by A. J. Wynter
“Only glazed doughnuts this time,” she said, and I cringed as she winked at me.
“When are the Wordsworth people getting here?”
Sabryna smiled as she arranged the coffee cups. “Any minute now.”
I sighed and took my place at the head of the table. An article I had read about meditation in the workplace last week came to mind, so I decided to take some deep breaths for a few minutes and try to clear my mind before anyone else showed up. I had to focus. I had to clear my mind completely of last night, and that stupid, ridiculous dream. These negotiations were no joke, and I couldn’t let some stupid, dirty fantasy I’d had about the CEO of the company we were in the process of acquiring get in the way of that. I wasn’t that kind of guy. Work and romance were strictly separate areas, I reminded myself, shutting my eyes and inhaling as slowly as I could…and they would need to stay that way. Breathe, Johnathan…just relax and breathe.
“Asleep already?”
I practically jumped as I opened my eyes to the sight of Samantha Doyle standing next to me. I could feel myself blushing deeply as she pulled out the chair next to me to take a seat. “Are you okay, Johnathan? You look a bit…” she bit her lip and repressed a smile. “…frazzled.”
“I just um…” I shook my head as I tried to sit up straighter in my chair. “Didn’t get much sleep…the neighbor’s dog was barking…yeah.”
Samantha was staring at me with a look that seemed to be part victory and part amusement. “Drink your coffee,” she said, and began to pour me a large cup from the carafe placed at the center of the table. Of course, today of all days she had decided to wear her hair down, fastening it at the back of her head with a topaz-encrusted barrette that brought out the golden flecks in her warm brown eyes. She wore a light navy blazer with a white blouse underneath that dipped dangerously low for a work setting. My mind was already flipping back to the sight of what I had supposedly thought she would look like spread out naked on my mattress.
I would have given up my stupid boat to get her to wear a turtleneck, or a chicken costume, or literally anything else for the course of this ridiculous freaking meeting.
I had barely registered that Amy had walked in, wearing a tiny black dress that contrasted against her light blonde hair. She gave me a quick smile and then seated herself next to Samantha. Why wasn’t she the one distracting me? Amy was hot and uncomplicated and would jump into bed with me without a second thought. Life would be so much easier if you could only like the right people…not that I liked Samantha like that, per se, but—
Samantha was the one who had kept me up all night.
Cassidy came in and very predictably took a seat next to Amy, who looked like she wasn’t even prepared to give him the time of day. He was followed by Kirk, who decided on the front row seat to the drama next to me and across from Samantha. The rest of our employees and Wordsworth’s employees filed in afterward and took their seats. One of the things you never quite get used to as a CEO is the feeling of sitting at a table first thing in the morning and having a dozen people staring at you waiting for directions, or guidance, or inspiration. But the truth is at eight a.m. I’m as unprepared to inspire as anyone else in the world is.
“Good morning everyone,” I said, looking down the table with the most optimistic and determined look I could muster. “First, I would like to thank Kirk and our team of lawyers here, as well as the phenomenal legal team at the Wordsworth Company, for their endless hard work these past few months.” I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the end of the table instead of on Samantha, who I could see looking up at me from the corner of my eye. “These legal documents,” I said, motioning to a pile of papers in front of Kirk. “…Mark the beginning of what I hope will be a legendary collaboration.” The room sprung into polite applause as I turned towards Samantha. “Any thoughts?”
Samantha smiled down the table. “I know this has been a period of adjustment for everyone, and I want to thank you for your flexibility during this difficult time.” I winced. It sounded like she was opening a funeral. “And I know you know that I am doing my very best to ensure you all have a place here at the Torver Group.” I groaned. She was already making me the villain.
I was surprised to see Samantha smile down at me for a second with genuine appreciation. “And of course, Johnathan here has been incredibly helpful and generous in our negotiations so far.” The table broke out into soft applause again. Shit, I thought. I hadn’t exactly been generous yet.
Cassidy took over the meeting from that point, laying out his plans and charts for how our current and future clients would be delegated out to the Wordsworth employees. I grimaced. This was bad. Samantha giving this kind of impression to her employees, one that signified that things would only be getting better for them, was going to pose a problem. Now when I crushed them, it would even worse. She had framed me as the villain, and after that, there was no going back.
I droned out Cassidy’s voice as I looked over towards Samantha. She looked calm and confident, strong but without the belligerence she had possessed before we had solidified our supposed friendship. I watched as she listened intently, caressing the skin of her neck as she brushed her hair back behind her ear. My mind flashed back to the image of me kissing her neck up against the wall and I shifted in my seat. Then I tried very hard to listen to Cassidy.
The meeting was endless, but the sense of optimism that Samantha had instilled in her employees was worse. I should have known that she would take my promise to consider finding an alternative solution to laying off her employees a bit too far. Just kidding, the worst part of the meeting by far was Kirk, who was engrossed in watching me try to avoid looking over towards Samantha and failing miserably at it. If he had a bag of popcorn stashed underneath his desk, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“…And that’s about it.” Cassidy said, closing his laptop. “Any questions?” The room fell silent, and he turned to me.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll break for lunch and then meet back here at one to discuss this further.” The table let out a collective sigh of relief as I watched them file out the door, headed for the long line at Chipotle or to meet a date at a cheap sandwich joint. I wish I could be that relaxed right now.
I held up my hand as I saw Samantha start to move her seat back. “Um…Samantha? A word?” I said nervously.
“Of course,” Samantha said, feigning a smile, and I think she knew what was coming.
“Was that really necessary?” I said, avoiding eye contact with her as much as possible. “I mean, when I told you I would consider finding a way for you to keep your employees, it wasn’t a guarantee. I don’t want you getting people’s hopes up.”
Samantha smiled. “Isn’t hope better for them right now?”
I sighed with exasperation. “Yeah, but now if, I mean, when, I probably lay them off, it’s going to come as a complete shock. And now I’m the one who is going to get blamed for it when it’s your fault. You let your company go bankrupt. You’re the one who offered them false promises, Samantha. And now I’m the one who they’re going to come after with pitchforks.” I frowned and looked down at the table. “Why did you have to sacrifice me like that?” I said, my voice bordering on anger. “I mean, I thought after the other day we had made peace with each other. We made a connection! This was supposed to work!”
Samantha just looked at me smugly and smiled. “Funny you should say that,” she said. “One of Seattle’s top CEOs told me that business isn’t about making connections.” She stood up and leaned over me.
“…it’s about winning,” she whispered.
***
I slammed the door behind me and sighed. I simply didn’t know how to handle the Samantha situation anymore. The woman was infuriating. She was a dangerous opponent and would destroy me if I ever got stupid enough to let my guard down. I paced around the room as I loosened my tie. I needed an evening to myself to unwind. I unpacked the Whole Foods bag on the counter and threw the b
ag of flour down on the kitchen island. I pulled the pasta maker out of the cabinet and cracked my knuckles. Once I got into pasta-making mode, there was no stopping me.
I poured myself a glass of my favorite Riesling and put my favorite jazz playlist on my phone. I took the little Johnathan time that I got to myself very seriously. And not to brag, but I’ve always been a bit of a chef. I had gotten the pasta maker as a gift from my parents when I was younger, where it had sat untouched in my closet for about five years. But ever since I had gotten it out of storage a couple of years ago, I’d been addicted. I had mastered everything from basil-infused tortellini to lasagna with mozzarella and pesto.
I swept across the kitchen, pulling plastic spice jars and measuring cups from the cabinets. The afternoon faded into an evening sunset out the window as I began to mix the dough with my hands. Samantha. Who gave her the right to speak to me like that? Without my help, she would have been bankrupt and her company a forgotten piece of history. I punched the dough with my fist. This could have been so easy. The Wordsworth acquisition was supposed to get us new clients, not new problems. Samantha was supposed to do as she was told and be grateful that we rescued her. But she was always so….so….
The dough had gotten everywhere. But, I mean, god that woman was a pain sometimes. Even when I wasn’t at work, at times like this when I was trying my best to relax, she would permeate my thoughts with an aggressive persistence. Samantha, Samantha, Samantha. Always making me work for things I already had, making me question things I took for granted. She had to be one of the most formidable opponents I had ever had. Not necessarily in terms of money, or status, but something else. When other people challenged me, they saw me as Johnathan Torver: wealthy businessman with an empire at his feet. But when Samantha challenged me, she saw through it all. To her, I was just Johnathan, just another guy. She saw me. She looked past the façade I put up for everyone else and she saw me.
But why did that bother me so damn much?
I began to ease the dough into the pasta maker and took a sip of wine. Since I had met Samantha that day, things had been different. My life wasn’t just a procession of work days, days where I read the financial papers and handed out orders to employees who never thought to be anything other than obedient. Now, showing up to the office was a challenge and an adventure. I craved it. The sad truth was, I realized, once you reach a certain point of success, the fighting spirit that got you there fades with disuse. When Samantha looked at me with the spark of war in her eyes, it lit up again. I sat down on one of my kitchen stools and stared out the window.
I didn’t know how the rest of the acquisition would go. I didn’t know what would happen when I laid off most of the Wordsworth employees. But what I did know was this: I was feeling more alive these days than I had in a very long time.
Chapter 5
“Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is…so delightful,” Kirk sang with a flourish as I got into the car. “And since we’ve no place to go…”
I rolled my eyes as I shut the passenger seat door against the wind. “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, Kirk. You know I do all my holiday shopping online specifically so I don’t have to hear the speakers at Nordstrom’s spewing out sentimental crap months ahead of schedule.”
Kirk smiled and shook his head as he pulled the Jaguar out of my driveway. “First of all, Ebenezer Scrooge, Christmas is my favorite holiday, so you’re going to let me have this, and more importantly, when it’s going to snow this much, this early, I’m allowed to break out the carols.”
“I should have told everyone to work from home today,” I groaned. “I just checked my weather app and the predictions are only getting more and more dire.”
“Eh.” Kirk shrugged. “It’s not supposed to start until seven, and everyone should be home by then. If it starts looking worse, we can let people off early.”
I turned down the car stereo until it was barely audible and leaned my head up against the window. “Only we would get stuck with a historically bad blizzard during the most critical stage of the Wordsworth acquisition.”
“Oh yeah…” Kirk said. “I almost forgot, you told the investors that you and Samantha would have the report about the acquisition tomorrow, correct?”
I frowned. “Correct.”
Kirk raised an eyebrow. “So…it’s almost done, right?”
I stayed quiet and shrugged.
“Johnathan!” Kirk scolded. “That’s way too much work to be done in the course of one day, especially when a blizzard could hit at any moment. What, was Samantha slacking off or something?”
I looked down. “Not…exactly.”
“Johnathan, you know that if that report is a day late, or is lacking in our usual quality at all, we could lose a lot of business.”
“I know, I know, I just—”
“What has been up with you lately, man?”
A more truthful answer, one even I was still uncomfortable admitting, nearly flew out of my mouth, but I paused just in time. “Stuff has been busy.”
Kirk looked at me skeptically. “If you say so.” He turned the radio back up as a weather announcer came on. “Shit, now they’re saying ten inches,” he said, pretending to seem concerned, but hiding a hint of a smile. Kirk hailed from Buffalo, and any amount of snow filled him with hometown nostalgia. I’m glad Kirk was happy, but I sure wasn’t. Seattle doesn’t usually get this much snow, and never this early. You would think a city so close to Canada would know how to handle its snow, but the unfortunate truth was that even a couple of inches could drive the city to a standstill. Seattle was filled with steep hills which made driving within the city limits on slippery surfaces incredibly dangerous. This blizzard would turn the city into a ghost town. I might have to force my employees to work from home for the rest of the week.
I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair as Kirk parked his car. Today was beginning in the worst kind of way. I already had severe anxiety because of Samantha and the report deadline approaching, but now this blizzard was making everything far worse.
I trudged into the office, gripping my coffee cup with unusual force. I walked right up to Sabryna’s desk and stared at her blankly.
“Johnathan?” she asked, looking extremely concerned. “You alright there?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, suddenly coming back to my senses. “It’s just um, that report that Samantha and I were supposed to give to the investors is due tomorrow, and we’ve barely made any headway on it, and there’s this blizzard, and I already have a headache, and—”
“And you’re wondering if there’s anything I can do?” Sabryna said with a hint of mockery.
“Uh…” I broke into a bashful smile. “Maybe?”
Sabryna shook her head. “I can make you some tea or get you an aspirin, but I can’t control the weather, Torver. Or write that report, unless you give me a raise.”
I sighed. “I know, I’m just grasping for miracles here,” I joked.
“This is on you and Ms. Doyle.” Sabryna stopped to think for a minute. “Actually, given Samantha’s penchant for punctuality, I’d say it’s more on you.”
I felt myself blush a bit. “No comment.”
Sabryna rolled her eyes and smiled. “Earl Grey? Chamomile? Matcha?”
I smiled. “Chamomile sounds great right now, thanks.”
“You got it boss,” Sabryna said, shaking her head at me with a look of somewhat amused concern.
“I’m definitely gonna need it once Samantha gets here,” I joked.
Sabryna broke out into a guilty smile. “Uh, Johnathan…”
I looked at her questioningly. “What?”
“You know Samantha Doyle has been in the conference room working on that report since six o’clock this morning, right?”
I stared at Sabryna blankly. “Shit…” I said. “Shit.”
I abandoned the chamomile tea Sabryna had started steeping to a cold and undeserved demise as I rushed into the conference room.
“Good morning Johnathan,” she said, taking a delicate sip of her coffee and keeping eyes locked on me. She bowed her head a bit as she put the cup down, as if acknowledging an opponent. “I thought you would get here earlier, considering the deadline is tomorrow, and of course, the weather reports.”
“No,” I said. “You’re right. That was irresponsible of me.”
Samantha stared back at her laptop, unsure of how to respond to my sudden acquiescence. “Look Johnathan, about the other day…I’m sorry.” She squirmed a bit in her seat as I gazed up at her. “Implying that you were being more generous with these negotiations than you were intending was…not professional. At all.”
I shrugged, unsure of how to respond as well. “Thanks,” I said. “But what’s done is done.” I pulled my laptop and some files out of my briefcase and sighed. “Now we just have to focus on getting this report done before the storm hits.”
Samantha smiled over her coffee. “It’s not too bad. Most of it is writing the data analysis sheets up and making our circumstances look as pretty as possible. If we budget our time correctly, we can probably finish this by the late afternoon and get home safely.” Samantha shuffled the batch of papers in front of her to even them out. “Now can you hand me the graphs and pie charts and stuff? You printed them out, right?”
I froze in my seat. “Um.”
“It’s okay, just email them to the printer and—”
“I didn’t…” I bit my cheek as Samantha stared at me with terror in her eyes. “…I didn’t actually get around to making the graphs yet.”
I watched as Samantha’s eye’s widened. “You what?”
I got the same feeling I used to get when I would neglect my science homework as a kid to go and play baseball with my friends, day after day, until my grades plummeted. She was giving me that same disappointed and annoyed look that the teachers would give me as they cycled around my desk to see that once again, I could not produce a worksheet from my backpack.