Hot to Touch

by Valentine, Layla

  “When would she have had the time to do that?” he asked. He noticed me coming and twitched an eyebrow slightly but didn’t acknowledge my presence.

  “Right before we rode up, she said she had to go get some coffee. She left me alone. She had a good hour then while I looked around for the clients.” He talked faster, his eagerness to cut me down in front of board members again filling him with energy.

  I walked up behind him, took a swallow of my coffee, and let him keep lying. I thought of all the times I had gotten his knife in my back, all the times he had run whining to the board for ass pats that, as a member of the Boys’ Club, he inevitably got. I had yelled at him about it. I had explained my side endlessly to the board. I had provided evidence. And yet…somehow, despite all my best efforts, the sunuvabitch almost always got listened to over me.

  And he was always lying. But in their eyes, my crimes were greater. I was the uppity bitch who refused to know her place and refused to be incompetent enough to fire. Even when I was obviously in the right, Ian had only ever gotten slaps on the wrist.

  Of course, this time I came armed with something the board wouldn’t expect. They could block my attempts at punitive action, in spite of Ian being my subordinate…but they couldn’t do much if I brought a pile of evidence and a team of lawyers to bear.

  I was rich. I had power. It was time to start acting like it.

  And yet…it still hurt. Because what I really wanted was for Don, for the board, for the company, to finally realize I was in the right and back my play fully. Just once. For the good of the company, if nothing else.

  The pain pissed me off almost as much as Ian’s lies.

  After my time with a real man like Ace, these weak, craven, hateful little men couldn’t muster even the pretense of respect from me anymore.

  My rage converted into bitter amusement as I listened to Ian whine and watched Don stand there nodding, occasionally asking a question or glancing at me curiously. He seemed surprised that I was neither exploding nor rushing into a detailed explanation of what had really happened, like I usually did.

  No. This time…despite the stress, despite the lies, my resentment, the feeling of being trapped, I was having trouble giving a damn. Maybe it was the afterglow from Ace. Or maybe I had just hit my limit.

  “That’s very interesting,” I said calmly and loudly, interrupting Ian mid-lie.

  He jumped, all flailing panic for a second before turning to look at me. I smiled at him sweetly as Don snorted.

  “N-Naomi! Uh—” he stammered.

  “Oh, do go on, Ian. I have a massive paper trail that tells the truth about the situation, so all your hot air will be for nothing, but…I’m sure you have plenty more to say.” The broad, calm sarcasm in my voice made his eyes widen even more. I had never called him out like this in front of a board member.

  Even Don looked a little surprised…but mostly his expression held his usual condescending amusement. Look, the little lady thinks she has a case to make. How cute.

  “I’d be interested to know what proof you have,” Don said after a few moments of smirking at Ian’s consternation.

  “My legal team will be providing a full report to the board,” I replied—and watched Ian go that same shade of pale blue again.

  “L-legal team?” he started.

  Don held up a hand to silence him. “I’m sure we can keep this entire thing in-house,” he mollified…then hesitated as I gave him an arch smile. “There’s…no need to get lawyers involved.”

  “If his lies hold more weight with the board than months of evidence, then yes, lawyers will need to get involved,” I replied simply. “There was no sabotage on my part, nor will there be any evidence of that. On the other hand, there’s plenty of evidence that Ian set us up to fail in our demonstration, by nixing adequate testing, by pushing the demo forward when he knew the backup power system wouldn’t be online for another two weeks, and by being more interested in making himself look good than in preserving the company’s reputation.”

  Ian had gone pale. That was the one thing that eased my rage and despair a little: under all his bullshit bravado, he was genuinely terrified.

  He should be.

  “Those are serious accusations,” Don said, his concerned-father tone forcing me to hide a scowl in a sip of coffee. “However, any evidence you present will be given due consideration by the board.”

  I gave him the same sweet, empty smile. “I very much doubt that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put in a lot of extra work fixing the mess that Ian made back in Aspen.”

  Don gave me that same baffled look that my father used to, and I knew it was all pointless. But I would keep plodding forward regardless, fighting the good fight until I couldn’t anymore—for the sake of our clients, if not the company that kept repaying my hard work with disdain and betrayal.

  “All right,” he said. “Feel free to submit your evidence when you feel ready to. I promise I’ll read the whole thing.”

  “Have a great day, Don.” I turned away to go back to my corner office.

  “What in the world is wrong with her—” Ian started, but Don had almost as little respect for him as he had for me.

  “Go back to work, Ian,” he said tiredly.

  My cheeks burned as I settled in at my desk. The new files on Ian’s bullshit sat in my inbox; I added them to my folder on my computer, copied them to the thumb drive I took home every day, and printed them for the hard-copy file as well.

  Am I really planning to build a case against my own company?

  Maybe it was time. But the whole idea made my stomach churn with guilt and anxiety.

  I can’t sue my own father’s company. The company I’m CEO of. Can I?

  I would have to see. Meanwhile, I planned to hold back on the juiciest bits of evidence I had, so that nobody—Ian, the board—would have the chance to build a complete defense.

  I knew, though, that it was an impossible battle. Yes, I could go through with it, and yes, if I did sue and go public with my complaints, I could do the company serious damage. But was that what I really wanted?

  No. What I wanted was to be CEO of my family’s company, and do my job, without having to fight tooth and nail for any respect. And I couldn’t get that by suing. I had no idea how I could.

  Problem was, Ian knew that too.

  He called me an hour later. My only guess was, it took him that long to work up the nerve. I was in the middle of finding an alternative vendor for our power banks, so it wouldn’t take two damn weeks for the cable car system to be fully functional.

  I saw who it was on the phone console, picked it up, and said, “Make it quick, Ian. Busy fixing your fuckups here.”

  “Why did you miss our flight this morning? You never even came back to the hotel.” He actually sounded like he was scolding me, irritating me at once.

  “I didn’t want to be around you,” I said. “You’ve pretty much made sure of that.” There was no way I was telling him about Ace. The massive blow to his ego on learning that I had a lover who wasn’t him certainly tempted me, but the tantrum afterward just wasn’t worth dealing with.

  “No, I checked with the desk. You never checked in. Where were you?”

  This is ridiculous.

  “The fact that you’re keeping tabs on me like this just illustrates why I didn’t. When I said I wanted to be away from you, I meant it. You would have pestered me for attention half the night again, like you did in Des Moines. I needed sleep after the mess you made. I didn’t need you constantly texting me or tapping on my door.”

  I knew why he had done that in Des Moines, though he had been canny enough not to simply say “let’s fuck” to his superior. Instead it had all been “Let’s get a drink,” and “Let’s go over the plan over Room Service,” or the like. When I had refused, he had gotten petty and had simply started bothering me off and on over trivial crap that could easily have waited until morning. Just disrupting my rest to avenge his bruised ego. />
  He still wasn’t getting it. “But where did you go?”

  “You know what?” I snapped. “It’s really none of your business. Especially since the entire deal in Aspen was sabotaged by your incompetence, and I came in today to listen to you covering your skinny ass by scapegoating me. Leave it, Ian, or I swear to God—”

  “You’ll never win, you know.”

  His venom-filled statement stopped me dead. “What?”

  “I said…you’ll never win. Not in the long run.”

  He was pissed. I could smell a big wad of self-incrimination coming. Really? Over the phone? Okay, asshole, let’s do this.

  I immediately grabbed my cell, turned on the speakerphone, and started recording the call. Thank God Colorado is a one-party consent state. I’ll just let him dig himself deeper.

  “In court, do you mean? Because I have a two-inch-thick file of documents on you that says otherwise.”

  He went quiet for several seconds. Then he took a shaky breath and said, “You won’t sue your own company. Don’t be a fool.”

  “I’m on the fence about it. They’ve done an awful lot to deserve it. Anyway, I could always just sue you personally.” I looked down and saw that I was gripping my pen too tightly. I opened my hand and let it drop to the desktop.

  Another pause. “Even if you do that, it won’t get you what you want. I know what that is, and you’ll never find it at this company.”

  “You’re wasting my time, Ian,” I said in the hardest voice I had ever heard come out of myself in my life. “Get to the point or get off my phone.”

  He exploded, words coming out in a rush, as if he couldn’t handle the adrenaline or my total disdain. “You can make piles of money, you can hang on to being CEO by your fingernails until they find a way to push you out, but you will never, ever be respected by the board. You just don’t have what it takes.”

  I squashed a surge of rage. He did have my number…but he was also digging exactly the hole I had expected for himself.

  “You mean a penis?” I asked, glad my door was closed. My poor assistant would have spat coffee all over her desk.

  He spluttered. “Since you have to be vulgar about it, yes. This is a man’s company and a board full of men, and CEO of Archimedes Gears is a man’s job. It doesn’t matter if they push you out or you finally reach your frustration point and leave in tears. I will have your job.”

  I laughed. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, I wanted to tell him to roast in Hell. But instead…I laughed disdainfully, loud enough that Carol heard it through the soundproofing and glanced over with her coffee mug held to her lips.

  I heard Ian’s gasp of horror and the rattle of him almost dropping his receiver. He spluttered wordlessly, and before he could recover, I went on.

  My voice went low and hard. “If you ever become CEO of this company, Archimedes’ stock will tank within eighteen months, guaranteed. I’ve been propping up this company despite your incompetence. Forty percent of our patents? Mine. Most of our big-ticket deals? Mine. You don’t even know how to close a deal without making an ass of yourself, and the mess in Aspen is just an example of that.”

  “That’s an exaggeration—” he started, but I wasn’t having it.

  “No, it isn’t. See, you may be right about Archimedes Gears being all about male solidarity. But out in the real world, clients want results. Results you will not be able to provide, because you will sabotage deals over petty, sexist issues with your superior, and lie to both clients and board members to make yourself look good, while setting us up for failure.

  “The truth is, you’re incompetent, and a liability. And if the mountain of proof I’ve gathered won’t sway the board, it will really make you look bad in court.” I paused, and as he stumbled to fill the gap with words, added, “As will this conversation.”

  He sucked air. “This conversation is hearsay,” he stammered. “No one will ever believe—”

  I shrugged and played back his rant about this being a men’s company. When I stopped and started recording again, he was panting in outrage.

  “You bitch,” he hissed.

  I chuckled. “The board will get enough of what I have that it would build a case for your dismissal if they were competent and unbiased. Their refusal to face facts will just turn into more evidence. You think I’m going to leave here in tears because of fools who would rather pretend it’s the 1950s than advance company goals? If I do leave, it will be straight to my lawyer. And the tears will be yours.”

  “What…” His voice had gone tiny and airless, full of defeat as the implications of my recording him sank in. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to do your damn job without getting in my way or meddling in my projects. You are my subordinate, whether you want to remember that fact or not. From now on, when you screw up, I’m not covering your ass with the clients. They will know exactly what happened, who is to blame, and who to complain to the board about. So stop screwing up—and stop pestering me.”

  He swallowed loudly enough for me to hear. “I can afford good lawyers too, you know.”

  “Ian, I have a whole team, and they sharpen their teeth every morning thinking of guys like you.”

  Another hard swallow. “Well I guess that you’ve made your point. How dramatic do you plan to be over this?”

  “That depends on you,” I replied. “Stay out of my way, do your work, and stop stirring up drama, and you may yet get through this with your job.”

  “They’ll still never respect you, you know. The board. You still won’t get what you really want.” His voice had gone weak, tentative. But then spite crept back into it and he spat, “Especially now that Daddy’s dead!”

  I felt it like a knife in the guts. That was Ian: no blow was too low as long as he won. But I knew why he was doing it. The real reason. I had held off from sheer propriety. Now… I didn’t care anymore.

  “My father owning this company never factored into my success,” I retorted. “Quite the opposite. I’m used to climbing against resistance thanks to him. It’s made me strong. You, on the other hand, are weak and underhanded. Even if you slime your way into my job, you won’t be able to handle it. And we both know that even then, you’ve got no chance of getting what you really want out of this situation.”

  “And what is that?” he snapped, suddenly defensive.

  “Me,” I said simply.

  He hung up cursing, and I knew I had won. But as I loaded the conversation file into my evidence folder and put it on my thumb drive, my head was throbbing. I had exhausted myself, and I still had a pile of work to do.

  Maybe Ian’s right, I thought as I went back to it. Maybe merit and hard work simply isn’t enough. Maybe I would be better off leaving and letting them crash and burn.

  But that idea hurt, and I struggled to push it out of my mind as I chatted with vendors about rush-ordering power banks. I was already back to saving the company’s bacon. I was just starting to wonder, deep down, if doing so was really worth the effort.

  As I stared longingly out my window at a perfect, early summer day that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy, I thought wistfully of Ace. Once again, I found myself wishing that I had stayed in Aspen, in the warm, safe circle of his arms.

  Chapter 7

  Naomi

  Two Months Later

  I woke up from a dream of Ace to my empty bedroom in Denver and sighed. Damn. I feel like I haven’t slept at all.

  I reached over and silenced my buzzing alarm, then winced as the early morning sun speared through my eyelashes.

  I felt so rundown that it hurt a little to move. I would have thought I was coming down with something, but I had felt just as lousy every morning for almost a week, without so much as a sniffle.

  It was work stress. It had to be. And that by itself had me lingering under my covers, wanting so badly to just call in. Hi, your company is a sexist boys’ club and it’s made me sick. I’m taking a long weekend.

  But I couldn’t
do that. Taking even one day off because the job stressed me out felt like admitting defeat. Besides, every damn time I was off, whether for a day or a week, I came back to some mess Ian or one of the engineers had made. Usually, Ian.

  He had behaved himself for a solid six weeks after our conversation. The evidence I had sent the board had disappeared into the void, predictably, and I had made sure there was a paper trail that chronicled their lack of follow-up. But someone must have said something to Ian, because he had finally shut up and buckled down for a while.

  And then his ego and spite had started asserting themselves again, and now, he was meddling in another of my projects. It was like the man had goldfish memory—or had somehow convinced himself that I was all talk.

  I had to deal with it. And the whole idea made me want to hide in bed even more.

  I finally forced myself up to shower and make tea. Coffee was off the menu; lately, even the smoothest of brews hit my stomach like battery acid. I wondered if I was getting an ulcer on top of everything else.

  Focus on the positive, I ordered myself as I sipped green tea and watched the sun finish rising. It was going to be gorgeous today. Maybe I can take a long lunch outside.

  The mess in Aspen had finally resolved fully a few weeks ago. Though I had gotten everything that Ian had messed up taken care of in the first week, making good with the client had taken a lot longer. They had not been happy with the demo falling flat on its face. They had been even less happy when they had learned why—not the technical reasons, but the administrative ones.

  I had done my best to be diplomatic, citing an issue with an individual employee “whose employment is currently under review,” who had mismanaged his portion of the project and then hidden that fact. They wanted to know who. I had held off at first, until legal action had been threatened, and then given Ian’s name.

  Soon, every client who had a problem would know Ian’s name. And reputations spread fast as lightning in the corporate world.