But it was that kind of thinking, that kind of single-minded purpose that ruined me, to begin with. I no longer was that guy who thought he could save the world just because he found hidden clues and saw things a little differently than others. I was currently a guy who saw things the way they ought to have been. Realistically.
I stood up and walked the small distance to get to the cabin that served as my office, went inside, and walked back out. As soon as I got to Agent Ramsey, I handed him the pair of socks and boots I’d retrieved.
“It’s going to be a long walk back to your car, and there are humans around here. Put these on. They should help you blend in.”
“Are you going to take the case?” he asked.
“I don't do this kind of thing anymore.”
He’d found his way here, and I knew he would find his way back. I no longer had any time to worry about him. I had a sleigh I was supposed to get the measurements for in thirty minutes.
Thanks to him, I didn’t finish the base of either of the model-sleighs I’d wanted Moyna Climpson to see. I hurried back inside my office, grabbed my own things, and got in my truck.
Maybe she’d be all right with my verbal description.
Once inside the truck, I allowed myself a moment to breathe before taking off. Slade, was dead? He was my friend, and whatever else he was, it wasn't right people thinking that he was the victim of a murder-suicide.
The phone call Slade and Odra had made to Agent Ramsey disturbed me. I didn't have all the details, but somehow I didn't think either of the deceased was capable of murdering the other and then killing themselves.
It tore me up inside that my friend was gone. I sighed. Time to get over to Moyna’s and figure out how many people she wanted inside of the sleigh, how big the opening was that she was going to ride it through, and if she wanted the deluxe model or the one with no bells and whistles.
CHAPTER TWO
*Augusta*
“IF HE DOESN’T PROMOTE YOU, he’s a bigger asshole than he is a jerk.” Sophia winked at me, stepped aside for me to enter Mr. Turner’s spacious office, and closed the door behind her.
Just us, Augusta. Nothing to stop him from hearing me out. At twenty-two, I was the youngest marketing exec of Cute 'n Cute Things, an up and coming clothing chain for all shapes and sizes. I was also the youngest tiger shifter in my family. My parents had thought I would fail at this job, and I wanted to be successful in proving myself to them.
With a bit of anticipation mixed with some anxiety about whether my boss would like the idea, I went into his office. The large immaculately clad man sat in his custom made executive chair.
I took a deep breath and stared ahead waiting for him to finish whatever held him so absorbed. I appreciated Sophia’s encouragement and hoped she was right. I wanted to mention the promotions and raises coming up at some point during this meeting, but first I had a marketing idea to pitch to Mr. Turner.
He’d shaved the top of his head, I could see it clearly. But for some reason, he couldn’t seem to let go of the hair above his temples. Puckering his ruddy cheeks with the sudden breath he let out, Mr. Turner finally looked up from his laptop.
He greeted me with a calm smile that reflected the emptiness behind his steel grey eyes. I shook my head and then stopped. None of that, Augusta. Think positive thoughts.
I nodded to him.
“Pleasant surprise.” He grinned until his thick top lip touched the underside of his bulbous nose. He used the end of his nose to nod at his screen disarming me with his dimples as he flashed them. Normally, he kept those to himself. It seemed to pain his face to stretch it that wide.
“Augusta, this isn’t looking good.”
For the past few months the clothing chain I did marketing and promotions for had experienced a drop in sales. But I had a solution for all the latest troubles the company was experiencing. There were some late nights of work as I perfected this new marketing plan, but I had no doubt this strategy could work. It was a different way to do the same thing we had done before.
He liked a confident front, so I lifted my chin, glided forward, and waited for him to sit down so that I could.
The moment I put my bottom to the hard chair, I handed him the preliminary package filled with my plans. This was the condensed version. It glossed over all the details. My hope was that he’d let me explain the finer points.
Because of his usual impatience with thick stacks of paper, I held onto the real proposal. My heart was in my throat, but my eyes were on him. I watched as he looked over the information searching his face for any signs that he liked it, would agree with it, and that it wasn't the worst idea he'd ever seen.
Finally, he looked at me. With a strange smile, he pushed the packet to the side. “Well, at least I know you've been working on things. But this isn't the direction we want to take. I'm sorry, Augusta, but our numbers are down, and the owners and I are going to have to take some drastic measures. We’re cutting budgets. Don’t take this too hard.”
I looked at him with shock and a little bit of confusion. He’d barely even glanced at the work I put before him. And now he was shooting it down? I opened my mouth to speak my mind.
But he lifted one finger and wagged it at me. “Augusta, you've always been a level-headed woman. I see that in this attempt you’ve made at helping.”
“I was hoping to give you a little background and maybe some comparisons—” I said.
“This can’t be fixed with a young woman’s girlish dreams.” He released a heavy sigh. “I wish it could.”
“Maybe if I showed you the presentation I’ve prepared?”
“Don’t want to waste your time.” He must have taken some pity on me—or it could have been him experiencing a bout of indigestion—but a funny expression passed over his face. “Tell you what, why don't you go ahead and leave this with me, and I'll see what I can do. I'm not going to make any promises. It's a joint effort between the owners and myself. The final say is decided by the board.”
Mr. Turner stood and that was his indication that it was time for me to leave.
“Sorry, I bothered you.”
Another long sigh. “Augusta?”
I turned around with hope surely a light in my eyes.
He reached across his desk…and chucked me under the chin. “Good try. I appreciate this effort. Shows character.”
My shoulders sagged, my hopes dashed. He wasn’t going to give it a second thought—or give me a chance.
He gave me one of his full teeth grins and ushered me to the door. “Was that all?”
Staring at him, I blinked twice. Was it? Did I dare bring up the other bit about my promotion? After a moment, I realized I couldn’t do it. I gave him a wobbly smile. “Thank you for your time, sir.”
What would I do? I’d just bombed pitching the idea I’d worked on non-stop for the last six weeks. I’d been researching a way to save our company from having to get bought out. We sometimes ran promotions on our clothes to buy one get one free.
But ever since I’d seen an online ad regarding a famous ice-cream chain, I hadn’t been able to get this idea out of my head. They had a top-secret recipe, hard to get ice cream, and a large customer base waiting for…no demanding their ice cream.
I had unsuccessfully tried to contact them, but I believed this idea would suit them and possibly save us. Time was of the essence, though. If our company could merge with Slade’s Creamery and implement their ads which stated “Two for one,” we could make a huge impact on our numbers in a positive way.
Their brand and their popularity had achieved phenomenal success. Two for one. It was brilliant and was also how they’d sold so much of their amazing ice cream, to begin with. Now women country-wide were hooked. I smirked. Even I couldn’t eat just one of those mouthwatering, red velvet ice cream cones—not even if I tried.
The reason I knew it’d work was simple. Three weeks ago, I’d handed out surveys in ou
r stores and put one question on it. The customers were asked to circle what was the one thing that would make their shopping experience better. The choices were a sale in the store or a gourmet dessert.
I expected the answer to be one over the other by a landslide. Overwhelmingly, the ladies circled both. That’s when I got the idea to bring the ice cream to us plus Slade’s promotion strategy.
Too bad the survey results had shown the girls liked it but weren’t jumping all over it. There was something missing—I just couldn’t figure out what it was. Maybe they wanted a newer, bigger store as well?
There was one other avenue of reaching Slade I’d been pursuing. I’d seen the online profile for his company. He was the one I’d wanted to reach since he had his information freely available. Everything that is except for a permanent address and a picture.
I had made a dossier on him that listed all his assets, his vacation homes, some background information, and his cars. But no one had been able to reach him. From what I’d read, he did this every so often. Just disappeared for a while.
On my way out, I stopped by the office manager’s desk. “Sophia, do I have any messages?”
She gave me a tiny frown of sympathy. “Didn’t go so well in there, honey, did it?”
I shook my head. With the way, he shot me down, not a chance to bring up the promotion. “It doesn’t matter. Anyone call me?” I crossed my fingers that the owner of Slade’s Creamery had. His administrative assistant had taken my message over four days ago.
Sophia’s eyes unsettled me. With the compassion she usually saved for the rejected small businesses that pitched to us, she now directed that look at me. “What you need, sweetheart is a vacation.”
And a night of passionate abandon, but I wasn’t expecting I’d get either of those anytime soon. “Can’t. The company’s in trouble. And we can save Cute ‘n Cute Things, but right now no one wants to hear what I have to say.” I sighed. “It’s back to the drawing board for me. But I’ll think of something. Goodnight, all right?”
She nodded and peeled a sticky note off her desk. “Got a message for you.”
With my breath hitching and my vision getting a little hazy, I tried to tamp down my excitement. Was it from Slade? “Who is it?”
Sophia shrugged. “Last I checked, I wasn’t a receptionist.”
The thing about Sophia was she didn’t give out anything until she was ready. It had caused Mr. Turner to get purple in the face on more than one occasion, but I wouldn’t change her at all.
I looked at her and then at the slow way she eased from behind her desk. I could almost taste a change in my luck. I dug in my briefcase and took out the packet detailing the plans I’d just pitched to Mr. Turner. He hadn’t given me a chance to tell him the rest of it, but maybe if the owners of Slade’s Creamery met with me and liked my idea, we could get both of my bosses together and explain the rest of my idea to them.
As she came around, she stuck the piece of paper to the top of my hand. “Mark, your boyfriend, called. Said he needed to speak to you right away.”
Although it wasn’t who I’d expected to call, I tried not to let my disappointment show.
She watched me. “Told me he’s got something really important to speak to you about.” She wiggled her eyebrows for emphasis.
“He did?”
She pointed to her ring finger, raised one eyebrow and then knowingly nodded her head. “You know what I mean?”
Widening my eyes, I caught the hint. My palms got clammy. I wanted her mentioning his name to perk me up—but it left me concerned. “Oh.”
Mark, a beta tiger living up to the expectations of his family, had a way of doing that to me. He was the handsome son of a lawyer. Just like his older brothers, he was joining his father’s practice. Law was something that ran in his family. And his parents always had told him he was meant to do great things. He was doing his best to measure up to their expectations.
Mr. Turner was still in his office. I searched through my purse and pulled out my phone and called Mark, my boyfriend, on my way to Mr. Smith, who was Mr. Turner’s boss’ office. “Mark.”
Maybe I would just hand over the rest of my pitch to Mr. Turner so that he could at least look through it and decide if he still didn’t want to give me a chance. But when I walked to his office door, he had a phone to his ear and he intercepted me. Before I could hand him the entire proposal and not just the preliminary packet, he shut the door in my face.
All right, since I can’t give them to him, I’ll just have to put them in Mr. Smith’s office.
“Doll? I've been calling your phone all day. You didn't answer. Left a message with the receptionist. Listen, what are you doing tonight?”
With the phone to my ear, I turned around and sighed at the deep voice of my boyfriend picking up. “I just had this meeting with Mr. Turner...”
He interrupted me. “Good, good. I was thinking that we could go to my favorite restaurant. I have some news I wanted to share with you and something special that I’d like to ask you.”
My heart picked up and I wondered what was so important that he had first called the office and then left four messages. It was rare that he even called me more than once every three days.
I bit my lip. “I can throw something on and meet you in three hours?”
“See you then.” He hung up.
Bemused, I stared at the phone, chewed on the corner of my lip, and approached Sophia. “A favor?”
Sophia narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not picking up your dry cleaning.”
“Then how about you let me into Mr. Smith’s office?” I asked.
After a moment, she nodded. “I heard you talking to one of the employees at Slade’s Creamery. For this, I want my own case of red velvet ice cream cones.”
Entering the office she unlocked, I looked back and smiled. “The moment I get my big ole’ hands on that owner, you’ll get yours on that ice cream.”
She chuckled. “Seriously, I could get fired for this. Mr. Smith doesn’t like anyone in here when he’s not.”
“Then you’re going to really dislike what I have to ask next,” I said.
“I’ll save you the trouble. I’m not doing it.”
With a look that I’d used to win over small puppies and the building’s cafeteria workers, I extended a hand to his desk. “Can you unlock it, please? They’ll be in cleaning tonight, and I’d hate for this to mistakenly end up in the trash.”
She stared at me, gave me a disapproving look, and wiggled over to Mr. Smith’s desk. With a tragic air, she opened up the top drawer of his desk. “For this, I want two cases. Got that? Two. You find a way.”
I agreed, placed the files inside his desk, kissed her on the cheek, and then rushed to my car. Barely even pausing to turn up the radio, I raced to my apartment, got dressed, and ran out. Mark hated when people were late. And it would take at least another hour and a half for me to get over to the side of town that he lived on.
My boyfriend and I dated with this kind of a distance between us because his practice was a little ways away. On the other side of the city. That’s where he lived and that’s where he planned most of our dates.
There was a spot of bad traffic getting to and from my side of town to his, so whenever he planned any dinner I always tried to leave early enough to avoid the heavy throng of stalled cars. I shook my head. Mark didn’t like to meet halfway on anything.
Wearing the heels that Mark liked, I walked into the restaurant and the maître D took my coat and walked me over to where my boyfriend sat.
In a way, I was glad that Mark had called me, even for all the trouble it took to get here. The issues that I was having at work were getting under my skin, if I was going to be honest with myself. The only thing that I really wanted to do was sit down and have a conversation with him—my boyfriend. I needed him to talk to me and tell me that everything was going to be ok.
Truthfully, he didn't eve
n have to tell me everything was going to be fine. I was a big girl. All I needed him to do was to spend some time with me. After a day like today, hopefully, we’d have a quiet moment where we only discussed and thought about each other.
He’d already ordered me some water and a salad. I settled myself in my seat and reached for my glass.
“I have something to tell you. I've been thinking about it for a while,” he said.
Scooting forward in my seat, I waited patiently and even a little expectantly. I was interested to hear what he was so excited about.
“Mark, what is it? What's the news?”
He leaned forward and grabbed my hands resting on the table. Carefully, he brought them up to his face and kissed them. Then he held them both in one hand and reached into his pocket.
It seemed as if he was reaching for jewelry—maybe even a ring. I began to tremble, and my inner tiger swished her tail in…disapproval. Trying to shush her, I stared deep into his eyes. Was this really happening?
“Do you remember when my parents said they were coming to town?”
I looked at him. “I thought they were visiting in a month.”
“Well, actually they're going to be here in two weeks.”
He’d been hinting at his big news all week. Surely this wasn’t it? Tilting my head to the side, I looked at him. “That's great news, isn't it?”
Parents usually meant the next step—right, Augusta?
Very carefully, he folded a gift card into my hand. It was for a gym membership. A full month.
I had to admit if this was his idea of a ring, he needed some coaching on what was romantic and what was a mood killer. “What is this?”
“Well it is important, but there's something else I wanted to run by you before they got here.” He leaned even closer and his storm-grey eyes got big like they did when he had something very meaningful to say. “You know how much I love you, and you know how we’ve really been getting along recently so well together?”
The Vampire's Alpha Mate: A BBW Tiger-Shifter Romance (Arcane Affairs Agency) Page 2