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“I’ll pick you up Monday, Holland.”
I nodded, feeling confused as my mind turned over this strange development. “Bye, Oliver.” I let the name slide off my tongue as the door shut.
By Monday morning, I had some dark suspicions about why Oliver had decided to tell me his real name, most of which revolved around my memory of the photos hanging in my company’s lobby and the striking resemblance he bore to the CEO. When a Mercedes coupe pulled up at my apartment building just before eight and Oliver stepped out in a tailored suit with his hair cut short and the three-day scruff trimmed to a very manicured shadow, the suspicions I’d been trying to ignore were confirmed.
Oliver was Oliver Cody. As in Cody Technology. As in the CEO of my company, and therefore my boss. Actually, my boss’s boss.
I walked out the front door to meet him, my fury barely contained. “You lied to me,” I hissed.
“Good morning,” he said, a wary smile on his too-handsome face. He opened the passenger door and saw me settled before closing it behind me and getting in on the other side.
Once he was seated, I turned and let him have it. “How the hell could you not tell me who you are? From the very first moment? You let me believe you were some kind of down-and-out developer! Some . . . somenobody!”
“Holland,” he said, but I wasn’t done.
“No! You made a fool of me, lettingme whine to you about the hiring process . . . and I just read an email telling me the analyst I told you about was demoted last Friday! You did that, didn’t you?” Pamela had forwarded the email to me. Pamela, my confidante at work.Oliver’s secretary.I hadn’t told her anything about my involvement with the mysterious guy in the coffeehouse, Hale. I should have. She would have put two and two together much more quickly than I had.
“He didn’t deserve the position. He has the opportunity to work back up to it. The demotion was based on a review of his work.”
“I don’t care! That wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t who you are, and if you hadn’t been pretending to be someone else! Who does that? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Oliver didn’t answer, just looked away to stare at his hands on the steering wheel. After a long silence, he said, “I wanted to tell you. I tried . . .”
“I didn’t stop you.”
He looked sad again, and I fought to keep the anger burning inside me. He’d been dishonest, he’d lied. That was a hard thing for me to overlook, even when his very presence seemed to make the air between us vibrate, even when every cell in my body was screaming for me to forgive him and climb into his lap. I had another thought as we sat there at the curb, an image of the angry man I’d seen on the executive floor flashed into my mind. “That was you,” I whispered, realizing the truth of it. “You were up in the executive tower that night, a few days before I met you, throwing things and screaming!”
“I let things get a little out of control.”
“I saw you. I sent security up.”
He looked at me, an eyebrow lifted and a tiny smile lifting one corner of his mouth.
“Jesus,” I breathed. “Who does that? What were you so angry about?”
He cleared his throat. “We need to get going if we’re going to make the meeting. Shall I still come? I could just drop you and wait in the parking lot.”
I stared at my hands on my lap. I wanted to go back in time and do a better job resisting him in the first place. I wanted to go back and stick to my plan. But it was too late. And I wasn’t confident enough about presenting the technology myself. I’d let him design it out from under me, in the guise of helping me. My blood began to heat again as my brain spun. What the hell could his actual angle even be? He was the CEO already. It wasn’t like he hoped to climb the corporate ladder based on this big win.
“Let’s go,” I bit out. I needed to win this account. I needed to impress the MLB people and get them to commit. And when I’d done that, secured my position and hopefully a raise, I’d figure everything else out. “One thing,” I said as Oliver guided the little car away from the curb. “Your career is already made, Mr. Big Dick CEO, but this is my chance. Or it was supposed to be. If you’re involved . . .” Would the credit all go to him?
“The credit is yours. It was your idea. I just helped refine a good technology repurposed by a smart analyst. You might end up saving the company with this,Holland.” We drove in silence for a moment, and then he grinned and shot me a look. “‘Big Dick CEO’?”
I glared at him. I couldn’t worry about what he thought of my nickname for him—which was way more appropriate than “Hale,” by the way—and I couldn’t think about whatever trouble Cody Tech might be in. I had too much to think about getting ready to present. Everything else—the ferocious anger I felt at Oliver for lying to me, the insatiable lust welling up inside me in reaction to seeing him in that suit, the confusion I felt over why he’d done what he did—it would all have to wait.
We rode in silence the rest of the way to the meeting, with the exception of Oliver saying very quietly before we got out of the car, “You look amazing, by the way.” And then, as we walked into the building, his breath hot on my neck as he whispered in my ear, “You’ll kill it. I’ve got faith in you.”
When we arrived in the lobby, we were ushered to a boardroom and introductions were made, though it seemed Oliver needed little introduction.
We met with Anton Mitchell and four other men, though once Oliver had been identified as the CEO of Cody Tech, the baseball people seemed to decide to take the meeting more seriously, and three more men and a woman joined us at the long table. I was nervous as hell, my hands sweating and my voice shaking as I began introducing the idea. I scanned the room of faces as I spoke, each of them impassive and skeptical as I went through my slides, and I began to feel like I was bombing, like this entire thing was a bust. In desperation, I let my eyes drift to Oliver’s. He smiledand nodded, the dark orbs glinting and a faint smile on his lips. Despite my anger with him, it was a comfort to see him sitting there, to feel his support. To know I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t imagine what this would have been like without him here. Especially once it was time to dig into the details of the technology.
“I’m going to step aside for a moment and let Mr. Cody present the technical aspects of this solution,” I told the group, relieved to be about to drop out of the spotlight for a few minutes.
Oliver dropped a hand on my shoulder as we passed at the side of the room, and I handed him the clicker to advance the slides. “Great job,” he whispered.
I wasn’t sure I could trust his sincerity, but it was nice to hear. I sat next to one of the men we’d been introduced to and turned to listen to Oliver.
“Most of you know how Cody Tech got started,” he said. “But just in case you don’t, I’ll bore you with the story for just a moment because it’s pertinent to what Ms. O’Dell and I are here showing you today.” In front of the room, dressed in a charcoal suit and an emerald-green tie, Oliver looked every bit the CEO, and nothing like the down-and-out jerk I’d met at the coffeehouse. He held himself with complete confidence as he moved fluidly in the front of the room, making eye contact with each person in attendance, a slight smile making the cut of his jaw less threatening. He was like a big cat, prowling before it makes a kill.
