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“I didn’
t say that? I’m not going to hire a woman to work on any of my building sites unless she’s good, as good as a bloke.” He looked at Fluke again. “Is that bad?”
Fluke pocketed his phone. “Nope. It’s about merit. Best for the job. Look at teaching. There are twenty-seven teachers in my school. Five blokes. We just hired a new science teacher—another woman, because she was more experienced than the male candidate. That works for me. It should work for you too, Ant.”
They didn’t get it. They just didn’t understand where he was coming from. He’d lost out to sexual politics not merit. He had a right to be angry about that. “It might if I thought Bree was better at her job than me. She’s not.”
“Dead set, you know for sure?”
“What do you want for proof—a statistical analysis?” It wasn’t near as simple as that. If it was, he wouldn’t be reduced to sounding like a whinger and feeling like a victim, but they wouldn’t know that.
Mitch cut in. “Sounds like something you’d bet on.”
Ant ran a hand over his hair, stiff with salt. There was one way to stick this to them. Especially Dan with his freaking women hold up half the tent, or whatever the saying was. “You’re on. We have an annual office competition to build a fake share portfolio. The winner is the one who makes the most fake money for their fake client. It’s been going all year. We have a month left. I’m going to cream Bree. And when I do, will you accept the fact she’s not better than me?”
Mitch looked at Fluke. Fluke laughed. “If she wins, we win.”
“Right.” His coffee arrived. It took three seconds to finish it and want another one.
Mitch said, “What do we get? And we’re counting Dan in on this.”
Ant thought. “Dinner for you guys, Bel, Carlie and Alex, on me.”
“Nah, too easy,” said Mitch. “You just buy your way out of trouble. If Bree wins this has to hurt you.”
“It’s already hurt me—that’s the point.”
Fluke said, “I’ve got it. If Bree wins, you’ll bring her to dinner and formally apologise in front of us all for being a bastard who doubted her abilities.”
“Evil genius.” Mitch slapped Fluke on the back.
“Hold on, she’s a colleague, I have to work with her.”
Fluke rolled his eyes. “I can imagine how collegial you’re being right now.”
“Too hot for you?” Mitch had an instant hard on for this.
Ant looked down at the mess of coffee cups and plates on the table. There was no chance Bree would top him in this. None. This was as safe a bet as Sydney houses were investments. He fixed the boys with his best Machiavellian grin. “Never. You’re on. May the best,” he cleared his throat for emphasis, “man win.”
2: Big Swinging Tricks
She was The Senior Analyst. Which meant dancing in the tea room on her first day as The Senior Analyst was probably inappropriate. But it was 7am and no one else was in yet, so Bree turned the jug on and had a little boogie, shaking her tail feather and shimmying her other assets while it boiled.
This was her favourite part of the day. The office was library quiet, emptied of the ego and testosterone that usually drove it, the competitive spirit that made it the most exciting and exhausting job she’d ever had. When it was empty like this, she felt completely in control. In thirty minutes, the peace would be shattered, as would her belief she knew what she was doing. First to arrive would be the big boss, Bryan Petersen, grandson of the founder, and the smartest man in the room, any room. He scared the heck out of her. Fortunately senior analysts had very little to do with the big boss and she only had to worry about her smaller boss, Doug, and the other analysts in the equities research team. That meant Anthony.
She had to worry more about Anthony Gambese now that she was The Senior Analyst, because if pissed off had skin and could walk around, it was a tall, thick set, dark eyed, swarthy complexioned, sharp suit wearing, booming voiced, hunk of ridiculous, brooding man-boy of Italian origin.
She did a quick spin because it would be a cosmic joke if he was standing behind her. All clear. He rarely came in this early. He tended to slog through the other end of the day. Bree was turn the office lights on, Anthony was turn them off. They knew this about each other because on occasion the pattern got messed up and he came in early, but rarely as early as she did or she worked late, but rarely as late as he did.
On the whole this was a useful thing. It was easier to avoid Anthony when the entire team was in the office. Not that he was a bad guy. He was almost exactly the kind of guy she was attracted to, except he was a bit too intense, a bit too loud and confident. Unless he was mad about something. And then he was a lot too intense, incredibly loud and confident and scarily surly. Plus he was different to the other guys. He made working hard look easy.
And Bree had long ago sworn of tall, dark and surly men to whom things came too easily.
They’d been doing the almost territorial morning-evening ownership thing since they were hired, both of them keen to get through the traineeship, the probationary period as analysts and make it to senior analysts without getting bounced out of the program. Maybe a better word for what they were both like was determined. Though in Bree’s case her doggedness was based on being shit scared of failing and in Anthony’s... Ah, she had no idea, what drove Anthony to work like he did. He was the one everyone thought would get the senior analyst job.
She made a plunger full of coffee, filled her personal milk jug, grabbed a mug and danced her way to her workstation. When she next lifted her head out of weekend market reports the office was beginning to wake.
“So what happened at the track?” said Chris.
