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Chapter 6
Holland
Monday morning and the weekly sales status meeting came fast and ugly at eight a.m. I dreaded these things and might have over-caffeinated in preparation, which wasn’t helping with the nerves. For over a year, I’d been attending this meeting, listening to my shiny sales colleagues discuss how they were wining and dining clients, trying to up-sell different aspects of Cody’s technology or services. The challenge for most of them was that Cody Tech hadn’t developed anything new in a long time. The challenge for me was covering the fact that I was on the brink of developing exactly what these guys were all salivating for. But I needed to sell it myself if I wanted to make a dent here and write my own ticket—one that would finally get me the job I wanted and deserved.
I should have been focused on figuring out how the hell I was going to get help from someone in development without risking my idea being stolen or leaked. Instead, I found my mind wandering over to the way-too-hot Mr. Big Dick of the coffeehouse, Hale. I was repurposing the StrokeStat tech secretly, on my own, mostly because I didn’t know whom I could trust. The rest of the sales team was conniving and devious—at least the ones I knew well. It wouldn’t take much for them to figure out I was onto something and potentially beat me to the punch. And if I had what I thought I did—and if I could sell it at the top…then my career would be made. The only kink was that I really did need help with the tech development side, and so far Hale was the only one offering.
I’d basically bolted that night at the coffeehouse, because he knew more about me than I’d told him. He also knew Sam, though, and Sam knew what I did for Cody Tech. I told myself that Hale had probably just asked him about me.
I sat in the conference room surrounded by men and a few other women. The men lounged and chatted amicably with one another about the games they’d watched—or played—over the weekend, about the stock market, about restaurants and bars, or they stared at their phones. The women, in contrast, looked guarded and alert, ready to defend their territory and their right to play on this field. Even in sales, this company was heavily male dominated, and I couldn’t help that it put me on edge, irritated me. Add to that the constant pressure to one-up each other in the sales arena, and these meetings were always uncomfortable.
“Let’s get rolling, shall we?” Trey Alita stood at the head of the table, power suit in place and royal-blue tie perfectly knotted at his throat. He was a man’s man if ever there was one, and rumors of his overly large, uh, member, helped him maintain the image. I couldn’t help letting my eyes stray downward when given the chance. He tucked to the right, and sometimes, depending on his choice of trousers, and whether his jacket was buttoned or not, it was pretty damned clear that the rumors were based on fact. Today he stood right up against the table, and there was nothing to see since his jacket was buttoned and the table hit just below the belt. Too bad, I thought. It was sometimes a fun distraction during an otherwise miserable meeting.
“Kriesner, you start.”
Jacob Kriesner began talking, his too-low voice droning on to the point where I didn’t think there was a single person in the room who could actually be listening to what he was saying. We were too busy praying for him to be done saying it. Even Trey looked relieved when he finished.
We went around the table, offering statuses on our accounts, bragging, essentially, about the business we were bringing in or were soon to bring in. When my turn came, I discussed my current accounts, which were mostly in a maintenance phase. My business development efforts were suffering due to my focus on StrokeStat. But they’d click into high gear if I succeeded at that. I wasn’t going after a college team or one pro stats-keeper. I was going after Major League Baseball. The top. And getting a meeting would be a long shot.
“Need some new sales, Holland,” Trey said to me as the room cleared. “Haven’t brought anything in for a while. I hear things are a little unstable at the top since the CEO’s dad died. Sounds like the guy’s gone off the deep end and there’s a chance we’ll be acquired. You don’t want to be the low-hanging fruit if cuts get made.” He squeezed my shoulder a beat too long as he put this thought in my head and then left the room.
Wonderful. Because I needed more pressure. It was clear I needed to work harder. Faster. And I was going to need help.
—
I’d spent the first part of the week buried with work, every issue more urgent than the next. Even with a thousand fires to put out, I kept finding myself replaying the conversation I’d had with Hale, thinking about the way his dark eyes flashed and then dulled again as we spoke. There was something about the guy I couldn’t put my finger on. I was trying to decide if he could actually help me. Hale was arrogant and annoying, absolutely. But there’d been something shattered in his gaze, a look that reminded me of some of the foster kids I’d known when I was younger. It was nothing concrete, nothing the social workers could ever put a name to. It was a shadow lurking behind the features, a face the most damaged kids tried to hide. I’d probably imagined it. A guy with a body like that, a jawline like that—he was clearly handsome—he’d probably been recovering from a bender or something when I’d gotten that impression. Since our last talk, I’d tried to push him out of my mind. Still, I had the napkin with his number on it tacked to the little corkboard over my kitchen table at home and hadn’t quite explained to myself why I’d kept it. Except that maybe I really did intend to ask him for help.
I put it all out of my mind when Wednesday night rolled around. Dinner at my sister Delia’s house was a weekly ritual, and we had made a pact to be there for each other a long time ago. Neither of us would break plans without a solid reason. I needed those dinners, and her presence in my life.
I pulled into Delia’s driveway and my heart felt immediately lighter. I always dallied coming up the path to the door, thanks to Delia’s garden, which lined the walkway and filled the spaces beneath the front windows. Even with water restriction, even in the winter, Delia managed to keep her garden green and full of flowers.
Her house sparked pangs of longing in me. She’d gotten lucky in a lot of ways, but she had come from unlucky beginnings, just like me. When we’d been foster sisters in our last home, the one we’d each aged out of in turn, we talked about the idea of home. About what it meant to have a home, to make a home. We’d talked about the homes we saw other kids living in, our friends from school. We talked about the things we wanted, the families we’d build for ourselves. I had my list, and Delia gave me hell for it, but she had one, too. She just kept hers inside her head and a little less rigid.
“You planning to come in?” Carl stood on the doorstep, watching me stoop and sniff flowers and dawdle amid the greenery. He was broad and tall and dark, a beautiful specimen of a man.
I grinned at him and hurried along, standing on my tiptoes to give him a hug. “Hey, you.”
“Come on in,” he said, keeping a hand on my back. Carl had taken up a spot right next to Delia’s in my heart the moment they’d announced their engagement. He had the same pure heart and positive outlook. And their children owned a lot of my cardiac real estate, too. Delia literally spent her days in the middle of my ultimate dream—a family of her own. I lived in her dream on Wednesday nights.
“Ha-wen!” A tiny girl with a wild halo of soft black curls and huge amber eyes stretched pudgy arms out to me as I walked through the door.
“Hey, Livie,” I cooed, scooping her up as I handed Carl the bottle of wine I’d brought. “You look beautiful today,” I told her, taking in the excessive tulle tutu, over which was slung a workman’s belt with plastic hammer, wrench, and screwdrivers dangling practically to her feet.
She beamed at me, her small hand reaching out to feel a lock of my hair. “I’m Pwincess Builder,” she told me.
I carried the little girl into the kitchen where her bigger sister was standing on a stool next to Delia, stirring something on the stove.
“Hey, ladies,” I said, coming around the edge of the counter to hug them both. “Gigi, you’re getting so big! How old are you now?”
“You ask me that every week,” said the girl, pushing out a hip and working her attitude.
“So…thirteen?” I teased.
Gigi rolled her eyes at me. “I’m six.”
“And very dramatic,” Delia said. “Like her mommy.” She took the baby from my arms and then looked at me for a long moment. “You’re working too hard, I can see it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” When she widened her eyes at me in frustration, I smiled and said, “I’m not, I swear!”
