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I let Nicole handle pretty much everything that came up, except a few questions about my background and Benson Corp. in general.
Oddly, nobody asked about the company’s shaky financial situation. Berg seemed to have kept an unusually tight lid on it. Small companies like this were prime gossip mills where secrets like that were tough to hide.
Eventually Wanda checked her watch and called an end to the lunch. After a series of waves and handshakes, it was just Nicole, Wanda, and me left at the table.
“Seemed okay to me. How do you think it went?” Nicole asked Wanda.
Wanda nodded. “They were pretty nervous, but you settled them down quite nicely. They like you,” she said, looking at me.
“I like them too. I think you have a good crew.” That seemed like the proper reply, and it was honest.
Nicole stood. “We need to get back to the office so Mr. B here can get back to the spreadsheets he loves so much.”
We said our goodbyes, and I held my tongue until we were outside the store. “You’ve got quite a group there.”
“Yes,wedo.” Her demeanor indicated she had more to say than that, but it took a couple of steps for her to get it out. “You should’ve stepped in on the question about Smith’s. It would’ve gone over better if you’d answered it.”
“Probably right, but I don’t want to be locked in just yet,” I said.
“Right. Rationalizing.” She turned away quickly.
“That’s not fair.”
Dad had been pretty adamant that he thought a merger was the course of action to take, but I was the one on the ground here.
Reflecting on what I’d seen so far, Rossi’s was completely unlike Smith’s. A consolidation might look obvious to the Harold types from a distance, but with shopping experiences as different as they were, I couldn’t see much in the way of customer overlap. But this would take more than a day to figure out. I tried not to watch Nicole’s ass as she walked confidently ahead of me to the car.
I failed as I remembered how her boob had felt under my hand Monday morning—warm, soft, inviting, tempting. Everything about Nicole was tempting, but it was more than that. She had a confidence today I hadn’t seen before. In the store, she was in her element, knowledgeable, authoritative, and confident. She was the total package. In this business she had what it took to succeed, even if she had gone to the wrong business school.
She neared the car. “Didn’t you notice anything special about Rossi’s today?”
“Yes,” I said before I could stop myself.
“What?”
She meant the store. I meant her, and now I was caught.
“A thoroughly competent woman.” I looked back at the car coming up behind us.
“Which one?” she asked as she stopped and turned around.
Her rapid stop caught me off guard. I pulled up short, but not before closing to a less-than-professional distance.
She looked up at me.
I held her eyes with mine. “I’m looking at her.”
A cute, pink insta-blush overtook her face as we stood inches from one another. “Uh…”
I didn’t let my gaze wander as a flood of emotions passed between us. Silent questions about what the other felt, what we should do next, what it would feel like if we did—or at least it felt that way to me.
Her lips parted for second. Did she feel it? Her eyes said yes a hundred times over.
A car honked one parking row over. She looked that direction and stepped back.
The moment evaporated.
“Thank you,” she said, turning away.
