Engage (Billionaire Series) (9 page)

My
second appointment with Mathis began similarly to my first. This time, as I
waited in the lobby I watched a different secretary. Well, I think she was a
secretary. Tall and willowy with enormous breasts and a very low-cut shirt. She
was polishing her nails and flipping through a fashion magazine. After about
twenty minutes of watching her blonde hair swish over her shoulders and
wondering how it could possibly be that bouncy, she sent me a toothy grin and
said, “Mathis will see you now.”

“Thanks,”
I said, wondering whether it was normal etiquette to call your boss by his
first name. I walked to Mathis’ door and knocked. Today I was dressed a little
more informally in a pair of slacks and a sleeveless, very pale turquoise
blouse. It was a little cold in the air-conditioned building, and I shivered
slightly as Mathis opened the door of his office, ushering me inside.

I
looked up at his face, and was surprised to see that his jaw was clenched tight
and his fist was still clasped around his cell phone in a vice-like grip. He
looked stressed, bordering on angry.

“A-Are
you okay?” I hesitated. “Not a good time maybe?”

“I’m
fine,” Mathis brushed me off. “Just a business phone call. Have a seat.”

I took
a seat in one of the comfortable chairs and watched as Mathis crossed over to a
miniature fridge, drawing out a bottle of water and pouring some into a glass.
He seemed to calm down a little as he took a long gulp of water.

“Did
you want anything?” he asked as he put down his glass. “Coffee? Water?”

“No,
thanks,” I said. I shivered a little as the cold air from the fridge reached
me.

“Are
you cold?” he asked me, noticing my shiver, his light blue eyes sweeping over
my gooseflesh.

“A
little,” I said. “Silly of me to go around without a jacket in March.”

“I’ll
turn the air conditioning down,” he said in a chivalrous gesture which reminded
me of the old Mathis.

“Thanks,”
I said. For a moment it looked as if he wanted to say something else after
changing the thermostat, but he seemed to stop himself, and instead crossed the
office in a few long strides, seating himself opposite me.

“Alright,
let’s get started. I thought the first thing we’d do is review the histories of
the companies you’re invested in. That way you’ll have a better understanding
of their markets,” said Mathis, his tone professional.

The
next forty minutes or so were a deluge of information, most of it entirely new
to me. From time to time, Mathis would fire a question at me about one of the
businesses. If I got it right, a curt nod of acknowledgement was all I
received. If I got it wrong, another lecture followed, with a whole new barrage
of facts. Whatever else Mathis was, he still possessed that incredible focus
and dedication to his work that I remembered from that summer.

My own
focus had never been nearly as good except for when I was reading. I was
starting to flag, and Mathis could sense it.

“Alright,
Amanda. This is an easy one. What is the net worth of Dillinger, Inc.?”

“Dillinger?”
I frowned, trying to remember that one fact among the flood of information
which Mathis had provided me with. “A few hundred million?” I guessed.

“Pay
attention, Amanda. We went over this already,” Mathis sighed.

“Ugh!”
I pushed my hair back with my hands, feeling my brain melt like a marshmallow
over a campfire. “It’s just too much to remember all at once, Mathis. I need
some time to digest all this information.”

“You
just need to focus, Amanda. I know you can do it if you try,” Mathis said. His
tone bordered on encouraging, the soft, warm tone I remembered from the days
when we tried to climb the highest trees in the wood, so high that we could see
all the way back to Uncle Andy’s house.

I took
courage from his slightly more friendly tone. “Do you remember when we climbed
that old oak tree at Uncle Andy’s house in the country?”

“Amanda,
I don’t—” Mathis started, but I interrupted him.

“You
made a bet with me that you could climb higher than I could. I was so desperate
to prove you wrong. I raced you up, climbing on the branches that were too thin
for you, the ones that wouldn’t bear your weight. You shouted at me to be
careful,” I grinned, remembering the worried look on Mathis’ face as I sped on
ahead of him.

“I
remember,” Mathis said, a slight smile quirking his lips, the same smile which
had made my heart beat faster when I was fifteen years old. After all this
time, that particular effect didn’t seem to have dulled in the slightest. “You
wouldn’t listen to a word I said. All you were interested in doing was beating
me.”

“You
came up after me to make sure I was okay, though,” I added.

“And
one of those damn branches snapped beneath my weight,” Mathis laughed ruefully.
“I fell about ten feet before I caught myself on one of the lower branches. We
were quite the risk takers.”

“It was
scary,” I giggled at the memory. “Uncle Andy was so mad when we got back to the
house – you were all cut up and bleeding.”

“So
were you,” Mathis chuckled, his eyes crinkling up delightfully as he recalled
the incident, his expression almost… fond? “You must have set a world record
for how fast you climbed down to check I was okay.”

I
smiled in response to his warm expression, and for a moment we were the Mathis
and Amanda of over a decade ago, adventurous and reckless, laughing about all
the stupid things we had done together. I felt warm and secure as he looked at
me, his face relaxed into a smile and his eyes once again dancing with that
impish expression I remembered so well. It made my fingertips tingle and
something stir in my belly, as if someone had let loose fireworks inside me. It
was a peculiar, heady feeling.

In an
instant, though, Mathis seemed to remember himself. His friendly expression
faded back into an impassive mask, his light blue eyes grew cold and hard, and
he leaned back, pulling a book off his shelf.

“You’ll
need to read the first five chapters before our next meeting,” he said, his
voice as emotionless and lecturing as it had been before. It was as if his
brief lapse as we reminisced about the past never happened.

We
continued my training as before, with Mathis alternately drilling me and firing
questions at me. As he droned on about the different profit types, I remembered
the aftermath of the day in the tree.

“Mathis!”
I had cried as I watched the branch crack and his body fall down through a
canopy of leaves. Before I could pull together a rational thought I was
swinging down the thin branches like a monkey, not caring about the scratches
and scrapes I received as I went. In a matter of seconds I was down by his
side, on a wide branch about ten feet from the ground. “Are you okay? Are you
hurt?”

Mathis
looked at me in a daze, obviously still processing what had just happened. “How
did you get down here so fast?” he asked me with a slight frown. “Did you fall
too? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.
I took the long route down. Does anything hurt? Did you hit your head?”

“No, I’m
fine – but you’re hurt!” He gestured to a scratch on my arm, which was bleeding
slightly.

“It’s
just a scratch,” I insisted. “Now let’s get down from this tree and I’m going
to make sure you’re alright. You can count to ten for me and recite the names
of the Presidents, things like that.”

“Amanda,
I couldn’t recite the names of all the Presidents even before I fell out of a
tree,” Mathis laughed. “But you’re right – we should go get cleaned up.”

“I – I’m
sorry I made you fall,” I burst out. “I should have been more careful.”

“No,
I
should have been more careful,” Mathis replied. “I was so worried about you
that I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Then
it is my fault,” I said guiltily.

“No – it was mine,” Mathis insisted. “I should have known that you could more
than take care of yourself. You’re amazing, Amanda – there’s so much more to
you than meets the eye. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”

“Is
that a good thing?” I asked uncertainly.

Mathis
just laughed at me. “Let’s get back to the house. Hope your uncle doesn’t see
us like this. He’s going to lose his shit.”

“Amanda!”
The present-day Mathis interrupted my reverie. “Don’t space out like that! This
is important!”

“Sorry,”
I apologized, my face going red. “I was still remembering that day with the
tree…” part of me hoped that Mathis would again break through his cold façade,
but he just frowned at me.

“This
isn’t the time for daydreaming. Your uncle wanted you to know this and I don’t
have all the time in the world to teach you. I’m just doing a favor for your
uncle – I owe him that much.”

The
words bit through me like a bitter wind. Of course. Mathis was probably just as
upset as I was about Uncle Andy, if not more so. It must be painful for him to
be reminded about it day after day by my presence. Maybe that was why he was
acting so coldly towards me? Or maybe, as he had said, he was just doing a
favor for my uncle. I was less than nothing to him.

It took
about twenty more minutes for Mathis to realize that my mind was not entirely
there anymore. Although I wanted to impress him with my dedication and focus
and prove to him that I was both willing and able to learn, the idea that
Mathis was acting so distantly towards me because of my uncle was plaguing me,
and it was all I could do to listen to Mathis instead of wondering whether
Mathis was afraid of showing his true feelings, or whether he really didn’t
have any interest in being around me. Perhaps I was simply a chore to him…

“Alright,
we’ll pick up where we left of in our next session,” Mathis sighed. “Make sure
you read those chapters – I will assume you already have a full understanding
of all the topics covered in them, so it will be difficult for you if you don’t
put in the effort.”

“I’ll
read them,” I stated confidently.

“Excellent.
In that case, you can leave for today.”

“Wait!”
I’d spoken before I’d had time to think it through, and Mathis paused, quirking
one eyebrow at me in expectation.

“You
have something else to add?” he asked.

“Just –
why weren’t you there? Why weren’t you at Uncle Andy’s funeral or at his will
reading? I looked for you. I just… I guess I thought you’d be there,” I
finished lamely. I was going to say ‘I thought you cared about him’, but I didn’t
want to say anything so hurtful.

“I was
there,” Mathis said coolly.

“But –
I didn’t see you,” I said, confused. If he had been there, I was certain I
couldn’t have missed him. At six foot three, with his imposing stature and
piercing blue eyes, I was sure that nobody in the room would have missed him.

“I was
there,” Mathis repeated. “He meant a lot to me – I owe him my success, my
fortune, and my life. You, of all people, should know that. I simply did not
wish to make myself known.”

“Oh,
okay. Right,” I said. I wondered whether he meant he did not want to make
himself known to the other guests – or just to me. I thought about asking him,
but his impassive face was discouraging and I felt once again like a silly
schoolgirl with a crush – not in the same league as him, and with no right to
ask such personal questions.

“If
that is all,” said Mathis. “I’ll see you for our next training session.”

“Yeah,
I’ll see you next time then,” I said.

“Goodbye,
Amanda,” he said, and gave me one of his quirky, charming smiles.