“Our daughter is not getting a pony.”
“Well, you’d have plenty of space if you wanted one,” I say. “Your house is big enough. I’m pretty sure you could put a stable in the backyard.”
“Don’t give him any ideas!” Sophie says, laughing. “He’ll actually buy a pony. We do not need a pony.”
Matt rubs his daughter’s cheek. “Don’t listen to Mom. You can have whatever you want.”
“This house really is incredible,” Damien adds.
Sophie rolls her eyes. “You say that like yours isn’t just as nice. We live in the same neighborhood!”
That’s another good thing about the move. Not only did Damien and I buy a real house, but we bought one two blocks from Sophie and Matt. It’s nice to have familiar faces around since none of us are familiar with New York.
We live about twenty minutes north of the city. The guys can commute in for hockey, but we’re far enough away that we can live a normal non-city life. I didn’t mind Hartford, but New York City would’ve been too much for me. Plus, I like having a back yard. It’ll be perfect for when Damien and I have kids in the future.
Damien meets my eyes, asking me a silent question. I nod, unable to hide my grin.
“So,” Damien begins. “We wanted to come meet Louise, of course, but there’s something else we came here to talk about.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Better than okay. Jenna and I are engaged!”
Sophie squeals and pulls me in for a hug. “Oh my God! I knew it! I’m so happy for you. Where is the ring?”
I take it out of my pocket. We wanted to make an announcement, so I haven’t been wearing it.
It’s a beautiful three-stone ring with a silver band. It’s exactly what I always dreamed my engagement ring would look like. Damien picked well. I think Melonie helped him, because I disclosed my ring preference to her. That’s why she’s going to be my maid of honor.
“It’s gorgeous!” Sophie exclaims. “When did this happen?”
“Last weekend when we went home to Florida. I wanted our families to be involved.”
“And I had no idea, which is annoying. I’m usually better at knowing everything that is happening around me!”
“This is amazing. I’m so happy for you both!” Sophie says.
Matt claps Damien on the back. “Welcome to the club, man. Does this mean I can rag on you the way you did me?”
“You can. As long as you agree to be a groomsman.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“And Sophie, I want you to be a bridesmaid!”
Sophie wipes a tear from her eye. “Sorry, I’m still emotional from the pregnancy. Yes, I would be honored to be in your wedding! I’ll even wear a super ugly dress.”
I laugh. “I would never make you do that. The bridesmaid dresses will be beautiful. I already have a color scheme picked out.”
“If you need any planning help, let me know. It’s only been a year since my wedding. I still have most of my materials.”
“I’d love that, thank you.”
We continue to talk about my future wedding, and I’m in bliss. A year and two months ago, Damien was moving to Connecticut to start his life on a new AHL team. We were still just best friends, and he was against every having a relationship.
Now, he’s in the NHL, and we’re engaged.
It’s crazy the difference a year makes.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Chapter One
Melody
My hands shake as I hit the button for the seventh floor inside the elevator. Technically, the Snax offices start on the fourth floor, but my new job is as an assistant to one of the co-CEO’s, which means I get to spend all my time on the executive floor. I’ve heard the view from up there is amazing, especially in the fall.
The elevator seems to take ten years to reach its destination. The building is only seven floors high. Why is it taking forever?
The elevator finally dings and the doors open. I had my final interview here three weeks ago, but the place looks totally different now that I’m working here officially. I take in the floor to ceiling windows, with a beautiful view of the park below and all the trees with changing leaves. The carpet is light, so I’m terrified I’m going to spill something on it. I’ll have to take my lunch elsewhere.
I look around for someone to tell me where I’m supposed to be, but the floor is completely empty. There are two offices, one on each side of the far wall, each with a desk in front of it. I assume one of those is mine. The one to the right looks relatively empty.
I head for the office and knock on the door, expecting to find my boss, Jack Colter, there. Instead, a younger guy with a scruffy face and light blonde hair opens the door. My heart races. Who is this attractive man? He’s exactly my type. Tall, blonde, with piercing blue eyes that can probably see directly into my soul.
“Can I help you?” he asks, his voice harsh. His eyes study my body. Does he feel the electricity between us, or is it just me? “We don’t want your girl scout cookies.”
“Excuse me?” I say. Okay, so the guy is hot, but he’s clearly an asshole.
The man rolls his eyes. “Whatever it is you’re selling, we’re not interested. If you’re here for the assistant position, it has already been filled. Goodbye now.”
He tries to close the door, but I stick out my foot to stop it. I’m glad I wore comfortable black flats instead of heels. “I am aware the position has been filled. By me. Now if you could point me in the direction of Jack Colter, I’ll be on my way.”
“Figures you’re Jack’s assistant,” he says. “I’m Cameron. Do your job and stay out of my way. Jack’s office is on the other side.”
Cameron points to the far office. I nod, turn on my heel, and march triumphantly towards my boss’s office. It figures that Jack’s office has a glass door. I’ve heard from other employees that Jack is the approachable one while Cameron is the one to avoid.
Through the clear door, I see Jack hold up a finger for me to wait. He finishes up his phone call and joins me outside his office.
“Hi, Melody,” he says. “Sorry, I wanted to meet you downstairs, but I got stuck on a call with a potential new vendor. Did you find the place okay?”
“I did,” I say. I decide against tattling on his rude brother. I’m not sure how close Jack and Cameron are, but I don’t want to get involved in any family drama, nor do I want to start it. “Thank you again for this job, Mr. Colter. I’m really excited to work with you and learn more about Snax.”
Jack grins. “Please, call me Jack. It gets confusing with three Mr. Colter’s around.”
I laugh. Snax was started by Jack and Cameron’s father, who still owns the company. He told me in our initial interview that he and Cameron prefer their first names to avoid any confusion. It’ll take some getting used to, but I like the informality of the office space. It’s a huge difference compared to my last job.
I shake away the thought. I really don’t want to go down that road right now.
Jack claps his hands together. “Okay, how about a tour? I know you saw some of the space during your interviews, but I want you to get a feel for everything. You’ll be running things between different departments for me, so it’s important that you know where everyone is.”
I nod. “That sounds great. Can I put my things down?”
“Oh, of course. Your desk is right here.” He gestures towards a messy desk. “Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to clean it up since my last assistant left.”
“No, worries. I’ll take care of it.”
“Perfect. That way, you can organize it how you like. You’ll get a feel for what you’ll need to have. My only request is that you have a specific bin where I can put paperwork every morning. That’ll basically be your duties for the entire day.”
“I’ll make sure to label a bin for that.”
I set my laptop bag on the messy des
k, along with my lunchbox. There are only four people on the executive floor, so it should be safe there. Cameron was a jerk, but I doubt he’ll steal from me. He and Jack are both billionaires. They don’t need my five-year-old laptop. I haven’t met Cameron’s assistant yet, but I’m going to assume she won’t take my things. If she does, it’ll be pretty obvious who the only suspect is.
“I’m ready,” I tell Jack. He’s fiddling with his phone, answering a text.
Jack looks up like he forgot I was there. He quickly pockets his phone and claps his hands again. He did this like a hundred times in our interview, so it must be his go-to move. “Great. Let’s go. We’ll start from the fourth floor and work our way up.”
“Sounds great.”
We take the elevator down to the fourth floor, which opens up into an open plan just like the executive floor, except this one is packed. “This is our call center,” Jack explains. “All of our customer service flows through this room. Our sales department is located here, as well. They call stores and try to get our product on the shelves, or they answer questions from our current vendors.”
I nod along, taking in the craziness. There are about fifty people in the space, and most of them are talking on the phone. I have no idea how any of them concentrate. I could never work down here. I’d be listening in on other conversations the whole time.
“You probably won’t have to come down here too often,” Jack says. We walk towards the back of the room, which looks just like the seventh floor. The view isn’t as good, but I still catch a glimpse of those beautiful fall trees in the park below. “If you ever need to communicate with this floor, it’ll be with Andrew or Cassidy.”
We reach two bigger desks at the back of the room. A man and a woman, both probably close to twenty-five like me, sit behind their desks.
“Hi,” the guy says. “I’m Andrew, the customer service manager. You must be Melody.”
I nod and shake his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Cassidy holds out her hand to shake, too. “I’m Cassidy, the sales manager.”
They each get a call before we have a chance to talk more, so Jack leads me to the stairs. “I might have you grab sales reports from Cass or get updates from Andrew about call volume and stuff. Cameron and I split duties, though, and he usually takes care of sales and customer service.”
This admission surprises me. From what I’ve heard, Jack is the more personable one. I would think he’d be the one handling the consumer experience side of things.
On the fifth floor, things are a lot quieter. We stay at the doorway to the stairwell. “This is the accounting department,” Jack whispers. “They don’t like a lot of noise. So, try to stay quiet if you come down here. I take care of a lot of the money stuff, too, so you’ll be here quite a bit.”
I nod, not wanting to disrupt the quiet of the room. We leave quickly, but Jack stops on the landing halfway to the sixth floor.
“I want to talk more about accounting, but I didn’t want to disturb them.” Jack leans against the railing. He’s slightly taller than his brother, and his hair is a little darker. They don’t look much alike, but now that I’ve met Cameron, I can see some similarities. They have the same nose and their eyes are the same shade of ice blue. “This is your most important task. There are a few levels of managers before me, but the CFO reports directly to me, which is why I need to be in tune to everything going on with accounting.”
“That makes sense. I think one of my first interviews went over that.”
“Good, good. I’ll give you specifics every day, because your duties are constantly changing. But the gist is that you’ll get expense reports, accounts payable and receivable, and other reports from accounting. I like to go over them with our CFO, so you’ll get those to me. However, I want them all in a single report to make it easier. I have some examples from my last assistant, Savannah, that I can show you. You can organize the reports however you want, as long as they cover all the bases.”
I wish I had a notebook to write this all down in. Hopefully, I can remember something as simple as “create one report from many different reports.” So far, this job doesn’t seem like it’s going to be too difficult. I was an assistant at my last company, too, so I’m used to the administrative tasks. I’m mostly excited to learn about how Snax runs.
Snax is a snack company, as made obvious from the name. It was started in Jack and Cameron’s dad’s basement forty years ago. I love it because they use only natural flavors for their chips and pretzels. Plus, they’ve been slowly unveiling these green initiatives that make the company even more appealing. They were using natural ingredients and environmentally conscious practices before it became the “cool” thing to do. It’s no wonder the company became a multi-billion-dollar corporation less than ten years after it opened.
“Do you have any questions?” Jack asks.
I shake my head. “It’s all pretty straight forward.”
He smiles at me. Jack really does have a lovely smile. I wonder what Cameron looks like when he’s happy. I doubt it happens often.
“Great, there’s one more floor to see. It’s Cameron’s department, so you’ll rarely, if ever, be going there.”
I follow him up the last flight of stairs. The office we get to is hugely different from the last two. This one’s walls are covered in bright colors. Natural light fills the room, unlike the accounting floor which had curtains covering its windows.
“Wow,” I say.
Jack grins. “This is our marketing department. They say the décor brings out their creative juices. I think they just wanted a week off work to decorate.”
I chuckle. That seems on par with the creative types I’ve worked with. Maybe if my last company’s marketing department looked like this, they would’ve been better at their jobs. I should send a recommendation to…
I force the thought away again. No, I remind myself. Don’t think about him.
“So, marketing falls under Cameron’s instruction, like I said. He has a degree in business and marketing, so it makes sense.”
It only makes sense on paper. Someone so angry at the world should be doing math all day, not deciding what ad campaigns to run.
“They also do package design here. Cameron gets the final say on every new branding opportunity, but I do like to look things over before they go out. We’re a team here. Our dad encouraged both of us to learn every aspect of the company.”
“I get that.”
He claps his hands once again. I can’t lie, that might get annoying after a while. “Great. Let’s head back upstairs, then. I have a meeting in five. The cafeteria is on the third floor. We share it with the businesses on the bottom of the building, but it’s usually pretty quiet down there. Feel free to take your lunch hour outside, though. It’s beautiful out this time of year.”
When we get to the seventh floor, we’re immediately accosted by Cameron. His blue eyes burn with frustration. He’s angrier than he was before, and somehow that makes him even sexier. “Where have you been?” he demands.
Jack rolls his eyes. “I was showing Melody around.”
“Emma could have shown Melody around,” Cameron counters. “You knew we had a board meeting. Do you take anything seriously?”
“Relax, Cameron. I’m here now. Let’s go.”
The two men leave me to my own devices, but I’m okay with it. I need to process what just happened. Cameron didn’t have to be such an asshole to his brother. It makes sense that my boss would give me a tour. I don’t get what Cameron’s issue with me is, but I don’t like it.
I let out a frustrated sigh. I can’t get involved in workplace drama, not again.
Instead, I settle down at my new desk and start organizing. Everything around me might be a little messy right now, but at least my desk will be neat.
Chapter Two
Cameron
Jack may be older, but he’s certainly not wiser. My assistant, Emma, easily could have given his new assistant
a tour of the space and given her some stuff to do. Instead, Jack decided he would be late to our board meeting so he could play tour guide.
I roll my eyes. Jack will never take this job seriously. I have no idea why our father put him in charge of the finances. Luckily, we have a CFO to make sure Jack doesn’t fuck it up.
Jack and I take our seats near the end of the table in our executive conference room. Our father takes the head of the table. The CFO, Ali, sits across from us. The rest of the board is scattered around.
“Sorry we’re late,” I say, the words tumbling out. Dad gives me a stern look. He’s always on me about apologizing.
“No problem, Cameron,” Sheila says. She blushes a bit. Sheila is our board secretary, which means she takes excessive notes at every meeting. She also has a crush on me. We went on a date about a year ago, but we didn’t hit it off. We didn’t even make it to the goodnight kiss. I’m not sure why Sheila still gets nervous around me. It’s a little disconcerting.
Dad clears his throat. “Shall we begin? We have a lot to cover.”
I fold my hands on the table. Today’s meeting is extra important. The board is voting on my proposal to incorporate solar panels at our factories.
Our executive offices have always been green. Dad owns the entire building, and everyone has to adhere to the same energy saving regulations. Everything is recycled. Plastic use is kept to a minimum. Lights have to be turned off when you leave. Considering the way the world was forty years ago when Dad first bought this building, his green business practices were well ahead of his time. Jack has never cared much for keeping that aspect of the business going, but it’s all I care about. I double majored in business with a marketing focus and environmental studies so I could learn the best practices for keeping our company green.
Dad shuffles with his papers. He’s the president of the board and the majority shareholder in the company, so he runs the meetings with an iron fist.
“First thing on the agenda,” he begins. The board members lean forward, drinking in his words. You don’t become a billionaire running the biggest snack company in the United States without demanding respect no matter where you are. “We have our annual team building day out. This year, we’ve decided to give paint balling a go. Nothing builds a team better than shooting each other with colorful balls.”
Arrogant Puck: A Friends to Lovers Sports Romance (Hockey Heartthrobs Book 2) Page 15
