Breene, K F - Growing Pains 01 (10 page)

“The woman you are expecting is the
one you’ve been speaking of?” Ray asked in a mild voice.

Ray was a good friend. A longtime
friend. He was the guy who had gotten Sean into sales. He was the one who
looked at Sean like Sean was looking at Marcus and Krista. Sean was a rock star
with Ray at his back, which was why he insisted to John that if he got the
account, he needed Ray to lock it down.

It just so happened there was an
opening for Sales anyway. Perfect timing.

“Yes. Now I wish I hadn’t. You’ll
be surprised. I doubt she’s what you’ve envisioned.”

“She has to be special to catch
your eye.”

“Catch it and hold it. That’s not
why I want her on this team, though.”

“You’ve said.”

“I just want to make that clear.
And try not to speak of her to others. She isn’t well liked by the women of
this company.”

“I thought you said she was sweet.”

“She is, but she’s also beautiful,
if a bit nerdy. I’ve not met one woman that wasn’t jealous. Plus, she’s in
Research. She never had a chance.”

“Research is…not well liked?”

Sean smiled. “Indescribable. You
have to experience it firsthand. I don’t want to ruin the surprise. I’ll take
you to meet the department head after we talk to Krista.”

“And you’re sure she’ll come?”

Sean sighed and fidgeted. “No, I’m
not. I’m not sure. And if she does, I’m not sure she’ll do it by
twelve o’clock
.”

“What happens if she doesn’t?”

“We’re sunk, probably. I am banking
on Krista being able to work with Marcus. I have a feeling about it. She’s
insightful. If anyone can crack his code, she will. She’ll find a way. She’ll
sit and stew over it until she comes up with something. She hates failing worse
than me, I think. If we don’t get her, and Marcus gets a run-of-the-mill
researcher… he’ll be useless. It’ll all fall apart.”

“So we better hope she shows in
time.”

“Yes.”

~*~*~*~

“Well, I have to do it
sometime—might as well do it now,” Krista said to her Lucky Mug. “Even though I
don’t wanna.”

Mustering her resolve, she gathered
up her notebook and pen, and headed toward Sean’s office. If she had to go to
Mr. Montgomery with her grievances, she needed to know how to thoroughly
dissect Sean’s arguments to better her side of things. She knew how to debate.
Hopefully better than Sean.

En route she worked on an image of
health. She didn’t want to look as ragged as she felt. It wasn’t easy. She felt
like the smell of puke. Not the look of it, not the actual stuff, but the smell
of it. That was as bad as it got. That stuff lingers!

On the right floor, she walked to
the office and angled herself in such a way that she could look through the
window. Maybe he wouldn’t be there. Maybe he’d gotten hit by a car over the
weekend was on bed rest.

His shades were drawn.

Merde! Still flying blind. Still in
pain.

She slowly walked closer to the
open door. She had a death grip on her Lucky Mug, hoping it would act as a
shield to ward off evil spirits. As she neared, she heard subdued male voices.

With a flash of genius, she
gingerly stuck her head in the doorway with her hand poised to knock. This way,
she could eavesdrop for a second before actually going through with announcing
herself. If foul winds blew, she would abandon ship immediately. If she was
caught, she would glance to her hand as if to say, “Oh, hello, I was just about
to knock.”

Before she could get her
eavesdropping plan into action, however, Sean glanced up from his perch on the
edge of his desk, and caught her. She nearly yelled, “AH!” like when you’re
about to sneak up on someone and they turned around at the last second and
caught you in the act.

Here she was, in the snake pit. It
was scary. She couldn’t bring herself to actually cross the threshold into
worse things. It was against nature.

She noticed that Sean didn’t look
surprised to see her. As his eyes lit on her face, she saw a flicker of
recognition before he turned back to his conversation and waved her in. It
didn’t bode well.

“Krista. Come in. Please,” Sean
said smoothly.

She inched into the office,
suddenly deciding she didn’t want to confront him. She wanted to hide. But she
realized at the same time that it was too late for those types of decisions.

She made her way in and saw that he
was talking to a man she didn’t recognize. The man was in his early forties,
slightly overweight, and had a mellow and gentle face. He was not especially
attractive, his ring said married, and he was dressed in a suit that probably
came from yesteryear. In essence, he was Sean’s exact opposite.

“Sit, please, Krista,” Sean said
again as he opened his body to include her and the stranger both. “I had hoped
to talk with you.”

Krista knew in a theoretical sort
of way that she needed to assert herself. She’d read that somewhere—the person in
control was the one who set the tone. This was her grievance, so she needed to
set the bar.

“Great, Sean. I actually wanted to
have a word with you, also,” she said brusquely, swallowing back her up-chuck
reflex.

Butterflies and wine did not mix.
World’s worst combo.

Sean quirked an eyebrow. “Well, by
all means, please.”

Was that a smirk he was trying to
hide? That wasn’t what she was going for.

“Let the records show that it is
8:01 a.m
,” Sean said to the stranger. The
stranger nodded.

Krista was befuddled.
“Whhhaaaaiiiieeeee?”

Sean was definitely trying not to
smile. “Was that a what, or a why?”

Krista shook her head. This was off
to a bad start. Unfortunately, she couldn’t sprint out now. “Never mind.”

Sean nodded and got up to move
around his desk. It was probably another power play, but Krista had no idea
what to do to counter it. She couldn’t very well tell him not to sit in his own
chair in his own office.

She decided to ignore it. Instead,
she noticed his agile body was perfectly outlined in Dockers and a button-down
shirt. She was hypnotized by his butt for exactly the five seconds it was in
view.

Coming out of her visual coma, she
planted her feet in her own power position with death grip on her lucky mug.
She was ready to battle. He would be a worthy adversary, but mama didn’t raise
no chump. Hot or not, dressed like royalty or not, she would not let him bowl
her over.

Inner pep-talk completed, she
looked at the stranger sitting in one of the two visitor chairs. The power
struggle didn’t seem to faze him; he was looking at her good-naturedly. It was
slightly unsettling.

“Oh, don’t mind Ray. He’s my
partner in crime. We’re working as a team now, so everything we do will mirror
each other,” Sean said this as his masculine fingers steepled in front of his
face. He lounged back lazily in his cushy leather chair, elbows resting on the
armrests. His eyes were a murky green from the harsh light overhead. They
pinned her to her spot.

Suddenly the power struggle seemed
a little one-sided…

“Uh…well, I had hoped to discuss
the meeting on Friday. The presentation, I mean,” She said hesitantly, hoping
the stranger, which must be a new hire, would get the clue and take off.

“Sure. Fire away,” Sean replied,
not taking the hint. She had a feeling he knew exactly what she was getting at,
and wasn’t planning on taking the bait.

So be it. Witnesses were good.

“Right. I was wondering why I was
ushered out of the conference room before the meeting was done?”

“You were no longer needed.” It
came out as a friendly, matter-of-fact statement.

This blasé attitude had her
backpedaling. She wasn’t sure if she should be mad, or understanding.

She chose mad. Otherwise, what was
she doing there? She’d look pretty stupid if she gave up already.

“They might have wanted to ask me
more questions,” she persisted with a hint of sauce in her voice. Only a hint,
though, just in case she was in the wrong.

“I didn’t want them dwelling on the
fact that we didn’t have any field research in the demographic. You leaving
made it easier to talk around that fact.”

Good point. Crap. Her brain worked
furiously to come up with more reasons. She was looking a teensy bit foolish at
the moment. “But…I was the only one who was asked to leave. Surely that looked
odd.” She barely kept the question out of her voice.

“I made an excuse for you.”

She was suddenly feeling like a
pawn in a game of chess. This guy might be out of her league just a
little—hell, who was she fooling, a ton!

She gritted her teeth and steeled
her determination. She hardened her voice in a last-ditch effort and laid it
all out there. “You see, I was under the impression that we were united as a
team. We were presenting in a unified front. But I had to introduce myself. Yet
I wasn’t told that would be the protocol, which made me look stupid. Then at
the end I had to answer a question with a made-up answer because you didn’t
step up. We were a team going in, but then you fed me to the wolves.”

“More like a pack of hyenas.”

…………..? Krista blinked a half dozen
times.

Sean picked up the phone and started
dialing. This was another power play tactic, she was sure of it. They were in
the middle of a serious conversation, but he would render her unimportant by
doing other things. In other words, she didn’t have his undivided attention.
The sneaky bastard.

Whatever, she could play this game,
too. In fact, a break from critical thinking was welcomed, her head was
pounding. She put her lucky mug on the desk and leaned back, mirroring the guy
next to her, and waited patiently for Sean to get off the phone.

“Hyenas, not wolves.” He said into
the receiver. It took her a minute to realize he was talking to her. “They
weren’t smart enough to be wolves. Hello, John?”

It felt like cold water was
splashed in her face. Sean was calling his boss. That couldn’t be good.

She nearly grabbed her lucky mug in
panic, but that would lose the power struggle—assuming she had any power to
begin with. Instead, she pretended like nothing was amiss and leaned back in
her chair. For good measure, she crossed one leg over the other.

She used the down-time to pretend
her head wasn’t exploding, and that she didn’t need to throw up. She thought of
the beach, then her bed. She tried her best to emulate a breezy life, cutting
out this office and her overwhelming urge to bury her head in her shirt and
hope it’d all just go away. Maintaining any degree of normalcy was made that
much harder, though, with the guy next to her and his friendly smile. He looked
worried.

“Yeah,” Sean was saying, “I have
Krista in my office.” He looked up at her. His eyes sparkled burnished-green
fire as they caught the light. A surge of heat erupted in her groin, scurrying
the butterflies in her stomach.

Oh God, please don’t throw up!

That guy next to her eyeballed her
again. Did he realize how exasperating that was? She was concentrating on not
throwing up. She didn’t have time to focus on his judgments!

“Do you have a minute?” Sean was
saying, as he continued to look at her. “...Yeah, Krista from Research
is--….Yeah, she came first thi--…Yeah…Great.”

He hung up the phone and leaned
back in his chair. His gaze flickered to her lucky mug, then to Ray. “Ray,
would you mind getting John a chair? He won’t use it, but the pretense is
always nice.”

“No problem,” Ray said as he left
the office, closing the door on his way out. That was the wrong decision for
air flow. Now she was in a medium-sized room with warm air and Sean’s stinky
scent. Usually, she loved the smell. Today, smell of any kind was an enemy.

She gulped, but did her best to
remain calm and unaffected. She grabbed her mug and took a sip. Cold coffee.
That did not help her queasy stomach.

She took a deep breath and
pretended she wasn’t sweating. This whole situation was going completely
pear-shaped.

“In response to your question,”
Sean said, still leaning back in his chair, his eyes following the progression
of the mug. “I didn’t want you in the room to distract our clients. Two of them
didn’t hear a word from your mouth or notice a line from your power-point
presentation. The other one only caught the broad strokes.”

“Yeah, I know the information is
boring,” she said, fanning herself, eyeing the trash can again, “but it was all
I had to work with. Our department is the facts, not the visual stimulation.”

“Oh, you provided ample
stimulation, just not in the direction that was conducive to the meeting.” He
had a mouthwatering, devilish grin on his face behind his steeped fingers. His
bemused eyes willed her to share the joke. Unfortunately, she didn’t think that
kind of humor was funny.

At least not when he said it.

“Okay, well that may be true,
through no fault of mine since I was appropriately dressed, but that one client
did pay attention and asked a question that I had no business answering. You
should have answered it.”

“But he asked you.”

“It wasn’t a question for me, as
you well know, Jingle-Jangle. You’re a good enough salesman to know your role.”

“Jingle--?” Sean shook his head
with a smile, then got serious. That focused look was back. “Yes, I am. And
do.”

To her undying relief, he reached
back and switched on the fan before he continued. “My role is to get that sale.
To get that account. Your role is to help me do that. The question was asked of
you. I thought you could handle answering it without being mothered or treated
like a puppet.”

“But isn’t that just what you did?
Treat me like a puppet?”

Sean unexpectedly gave that
uninhibited laugh she loved, the one that hinted of another guy, a carefree guy
she’d like to know. Her heart started pounding again. She looked away from his
sparkling green eyes as her breath ran short.