them,” Evie accused. “Makes the rest of us look bad.”
“If it means that they will always do their best work for me, it’s an investment, not spoiling,” he said. “Besides, my door is always open for their questions even when they’re not directly under my thumb. Much more effort on my part to teach them than just buy them a good meal.”
“Do you remember being that green?” she asked as the elevator dinged its arrival.
“Barely,” he said, amused. “I remember looking forward to working less hours.” They both walked inside.
“So do I. We were such idiots.”
“Hold it!” Samuel’s voice called out down the hall.
Victor exchanged a brief look with Evie as they contemplated pretending they hadn’t heard. It only lasted a moment, but it was just long enough that Victor had to forcibly stop the doors from closing.
Samuel grumbled on his way past, but it didn’t seem worth engaging him. Riding in silence, the elevator thankfully didn’t take long to arrive. When they stepped out, Nathan’s office was visible, and he was already inside.
Before either of them could move, Samuel brushed past them both and strode purposefully for the office door. It’s not a race, Victor thought to himself, wondering what bee was in Samuels bonnet.
“Come and get settled,” said Nathan as they walked in. “Our meeting was pushed forward, so we’ve got about twenty minutes before Harper gets here. I’d like to catch you up on what’s developed in the last twenty-four hours.”
Victor glanced at Evie, but the junior partner gestured toward Samuel. Victor settled his attention on the man speaking and tried not to read into his tone.
“Bechtel’s general counsel is ready to compromise and will follow our lead. Meaning him and Harper are now open to negotiating in a few key areas after I explained the advantages to them. And no, it wasn’t easy.” Samuel’s chin rose as he recounted his work. “They weren’t ready to roll over without specifics, so I gave them a few items to chew over. It’ll take more than just my promises and cha
rm to keep their minds open, but it’s a start.” Samuel showed them his computer screen. “However. We’ve got all the paperwork to do for the reclassification, plus negotiations with Sharon Madigan for all the employee contracts. In case it hasn’t been clear, Shaw is the biggest problem. If they catch wind of what we’re doing, it could prompt them to demand control of the restructuring.”
Nathan stepped in. “Meaning, less billable hours and no good-will credit with Bechtel and Shaw. What we need for today is an agreement that we can meet with Shaw’s local subsidiaries. Officially, with the inclusion of their counsel.” He deliberately avoided looking in Samuel’s direction, but Victor knew it was a silent acknowledgment of the screw up a few days ago. “I’ve got Martin on call for when we get the green light from Mr. Harper to immediately set it up.”
Evie spoke. “I’ve got a meeting with the real-estate holder responsible for most of Bechtel’s properties later today. A few of their leases are up for renewal next year, and if we keep them open, Shaw can look at it as a chance to negotiate something out from under us. It might get us enough details to suss out a few of their overall goals. None of this is on the books, yet, so we should be able to use it for smoothing over the fact that we’re taking away their shot at employee negotiations.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when we’re talking to Mr. Harper. The only thing that would work against us is if he revokes the lenient go-ahead for our billables. I’d like to not have to explain to Mr. Hawke how we lost him money because one of us overstepped.”
Victor said, “I had a financer who owed me a favor look over Bechtel’s holdings. Which I bring up just to confirm that we are going the restructuring route. I’ll be coordinating the work with our general associates to keep our timeline on track.”
“Better you than me,” Samuel chimed in. “I almost always end up redoing their work myself before I can use any of it.”
“If that’s everything for now,” Nathan said, “I’d like to settle in, so we can get on the same page for Mr. Harper’s arrival. I intend to lead the discussion, but Samuel will be filling his original role. Victor, Evie, it’s important you hear everything we discuss but I’ll expect you to stay silent unless necessary. I don’t want Mr. Harper to get the impression that there are too many cooks in the kitchen.”
All of them agreed that was for the best. Victor tried not to notice that Samuel seemed overly smug at the idea of being placed in a more prominent position than either of his associates. Evie was more interested in asking Nathan to ask about Bechtel’s patent filings, so the time spent waiting for Johnathon Harper went by quickly. They relocated to one of the conference rooms on the floor so that they wouldn’t be crowded in Nathan’s office.
It wouldn’t be until after the meeting that Victor realized he hadn’t had his second cup of coffee for the day.
Maybe that was what threw the balance of the universe askew.
Mr. Harper was accompanied by both his company’s general counsel and Sharon Madigan when he arrived. Victor spotted them as they stepped off the elevator, but Martin was already there greeting them. Nathan’s secretary dutifully led the party toward the lawyers before Victor could catch everyone’s attention.
It was the one distinct downside to all the glass. Anything he did would have been visible to the approaching party. Evie was the first to notice his tension, followed by Nathan. Samuel didn’t seem to notice at all, but he recovered quickly once Martin opened the door and showed everyone inside.
When the wheels came off the bus, even Victor and Evie felt some measure of sympathy for Samuel. The man had endured the three representatives of Bechtel Systems with calm, and Victor would daresay diplomacy. And after they left, there was a long moment of silence as all of them processed what had just happened.
Nathan was a mix of emotions and doing his best to stay collected, which made him difficult to read. This hadn’t been anyone’s fault, it just so happened that Mr. Harper had decided to have a discussion with Sharon Madigan last evening and it lead to some very serious concerns with the approach being taken by Crispin & Hawke.
Threats hadn’t been necessary, but they were present nonetheless. Harper’s general counsel had been smirking the entire time while the corporate lawyers were soundly put into their place.
Victor was the first to speak, knowing that one of them would have to eventually. “I’ll stay on point with the restructuring. Anything else you need from me – digging through employee records, line-reading contracts – say the word. Madigan was confident, but I have my doubts that everything is as clear-cut as she claimed. There are always loopholes.”
Nathan shifted in his chair as though trying to force his limbs to unknot from the tension they’d built up over the last half hour. “It’ll have to be on your own time. You understand that.”
“I don’t see why,” Evie chimed in. “Mr. Harper isn’t the only one who is interested in seeing this deal close. We can use that.”
Samuel propped elbows on the table, forcing their attention to him. “Jeffries is a sour old grape. He hasn’t gone against Harper in a decade.”
Nathan said, “All the more reason to approach him.” He looked at Evie. “Set it up.”
Samuel sat up straight. “I can handle it. I’m the one talking –”
“Not for this.” Nathan’s eyes cut across the table, landing sternly on Samuel. “You have Mr. Harper to soothe. And I’ll be handling Sharon Madigan. She’s always been reasonable in the past, and I intend to remind her of all the ways we’ve helped her over the years.”
“Whatever you say, boss. I’ll check in with Shaw’s people-”
“No.”
Victor spoke up, and Samuel seemed incredulous. “These are my negotiations,” Samuel said. “I’ve been making inroads for weeks. No way Shaw will speak to you.”
“Not to me,” Victor clarified. He chose to ignore the glower Samuel directed at him in favor of looking at Nathan. “Let me handle Sharon. She’ll remember me from the union dispute last year, and I’m confident I left her with a good impression. You need to handle Shaw.”
Nathan looked to be a mix between exasperated and curious. “What’s your reasoning?”
“Oh, come on, it’s so –” Samuel tried to say.
Evie cut him off. “I’m going to be busy continuing what I started speaking to Jeffries. You have Johnathan Harper, who seems to be in a right mood and will likely take all your attention. Victor has Sharon Madigan, who we need to find out how she heard about the proposed changes and why she wants to sabotage them. So that means Nathan will be best suited to meeting with Shaw and his management team, to suss out what it is they want from Bechtel that clearly has them desperate enough to contact you off hours.” She looked at Nathan. “Should we get started?”
Samuel sputtered something. Nathan ignored him in favor of saying, “Yes. And thank you for taking on Jeffries.” He looked around the table. “Each of us will find out what our client wants, what Shaw wants, and come forward ready to negotiate amongst ourselves in a way that benefits all of us. After we come up with a proposal, we’ll take it to all of them and talk them into signing it.”
“Divide and conquer,” Victor murmured. Nathan fought back a smile and nodded.
Victor stood. “Well, if that’s everything, I’ll be getting in contact with Mrs. Madigan’s people to see where she likes to take lunch.”
“She’s staying at the Old City Hilton,” Evie chimed, gesturing with her phone. “Friend of a friend I texted after Madigan walked in here.”
“Already ahead of the game as usual,” Nathan said. “Go, work magic, all of you. Samuel, the next time I see you I want you back on the team. You have a job to do. Do it.”
Victor left the room and immediately headed to the employee lounge. Just in case the coffee would make a difference.
Seven
A day of watching a lawyer act out the mundane had nearly been nap-inducing, and when the mark failed to do anything worthy of report, Christi
an sent a simple text to Roland.
Whatever he has his hands in, he’s being a good boy right now, it said.
Come in tomorrow and we’ll talk, Roland texted back, leaving Christian the master of his own destiny for the night. While it made life easier, with fewer potential excuses to have to give to Victor, this also left him without a ready escape plan either. Running away once had been bad enough. Twice, and this whole mess would only get more complicated. Wiping away the steam from the shower to evaluate himself in the bathroom mirror, Christian looked the man in the mirror in his cold, blue eyes.
“Stay in control,” he said, speaking the words with deliberateness. “Just a bit of business and pleasure. Nothing more than that.”
His reflection looked duly chastised, the pep talk enough for him to focus back on the superficial. Once he’d shaved, he applied some gel to his hair, shaping it and evaluating himself again once finished. He’d comb back the dark locks once he dressed. The dragon tattoo on his neck would peek out over his shirt collar again, but somehow, he assumed Victor liked that. A small sense of danger, even if just in the form of illicit sex with the other side of the tracks, appealed to Victor and Christian only felt apt to feed it.
“Waistcoat over the t-shirt this time?” he asked himself before padding back into the bedroom. Pulling a vest out from his closet, he added it to the collection already assembled on the bed and started the slow, methodical process of dressing. By the time he finished, a fresh t-shirt and clean pair of jeans covered the boxer-briefs underneath. The waistcoat buttoned shut, it showed off his thin frame, but the sleeves of his shirt also surrendered a glimpse into the muscle tone of his arms. Freeing a fedora from his collection of disguises, he smoothed back his hair and placed the hat on top.
“I look like a cliché,” he said while evaluating himself again. But damn, even he had to admit, while threading his arms through the sleeves of his leather jacket. He looked good.