Winter Storms

by Oliver, Lucy

  Edie looked down at her own lacy teal tee, navy pants and wool blazer and wondered if she was underdressed.

  Nah.

  “What is the meaning of this racket?” Bethany leaned on Edie’s desk, looming over her. Invading personal space — “A” in the ABCs of corporate dominance.

  “Project Pleiades. We had a month to deadline — until your good buddy Junior chopped that to a week.”

  “Respect, Edie. Mr. Howell, not ‘Junior.’”

  “I’ll respect Mr. Pharaoh Howell when he respects the workers. That deadline is a nightmare. My team has been working twelve-hour days and more. I’ve tried to push back, but you know Junior. Only the Evil Overlord can buck him.”

  “Stop it.” Bethany tossed her head, a fleeting remnant of the girl Edie once knew. “The issue is not our executives. The issue is that … racket.” She waved her hand toward Jack’s cubicle, where the anthem was on its final verse.

  “Handling Stress 101, Bethany. Work on something else.”

  “Playing music on company time?” Bethany glared down her high-bridged nose. “Stupidity 101. You should listen to me if you want to go anywhere in this company.” She pointed to her cleavage, fingertip disappearing to the first knuckle. “After all, my team’s twice the size of yours.”

  “Bigger isn’t better. It’s all about how you use it.” Edie grinned. “How about you run your team and I’ll run mine?”

  “You don’t run your team.” Bethany sneered. “They run you.”

  “It’s called empowerment.” Edie took pride in her outspoken team. She wanted her grandparents, hard-core sixties protesters, to be proud of her. They’d raised her from a little girl when her parents had died, and she loved them to pieces. “It’s a proven management style.”

  Jack’s computer shifted to A Hundred Bottles of Beer.

  “Management?” One corner of Bethany’s perfect lips curled. “The only management I see is mis-management.”

  “Ba-dum-bum.” Edie was suddenly tired of the whole conversation.

  And, as Jack’s computer continued to tweet bottles down, doubt gnawed at her. It was quite a racket.

  “Other people are trying to work.” Bethany went for the kill. “Keep your hooligans under control or I’m going to have to tell Mr. Kirk.”

  Edie suppressed a moan. Of all the straight-laced overbearing big shots at HHE, Edward Everett Kirk, president and CEO, was the biggest, straight-laciest. Like laced corsets … naughty corsets in Kirk’s competent hands —

  “The way you two fight, it’s only a matter of time before he gets fed up and fires you.” Mme La B’itch drew a red-enameled nail across her slim throat.

  Edie winced. “It’s called ‘corporate unfriending’ now. And I couldn’t help the janitor incident. Or the thing with the Super Soaker. Look, I’ll talk to my people. Just cut us some slack, okay? We’ve been working ridiculous hours.”

  “Edie, you idiot. Has it ever occurred to you that your ridiculous hours are because of you?”

  Them’s fightin’ words. Edie raised narrowed eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

  Bethany leaned knuckles on the desk. “Only one kind of project manager confuses effort with efficiency: a bad one.”

  “Enough.” Edie jumped to her feet, nearly head-butting Bethany. “Outside. Now.”

  “And freeze my butt off? Hardly.” Bethany’s nose was inches from Edie’s. “You have absolutely no decorum, do you? That shouldn’t surprise me, considering the hippies who raised you.”

  Edie lost it. “My grandparents were heroes! They fought for what they believed in, rallied at protest marches — ”

  “Pretty stories. Your grandpa was a long-haired unwashed bum. Your grandma wasn’t much better than a free love hooker.”

  Edie snarled. “Now you listen here, you b — ”

  “If Mr. Kirk were here — ”

  “Mr. Kirk,” a deep voice rang with power, “is here. And I want to know what, precisely, is going on.”

  • • •

  To: ED@mythicmail.com

  From: ThePrez@serenityrangers.com

  Subject: Re: Internet Jokes

  Dear ED,

  Well, you’ve done it again. Just when another date fizzles and I’m laid low, when the fifth power play of the week pummels me black and blue, when and I’m at my wits’ end and think I’ll never smile again, your email pops into my inbox and I’m laughing. How did I ever get along without you?

  I know we agreed at the start of our relationship that we’d stay anonymous-cyber-friends-with-benefits. But it’s been a year since we met on that Colorado social site. I’d like to know you better. You shouldn’t give out personal information over the Internet, so if I send you my phone number, will you call?

  No, on second thought, never mind. I don’t want to ruin our friendship.

  I bought a DVD the other day. “3.14159 out of 5 stars!” was written on the box. I think it was pirated! (Pi - rated :D )

  — Prez

  Filling the opening of Edie’s cubicle was a blood-red silk tie, snow-white shirt, and perfectly cut pinstriped suit — elegant packaging for the raw breadth of an exceedingly masculine chest.

  Edward Everett Kirk.

  Charleton Heston would have been jealous of Kirk’s high forehead, straight nose, strong mouth and square jaw. The gleaming wingtips and foil-thin gold watch were just added insult. Mr. Ultra-Executive.

  Except for a neat chestnut ponytail and square workman’s hands.

  Edie found those elements a startling … intriguing … annoying contradiction. She shivered, stifled it. Something about Kirk pushed all her buttons.

  “Mr. Kirk!” Bethany smoothed her skirt. “I’m so glad you’re here. Edie is totally out of control — ”

  “One moment. Edie.” Kirk stepped into the cube and suddenly Edie couldn’t breathe. His gaze bored into her like a silver-blue drill. “The whole department is rumbling over an out-of-tune rendition of Hundred Bottles and a cat fight. And whom do I find at the center of it? Edie Rowan.”

  Edie chewed her lip. “I know it looks bad, Kirk. But — ”

  “Mr. Kirk.” Bethany sliced an evil little look at Edie. “Let me remind you, company policy requires that HHE officers be called by their courtesy titles, to show our respect.”

  “Respect isn’t ordered.” Edie gritted her teeth. “It’s earned.”

  “Mr. Kirk, it’s high time you do something about her.” Bethany jabbed a finger at Edie. “Not only was she at the center of this disturbance, she proposed this whole absurd contest.”

  “Contest?” Kirk’s flashing eyes, in another man, might have been amused. “Edie. What contest would that be?”

  Edie opened her mouth.

  “She bet lunch,” Bethany jumped in. “On the company credit card, if you can believe it. Lunch for any of her hooligans who — ”

  Kirk raised his hand. That was all it took to chop Bethany off mid-tirade. “Excuse me, Bethany. I asked Edie.” His nod gave Edie the floor.

  She was impressed despite herself. Which teed her off. It wasn’t impressive, it was the Great Man allowing the Poor Servant to speak. Her chin kicked up. “My team needed a stress valve. We’ve been putting in twelve-hour days, and — ”

  “A project manager,” Bethany chirped, “should make the project manageable.”

  “What are you, the Sphinx?” Edie said.

  “Can’t stand the truth? Bad manager, bad manager … ”

  Edie came around her desk so fast her curls snapped. Her head barely cleared Bethany’s shoulders, but her blazing temper towered. “Can. It.”

  “I certainly won’t — ”

  “You will — ”

  “Conference room. Now.” Kirk effortlessly sliced through their tirade. He strode away wi
thout a backward glance.

  Edie exchanged a murderous look with Bethany. But they both trailed Kirk to the conference room.

  As soon as Edie shut the door, Kirk whirled and snapped, “You two bicker like small children. You’re managers. Act like it.”

  Edie jerked straight as if she’d been slapped. “Yes, sir. My apologies, sir.”

  “No sarcasm, please.” His narrowed eyes could have sliced steel. “You’re pushing the line already.”

  Bethany said, “If you ask me, she’s not only pushing the line, she crossed it and rubbed it out after her.”

  “Nobody asked you,” Edie and Kirk said at the same time. Edie gave him a surprised look.

  He simply nodded. “You were explaining the music. Please continue.”

  Edie took a calming breath. She wasn’t trying to get fired but tact wasn’t her strong suit. Honesty was. “My team is working really hard with an impossible deadline. They were burning out. So I made up a little contest to re-energize them. I challenged them to write a music program before I did.”

  Bethany broke in with undisguised glee. “She should spend less time playing at programming and more time working at managing.”

  Kirk cut her out of the conversation simply by turning his shoulders on her.

  Edie was grudgingly impressed. Not by the breadth of those shoulders. By Bethany actually shutting up. Although those shoulders, besides blocking Bethany’s scowl, obliterated half the conference room. No. Not gaping at his shoulders, or his strong lithe body, or his clean, rugged jaw. Definitely not falling under the spell of the gleaming intelligence in his eyes … She slammed hers shut.

  Only to drag in the scent of male heat and power instead.

  She tried to stop breathing. Choked. Her eyes snapped open.

  He was watching her, irises so bright they were almost silver. Steel blue, emphasis on steel — Kirk used his eyes the way other men used swords. That gaze made her want to cower, to run for cover … bed covers, rolling under them in the dark, hot and sweaty … She covered her face with both hands.

  “Tell me the rest.” His voice was a buzz of pleasure along her skin.

  “There’s not much more to tell, Kirk … I mean Mr. Kirk.” She uncovered. “I needed a diversion for the team. It was perfectly innocent. If Jack’s music had played after hours, no one would have cared.”

  “But it isn’t after hours, is it?” Though Kirk’s tone was gentle, his eyes, sharp and demanding, held her to a higher standard. “Other people work here, Edie. There are other people to consider, besides your team.”

  “It was just a song or two.” Edie’s cheeks heated. “No big deal.”

  “The whole department was ruffled and distracted. I felt it just walking through. Didn’t you sense it, right in the middle as you were?”

  “Um … eye of the storm?”

  “Bethany was kind enough to inform you of the disturbance in person. Didn’t you listen to her, even a little?”

  “She was gloating, not informing!”

  “Edie.” He shook his head, sadly. “You haven’t learned a thing about cooperation and compromise in the workplace, have you?”

  Edie’s blood drained. That killing tone of voice … this was it. She was going to get fired. Again. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m doing the best I can for my team. Sometimes that means I lose sight of the big company picture.”

  Kirk frowned, his silvery eyes mirrored surfaces, unreadable.

  A lifetime’s silence passed. Edie chewed her lip. She wanted to scream.

  Through it all, muffled by the conference room’s walls, Jack’s computer cheerfully took down bottles of beer and passed them around.

  Her lip was in tatters when Kirk’s frown finally eased. “Very well. You have a choice.”

  Okay. Not fired yet. Though, from the wicked curl to his lips, she wouldn’t like his “choice.”

  “There’s a management seminar in LA on Monday. Either attend it, or … ” His steely eyes finished the sentence for her. Attend the seminar or get in the unemployment line.

  “What kind of choice is that?” Bethany’s pinched face peeped around Kirk’s massive shoulders. “A week of half-days at a gorgeous ocean resort? It’s a fantasy vacation, not a choice.”

  “What’s the catch?” Edie said.

  “No catch,” Kirk said.

  “Right.” Edie grimaced. “Since it sounds like I take it or leave — I’ll take it.”

  “Excellent.” He smiled.

  His smile caught Edie off-guard. Sparkling white teeth and gently crinkled eyes zapped her for ten points of damage before she could even think of getting her shields up.

  His smile widened.

  Fry her motherboard. He even had a killer dimple in his left cheek.

  Belatedly her shields raised. The teeth were probably capped. The dimple was … unfair.

  “That’s settled,” Kirk said. “I’ll pick you up at six forty-five tomorrow morning.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Your seminar is on the way to my conference. I’m driving anyway so I’ll drop you off. No sense wasting the company’s money.”

  “You’re driving from Colorado to California?” No catch? A two-day drive through the mountains alone with Edward Everett Kirk? Sealed in with those shoulders, that chest, that smile? Huge catch. “I can drive myself.”

  “You could.” He stepped closer, so close she heard his tie rustle against his shirt, felt his heat. So close she could shut her eyes and lean forward and raise her face … she snapped straight. “But why should you, when I’m already driving?” His voice deepened. “Let me do this for you, Edie.”

  “Is that … ” Her voice was breathy. She swallowed, tried again. “Is that an order?”

  “An order.” He sighed. “If I must. Now go home and pack.”

  “Now? But it’s only Friday and my team — ”

  “Will be perfectly fine for a few hours.”

  “But what about Project Pleiades? The deadline — ”

  “Mr. Kirk!” Bethany wedged a sharp elbow between Edie and Kirk. “While Edie’s gone, why don’t I take care of her team?” She shoved.

  Kirk was a mountain and didn’t move, but Edie got drilled in the diaphragm. She managed to gasp, “Over my dead — ”

  “No need, Bethany,” Kirk cut in smoothly. “I think they’d be best off without both of you for a while.”

  He smiled, unleashing the dimple. And while Edie stood stunned, he sauntered out.