CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1)

by Kristina Weaver

  “Yes.”

  “That’s over four hundred people.”

  “Four hundred and thirty-two.”

  This really felt wrong. I turned from him and walked around the room, this place so familiar to me that it was like a part of my family. My father practically lived in this room during most of my childhood. I remember sitting on this low, leather couch, doing my homework while my father made conference calls and filled out paperwork. And that desk. I remember how I felt like a grown-up whenever I sat in that chair. This place was my father’s and he’d stolen it away.

  “I was wondering if you’d be up to taking me around to the active construction sites tomorrow,” Grant said.

  I turned and let my eyes move over him, so conflicted at the sight of him that a part of me wanted to absolutely refuse.

  “I suppose so.”

  “I’d like to see where we stand on our current projects and get them all back on schedule before we start concentrating on new projects.”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you gone over the financials?”

  “Some of them.” I sighed, trying hard to focus on the business at hand. “I’ll need to talk to Joseph, cue him in on what’s going on.”

  “Joseph?”

  “Joseph Christopher. The head of accounting.”

  “Of course. Do what you need to do to get us back where we need to be.” He turned toward me, setting down the handful of papers he’d been holding. “I’ll need you to personally speak to some of the less conventional suppliers.”

  “Less conventional?”

  “Like Burt. He still does the cabinets, correct?”

  I nodded slowly. Burt was a retired cop who hand carved the cabinet doors we used in some of our projects. But we hadn’t worked with him personally in almost a year because we were unable to pay him in full for the last job he did.

  “And there are others. The plumbers, the roofers. Anyone who might have cut ties when you ran into financial problems.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “If you run into any problems, feel free to inform me.”

  “I’ve known most of these people all my life, Grant. I don’t think I’ll have any issues.”

  He sat back against the edge of the table, studying me in that way he had. “I understand all this is difficult, Addison. We’ll find a rhythm fairly soon and it’ll be better.”

  “And if I don’t want to find a rhythm?”

  His eyebrows rose slightly. “You signed a six-month contract.”

  “I’m aware of that. And I’ll do the best I can to help you pull the company out of the fire. But I can’t promise this will all go as smoothly as you thought it would.”

  “Nothing is ever as smooth as we hope.” He smiled at me. “I already have a few potential clients lined up for possible projects. I want to have a party at my place to sort of introduce them to our new management, if you know what I mean.”

  “At your place?”

  His smile widened. “I realize my place lacks a bit of—”

  “Furniture? Decorations?”

  “Homeyness.”

  “It’s not the ideal place to have a party.”

  “Yes, well, I was hoping you could help with that. My assistant has already contacted several interior decorators in the area, but I thought it needed more of a personal touch. I was hoping you’d be willing to work with Rebecca on that.”

  “Rebecca?”

  “My assistant. You didn’t meet her when you came in?”

  I shook my head, wondering why it bothered me—the idea that he had a personal assistant. I watched him move as he crossed the room and stuck his head out the door, talking to someone in those soft tones I’d always thought he saved for me. But then it had been seven years since we last knew one another. I knew in my head that there had been other women. It was my heart that didn’t want to understand that fact.

  She was beautiful, this Rebecca. She had Nordic traits—the sort of blond hair that was almost white and the gorgeous bone structure that photographers go nuts over. She walked toward me, her hand outstretched, a smile on her thin but well-painted lips.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Berryman.”

  If God truly made a perfect woman, it was probably this woman. She was taller than me, too, but just the right height to fit against a man like Grant and still be ultra-feminine. A part of me wanted to smack her, even though she was polite as a woman in her station could be expected to be.

  “You, too,” I said, shaking her hand somewhat stiffly.

  Her smile faltered just the slightest bit. Then she turned and smiled widely at Grant.

  “Is there anything else, Mr. McGraw?”

  “No, Rebecca. Thank you.”

  He held the door for her and watched her go.

  “Has she worked for you long?”

  “Four years.”

  “And she was willing to uproot her life to follow you to Texas?”

  Grant shut the door with a definitive click of the latch and turned to regard me, his eyes dancing with amusement. “I’m a generous boss.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  I stormed toward the door, intent on getting the hell out of there. But Grant held the door closed with the weight of his body as he stood leaning against it.

  “I wasn’t finished.”

  “I can’t imagine there’s much more.”

  “We’re completely revamping the way the company runs and we haven’t even begun to talk about it.”

  “Revamping? It sounded to me like you were perfectly content to continue with things the way they are.”

  “You meant the suppliers? Of course I am. How many construction companies can offer handcrafted cabinets or specialized plumbing? I hear Manchester Construction offers heated floors in their luxury apartments, but not in their lower-end places. That’s something we can compete against with the plumbers and electricians we have on the payroll.”

  “Then what revamping are you talking about?”

  Grant gestured toward the table and the reams and reams of paper sitting there. “That has to go. It would save the staff hours upon hours if all the paperwork was digitized. I want everyone in this building to have a smartphone and a tablet, as well as foremen on the construction sites. There’s no excuse for sloppy or missing paperwork if it’s all uploaded to a special server at the end of the day.

  “And there are so many positions here that are redundant. We could save thousands if we reduced the redundancies and cut some of the staff.”

  “You said—”

  “I said I wouldn’t fire anyone without your consent. But even you have to realize it would be better to let a few go in favor of using that money in other places that are in the best interest of everyone working for the company.”

  I knew that. It was one thing my dad and I had argued about when I first came to work here. But it wasn’t something I was eager to discuss with Grant. Not now. Not this soon after he barged into my dad’s office and took it over.

  “We have to be careful about how we go about doing something like that.”

  “I know. That’s why I want you to make me a list of the employees you would be most comfortable with letting go. Those close to retirement that we can offer an early pension to. Those who just started here and have a good chance of finding something else quickly. I’m no more interested than you are in putting people out on the street who won’t be able to take care of themselves without this job.”

  I wanted to believe that. I did. But it was so hard to know from day to day which Grant I was getting—the one who had a kind heart and always wanted to do the right thing, or the one who left me sitting alone in a diner because my father had paid him off.

  “Anything else, boss?”

  He studied my face for a long moment. Then he touched me, his fingertips moving slowly over the curve of my jaw.

  “We’re in this together, like it or not. Is it really necessary to build up this wall betwe
en us?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, speaking the most honest words I could possibly offer him. “I really don’t know. All of this is happening so fast…”

  “I never lied to you, Addie. I just never told you the entire truth. I didn’t know how.”

  “You walked away from me. No note, no phone call, no good-bye. You just left.”

  “I didn’t want to do it that way, but your father—”

  “I don’t really want to know.” I touched his chest, unable to help myself. “I’d rather have been the one to walk away this time, but you’ve tied my hands. But that doesn’t mean that whatever happened between us in the past, or even this past week, has to continue. You’re my boss. I’m your COO. That’s all.”

  Pain danced in his eyes, but he simply nodded.

  “Pick me up at six tomorrow morning. I want to hit all the sites before noon.”

  “Okay.”

  I walked out, aware of Rebecca watching me with naked curiosity. The childish part of me wanted to turn around and stick my tongue out at her. But, of course, I didn’t.

  I was a grown-up. It was time to act like one.

  Chapter 12

  He was waiting on the sidewalk in front of his building when I pulled up ten minutes late. I’d been up half the night going over the financials he’d sent to my office, still trying to figure out what he was up to and how to use his accounts to pay up what the company owed all its suppliers. Joseph camped out at my office for hours trying to help me, but in the end it proved to be easier to do it myself.

  This morning, money had been sent to most of our creditors’ accounts. On Monday, we should be up to par on everything, and there should be no delay in construction supplies for our ongoing projects. It was the first time in over a year I could actually say that.

  He climbed into the cab of my truck dressed in jeans and heavy work boots that looked a lot like the ones he wore when we first met. In fact…was that a paint stain on the side of that boot?

  “You have the same boots you wore seven years ago?”

  “I don’t throw things away.”

  “But they look…”

  I remember staring at those boots on our first date. He was running late because they were behind schedule on the site and the foreman made everyone stay until they’d gotten done what he laid out for them to do that night. Even broke out the floodlights so they could work in the dark. I was upset because I’d thought he stood me up, then I was embarrassed to have gotten so worked up over something so stupid. So I stared at those boots, imagining the dozens of different ways he could have gotten that stain on the toe of the left one.

  “Where to first?” I asked before he could follow my train of thought and figure out what I was doing.

  I could tell by the way he looked at me, though, that he knew. Much to his credit, he let it go.

  “How about the south side first?”

  I put the truck into gear and pulled out slowly. It was so early on a Saturday morning that most of the city was still asleep. We hit some traffic, but not as much as we might have later in the day. A few joggers, too. But, mostly, it was just him and me and the news on the radio.

  “I made a list of those employees,” I said when I couldn’t stand the lack of conversation a moment longer. “I e-mailed it to the address on your business card.”

  “I got it. We’ll go over it together on Monday after the meeting.”

  “And I made payments to most of our creditors.”

  “Good.”

  “I have a meeting with Burt tomorrow afternoon.”

  “You don’t have to report your every movement to me, Addison,” he said, dragging his fingers through his hair with this weary movement that suggested he got as much sleep last night as I did.

  “You’re the boss. I just thought—”

  “I trust you. I’m sure you’ll do what I asked you to do.”

  He sounded weary. Distracted. I glanced at him, but he was staring straight ahead as though he was more interested in where we were going than who was in the truck with him. It shouldn’t have, but it bothered me.

  We pulled up to the first site and went to work. I showed him around, introduced him to the foreman, and stood back while he asked all the right questions. Mr. Philips had said that his client knew very little about running a construction company. But Grant clearly remembered what it was like to be on a construction site, and he had obviously done enough research to know what he was looking at, what he was talking about, and what was going on around him.

  It was that way at all five of the sites. I just watched, grudgingly admitting to myself that if we had to sell the business, if we had to walk away, we’d done well selling it to Grant.

  “Hey, Addison,” Billy called as we were leaving the last site.

  “Billy,” I said, retracing my steps to give him a big hug. “I thought you were on the Teller Street project.”

  “I am. I just came over here to give the guys a hand.”

  I shook my head. “You have the day off. You should be at home.”

  “What’s a day off?”

  He laughed, but then he focused on Grant, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took in his presence. “So you bought the place, huh?”

  “Where did you hear that?” Grant asked.

  “I hear things.” Billy took my hand and squeezed like a parent might do. “You didn’t mention anything about it when you were here before.”

  “Had to keep it quiet. Didn’t want word to get around before the deal was done.”

  Billy inclined his head slightly, his eyes moving over me. “Your dad—he get a good deal?”

  I glanced at Grant before turning to Billy, a forced smile on my lips. “Grant’s going to save the company, Billy. That’s what matters now.”

  “Your dad gave me a job when I desperately needed it. Never looked at my resume, never batted an eye when I told him I’d been in prison. Just handed me a tool belt and told me to get to work. He’s a good man.”

  “He is,” I agreed.

  “Did he get what he deserved out of this deal?”

  I nodded, the fake smile gone. I could never lie to Billy. He was a living lie detector. He could tell when I was lying even over the telephone. He was the first to realize Grant and I were seeing each other all those years ago, because of the way I talked about him, I suppose. Or maybe it was as simple as the way I looked at him.

  “He most definitely did,” Grant said.

  His eyes were on me as he said it. The look in his eyes dared me to argue with him. And I wanted to, but how could I? My dad agreed to this deal, so even if I thought it was wrong—though I wasn’t sure I did—there was nothing I could do about it.

  Billy seemed relieved. He smiled as he took my hand and one of Grant’s.

  “And the two of you, back together. That’s nice.”

  I shifted on my feet a little. “We’re working together, Billy. That’s all.”

  “Yes, well, time spent together will bring you back to each other. You wait and see.” He squeezed my hand and leaned into me. “I always knew the two of you were meant to be.”

  I glanced at Grant, who was watching me with that same thoughtfulness.

  I pulled away. “We should really get back to work.”

  I kissed Billy’s cheek and walked away, expecting Grant to follow close behind. But he stayed with Billy, talking about something I couldn’t hear. Business, I assumed. But part of me suspected that it was something else. Grant and Billy had been close. Grant started working for Berryman Construction fresh out of high school. Billy took him under his wing, not only taught him how to hang drywall quickly and efficiently, but taught him how the world worked, too. If Billy was a father figure to me, he was very much a father to Grant, too.

  I climbed into the truck and waited. A few minutes turned into ten minutes. Billy was animated in the way he was talking to Grant. Grant, though, stood quietly and listened, reminding me of all the times I’d observed them together
on the construction site all those years ago. Grant was cutting drywall in the mud the first time I ever saw him, but then Billy walked up. They were standing exactly like they were now.

  “Who is that?” I asked my dad.

  “I don’t know. One of the drywall workers.” He handed me a clipboard. “He’s been with us for three or four years.”

  “And you don’t know his name?”

  “There was once a time when I knew all their names. But that was back before we had more than three hundred employees.”

  “Billy seems to like him.”

  “That’s probably why he’s been with us for three or four years. Billy trains them well.”

  I watched them, the way Billy talked to him, the way he bent his head a little so that he could hear Billy. There was respect in the way he watched the older man. I wandered over there even though my dad had told me to stay close to him when we were on a site. I’d been coming to the sites since I was a little girl, but I usually stayed in the truck. I’d been working with my dad for only a few months now, mostly in the office. This was the first time he brought me out to the site, the first time he let me walk with him among the organized chaos, and I was already breaking the rules. But I was curious about this tall, dark-haired man.

  “Hi, Billy!”

  Billy’s face beamed as he turned toward me. “Miss Addison,” he said with something like reverence.

  I smiled, but my eyes were on the stranger. Billy must have seen that, because he immediately gestured to him. “This is Grant McGraw,” he said. “One of our best drywallers.”

  I inclined my head. But before I could speak, my dad was behind me.

  “Addie, you’re to stay with me, remember?”

  And he was pulling me away.

  Never spoke a word to Grant. But the way he looked at me…I would never forget that moment. And when he asked me to the movies a week later, I was gone. I would have run away with him then. I was so naïve; I thought nothing else mattered but that look. Maybe it was because there had never been anyone else. No one in high school was interested in the little, awkward girl who knew more about framing a house than popular culture. Or maybe it was because I was so desperate to be loved…I don’t know. Whatever it was, Grant had this power over me that had yet to fade.