Choices

by Mia Malone

  He mentioned the name of the company, and I started coughing again. He laughed softly, which probably was since I looked like a stupid, coughing guppy, but what the hell was I supposed to do?

  The company was one of the leading suppliers of ventilation equipment in the country, and they had expanded into several other areas. Globally.

  I suddenly remembered his car and felt like slapping my forehead repeatedly. A Tesla was not something a man on a small state pension would buy.

  “So, I think you should do me a favor,” he murmured with a crooked grin.

  “A what?”

  “Nina,” he said, suddenly serious. “I need someone I trust to review our finance and supplier management organization.”

  “Do you suspect fraud?” I asked, which I thought was a relevant question, but I was also stalling for time to digest what he was saying.

  “God, no. I think they’re inefficient and old fashioned, but our Chief Financial Officer has worked in the company for twenty-five years, and I trust him completely. I’m thinking about what to do with the company in the future, but before we change anything, I’d like to make sure everything is in good shape.”

  “You could hire one of the big companies specializing in that kind of thing.”

  “Pfft,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re doing most of the time. I’ve talked to some people, and you have a stellar reputation, Nina. I trust you.”

  “I have a job.”

  “That bores you to tears.”

  He had a point.

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  It might be the red wine or perhaps just sitting on my back deck with a good friend on a Saturday night, but a small sparkle of interest tingled in my belly.

  A challenge, Jacob had said.

  “So, I’d like to hire you as a management consultant. Part-time if you want it, to give you some flexibility and a little time to do other things. Three months, maybe four, and then you can easily move on to other jobs.”

  I agreed with Jacob’s assessment of management consultants and had often been frustrated by the ones we brought into companies I’d worked for. My negativity wasn’t always appreciated, but I still felt that they were mostly full of slide shows in fifty shades of whatever corporate color we used, and a never-ending stream of flowery buzzwords.

  Was he seriously suggesting that I’d become one?

  “When?” I heard myself ask.

  Was I seriously considering becoming one?

  “As soon as you can get out of your current job.”

  Our gazes met, and the tingle in my gut expanded into anticipation and something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  Excitement.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay?” he echoed.

  “I need to stay until they’ve appointed my replacement, so I can do a proper handover. I don’t want to leave my team until I know they’ll be good. But, yeah,” I confirmed. “Then I’ll work for you for a few months.”

  ***

  I stared at the office building in front of me and took a deep breath.

  Right.

  Okay.

  I could do this.

  Although, I had to admit that I’d possibly gone slightly insane.

  Everyone except Layla and my parents seemed to think so, anyway.

  People in the office wondered why I’d given up what quite a few had described as a cushy position, which made me wonder if they really were that unaware of just how many hours I pushed each week. I informed them about my hourly rate as a consultant, which shut them up.

  Some of my former friends had suddenly gotten in touch, and after a few minutes of stilted conversation, they asked how I was doing. They moved on to mumble about how burn-out was common and nothing to be ashamed of, or something about either cancer or menopause. Their syrupy sweet concern didn’t feel genuine, but we went back to being ex-friends when I told them about the company I had my first assignment with, and how I loved being able to run five kilometers in considerably less than twenty-five minutes.

  I didn’t let any of that bother me much, though. It had felt good to hand in my resignation, and in the week I’d been off after saying goodbye to my team, I had figured out that it might be a little bit scary, but I needed to do this.

  It felt like a fresh start, and as I prepared material for my assignment in Jacob’s company, I felt that tingle of anticipation again. It would be fun, and I was good at what I did, so I’d find other jobs. And if I didn’t, then thanks to my crazy father, I could anyway mostly afford to not work at all if I felt so inclined.

  “Here we go,” I murmured to myself as I walked into the lobby.

  A young man waited for me in the reception and introduced himself as Dane. The receptionist produced a badge for me, and Dane shared that he would escort me to a conference room with the silly name Antarctica, which apparently was on the top floor.

  He did not specify that the name was silly, of course. That was my interpretation.

  “Antarctica,” I echoed and smiled at him while we waited for the elevator. “Let’s hope they cranked up the heat because I didn’t bring my mittens.”

  “There’s another one called Sahara. Perhaps you’ll be there next time,” he said with a laugh. “And I can sort out almost anything around here, so give me a call if it’s too cold.”

  “I will,” I said with a grin. “Thanks.”

  Six men were waiting in the conference room, and it was a struggle to not roll my eyes. What was it about global leadership teams and not inviting women into their little boys’ club?

  “Hello,” I said as I entered. “I believe you are expecting me...”

  A seventh man appeared from the left, and I trailed off. I’d known he’d be there but hadn’t expected him to look even better than I remembered, so it was a bit of a struggle to keep my composure.

  “Ms. Petrie,” he said calmly.

  I looked at the man I still hadn’t been able to push entirely out of my stupid, stupid mind, aimed what I hoped was a confident smile toward him, and added a raised brow for good measure.

  “Matthias.”

  ***

  Matthias

  Holy shit.

  Was what he thought but did in no way say because he was a fifty-two-year-old CEO standing in front of his leadership team, so he didn’t want to sound like a goddamned teenager.

  He’d thought she was pretty when they met on the beach and in the restaurant that first time. When they spent time together on the island, he’d enjoyed her company and had revised the word pretty to beautiful.

  Now he had to revise it again because she was fucking gorgeous, confidently walking into the room wearing a charcoal gray suit with a flash of something pink underneath, high heels, and her hair pulled back from her face.

  “Matthias,” she said with a small smirk.

  It looked as if she was silently making fun of him.

  All the blood in his body seemed to rush straight to his groin, and he had to press his lips together to stop himself from laughing.

  It wasn’t that he’d been impotent. Not at all. He just hadn’t had time to get horny, so he had nothing to worry about, and the fact that he hadn’t had sex in a year didn’t bother him at all. Or, not much anyway.

  When Nina had finished drawling out his name, she followed up by slowly raising a brow. Heat slid straight through his gut in a way that made him raise a hand to button his suit jacket, hoping that it would hide the fact that he apparently had absolutely nothing to worry about when it came to his dick getting hard.

  “Nina!” Len said into the silence, and Nina turned with a broad smile that wasn’t haughty at all. “Try calling me Leonard, and we’ll have issues,” he added with a wink Matthias thought looked ridiculous.

  “Can I call you Lennie?” Nina asked and got loud laughter from around the room in return.

  “Not if you want me to answer,” Len said calmly and kissed her goddamned cheek. “Good to have you here. How
are the girls? They like the deck, I assume?”

  Lennie? The girls? And what deck?

  Matthias stared at his friend and wondered when he’d become so chummy with Nina.

  “Let me introduce you to everyone,” he cut in and gave Len a glare.

  Len’s eyes widened, and his lips twitched, but he stepped back.

  “Right,” Nina said when Matthias had introduced his team. “I have prepared some material, so perhaps we should start with that?”

  Matthias had received her presentation from his father the day before, so he knew she came eminently prepared, and while she talked about process reviews and timelines, he let his mind wander slightly.

  He’d returned from the island, a little pissed off at his father for pushing him to do something about his marriage. Late that night, when he sat on his enormous back deck and watched Pippin run around like a maniac in the garden, it slowly sank in that the old man hadn’t been entirely wrong.

  Or, possibly entirely right, which hurt a little to admit.

  He did not look ten years older than he was, though. He wasn’t young anymore, but he wasn’t old. Not, old-old, anyway. And he wasn’t that out of shape.

  Without thinking it through, he went down on the deck to prove to himself that he could still do twenty pushups.

  Easily.

  Except, his arms shook as he slowly pushed up the fifteenth time, so he gave up and sank down with a curse.

  Fuck.

  The old fart had been right about that too.

  Right, he thought. Time to do something about just about everything. Start running again, Jacob had said. He decided that this would be the first thing he’d do the next day.

  It had been the second thing he did, though, right after calling an old friend who worked for one of the big law firms in the city.

  “Do you agree, Matthias?”

  He blinked once, glanced at the slide presentation, which showed Nina’s estimate on how much time she’d estimated to need from people in the various functions within finance.

  “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” he said, and damn if she didn’t smirk just a little.

  She’d known he wasn’t paying attention.

  “George suggested that I would use one of the conference rooms next to the financial control team as my temporary office, which I thought sounded like a good idea. Unless you would prefer something else?”

  Her lips twitched, and since he couldn’t care less about the allocation of space in the finance area, his did too.

  “Sounds good,” he said.

  She finished her presentation, answered questions from the men in the room, and turned toward him.

  “That was all I had for today,” she said. “Unless you have other questions, I guess George and I should get started?”

  George had been his father’s CFO, and Matthias hadn’t seen any need to make changes in the financial organization when he took over the reins. The man looked a little shell-shocked, and he would be after a presentation like the one they’d just seen. It had been detailed and very, very goal oriented. Good ol’ George would be busy for the next couple of months.

  “Okay,” Matthias said and got up to indicate that the formal part of the meeting was over. “I’ll let you do that, and we’ll meet later this week for a short status update.”

  “Okay,” she echoed and leaned over a table to grab her phone. “When would you...”

  Her mouth was moving, so he knew she was still talking, but Matthias didn’t hear a word.

  His goddamned brain had zeroed in on her ass and the image of what she’d looked like when he accidentally crawled into bed with her in his room on the island.

  Peach colored lace panties and nothing else.

  Right.

  He wasn’t a douche, so he wouldn’t chase her around the office like one.

  Outside the office?

  Hell yeah. Jacob had said something about how she wasn’t dating so she might not be interested, but perhaps she would be, and he’d totally do his best to get another look at those panties.

  The rush of anticipation surprised him, and he fumbled a little with his own phone to cover the reaction but couldn’t hold back a smile.

  This would be fun.

  Chapter Seven

  Friends

  Nina

  The presentation went well, and they asked some questions, although nothing I hadn’t been able to handle. George, the finance guy, looked tense and nervous, which was understandable. I would not have been happy if I were in his shoes.

  Not that I’d ever wear shoes like that because they were fugly, but still.

  “When would you like to meet?” I asked Matthias and opened my calendar.

  This was all for show and I had zero meetings scheduled, but I needed to do something to push back the wildly inappropriate image suddenly floating around in my brain.

  Gray boxer briefs. And nothing else.

  I cleared my throat and tried to look calm and in control.

  “Friday,” he said, looking at his own phone. “Six-thirty.”

  In the morning? Yikes.

  Or wasn’t it more likely he meant in the evening? Double yikes.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry about the timing, but my week is packed. I hope I’m not destroying your plans for the evening?”

  “Not a problem,” I said casually.

  Did he seriously want to have a status meeting at six-thirty in the evening on a Friday?

  “I can see if my assistant could shuffle some things around,” he offered.

  “You’re the boss. It’s not a problem,” I reiterated.

  And it wouldn’t be. It wasn’t as if I had a weekend of debauchery planned.

  “Right. Let’s clarify this, so everyone knows,” he said calmly. “I’m not your boss. I’ll still want regular updates, but you don’t report to me. You report to Jacob.”

  I’d known that, but hadn’t been sure if he did, and had not expected him to announce it in front of everyone.

  “Friday evening is fine, Matthias,” I said. “I don’t have anything planned.”

  “Good,” he said.

  Then he smiled, and the way his eyes lit up looked really good on him, so before I could stop myself, I smiled back.

  As I walked next to George toward the elevators, I wondered if agreeing to do Jacob this favor hadn’t, in fact, been incredibly stupid.

  Friday night meetings with Matthias was probably not a good way to get over the goddamned crush I had on him.

  ***

  “A bunch of us are having drinks after work today, do you want to come?”

  I smiled at Len but shook my head.

  “Sorry, can’t make it.” I made a small face and rolled my eyes. “Status meeting.”

  “Bummer. Text me if you want to join us later?”

  “Sure,” I said even though I knew that I wouldn’t.

  He disappeared, and I stared at my screen for a while.

  Matthias and I had had four status meetings in the two weeks I'd been with the company, which was three more than I'd expected, and the meetings hadn't exactly been what I expected either.

  The first had been short because Matthias’ phone had cut the whole thing off after less than ten minutes. He’d answered with a sigh, muttered something angrily, and closed the call with a curt, “Fuck it, I’ll be there.” Then he’d apologized, shared that something had come up, and rescheduled for the week after. I assumed it had been his wife who likely didn’t appreciate him having late meetings on a Friday night. The Jackie I remembered from my freshman year in college would not have accepted it anyway.

  The second meeting had been weird. We’d gone through what I was working on and how George was helping me in a way that was more a hindrance than actual assistance, which I assured him I would handle. I’d tried to keep it businesslike and professional but had gotten a distinct feeling that his mind was on something else.

  When we met the third t
ime, I started to wonder if Mr. Matthias Jones, CEO of a rather large multinational company, was ever so slightly bat-shit crazy. There was no reason for us to meet since I had no particular update to give him, so we would have nothing to talk about.

  I informed him of this, and he grinned and told me to please come anyway, and we’d have a cup of coffee. We ended up having coffee for almost an hour, and I’d again tried to keep it impersonal. Anything else would send a very wrong signal to a man who was sort of my boss and also married. It had been nice, though. We’d talked about Jacob and our kids and running. I was faster than him, which made him laugh, but I saw the look in his eyes and knew he’d push himself harder. Whatever because so would I.

  Then Matthias sent me an email asking if we could meet in his office Friday night at six-thirty, and I should have told him that no, this we could not do because I had a life, and this life was full of plans.

  It would have been a lie, though, and I sent a short email back confirming that we’d meet as per his request.

  Perhaps I should cancel and go out for drinks with Len and the others instead?

  I decided that it would be rude to cancel, but that I’d use the opportunity to inform Matthias that we really should cut back on the status meetings. I still cringed when I thought about how I’d slid down a very slippery slope with my former colleague, and I would not do something like that again.

  “Hey,” I said and stuck my head into his office.

  He was on the phone but waved a hand to indicate that I should enter his surprisingly cozy surroundings. I’d expected it to be the usual power suite with a large desk, gray walls, and a couple of custom-made prints of the company logo, preferably in a black and white retro style with a flash of red or bright blue. He’d instead opted for a smaller desk, some cabinets to the side, and a large seating area with a big sofa and a couple of chairs. When I walked in the first time, it took me less than a second to realize that Matthias had indeed decorated his room on the island himself. The color scheme was exactly the same, except the walls were cream-colored instead of white.

  There were a couple of familiar paintings on one wall, and I smiled when I saw the bold strokes and how the vibrant colors blended in a painfully beautiful way.