How to Rebuild (Hearts & Horsepower #4)

by A. K. Evans

  Now, two days later, I was walking into work and dreading it. There was no doubt in my mind that every single one of my co-workers would be expecting some great news. Hell, I’d have been right there doing the same thing if it had been any of them.

  Elise and I left Lou’s on Friday in a way that would have, no doubt, had them all assuming the best-case scenario. I guess it had been. At least for that night, it was. I just wish I had known that what we had that night was all that she wanted.

  Opening the door, I stepped into the front office and saw them all standing around, talking. The minute they saw me, all discussions ceased to exist, and they pinned their eyes on me. I stopped just inside the door and allowed my gaze to run over each of them before settling on Logan.

  Offering him a chin lift, I said, “Happy Birthday.”

  “Thanks, Kieran,” he returned.

  I started moving again, preparing to go down the hall toward the cleanroom to start my day.

  “Kieran?” Avery called.

  I should have known I wouldn’t be so lucky as to get away with not addressing the elephant in the room. Maybe it shouldn’t have been one. Perhaps it technically wasn’t any of their business, but they were my best friends. When you thought your best friend needed a listening ear, you lent one. I didn’t fault them for that. In fact, I appreciated knowing I had them. The only problem was that right now, I didn’t need one listening ear, let alone five of them.

  “Yeah?” I replied, looking back at her.

  “How was the rest of your weekend?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Just fine?” Nash chimed in.

  I focused my attention on him, dipped my chin, and confirmed, “Yes. Just fine.”

  “What about Elise?” Knox pressed.

  “What about her?” I shot back.

  A silence fell over the room. I’m not sure what they were thinking, but my tone’s apparent impatience was likely unexpected.

  Either she didn’t notice or didn’t care because Avery pointed out, “We thought you liked her. You took her home on Friday.”

  “I do. And I did,” I replied, having somehow reined in some of the emotions I was feeling.

  “Well, you at least planned a date with her, right?” Logan asked.

  I shook my head. “No,” I started. “I know you all are hoping for some wonderful story, but there isn’t one. Elise isn’t interested in a relationship right now. That’s all there is to say. Now, I should probably get to work. I’ve got a bunch of motors I need to assemble this week.”

  Without waiting for a response, I looked away from the group and took off toward the cleanroom. I closed the door behind me and did my best to focus on the work I needed to get done. While it would have been easy to feel sorry for myself about the whole situation, I wasn’t going to do that. I still had a job to do, and I wasn’t going to sacrifice my work quality because I liked a girl who didn’t want me back.

  She didn’t like me back.

  That was the biggest lie of them all.

  There was no way, no way, Elise could claim she didn’t feel any sort of connection to me. She did. And considering I’d treated her with respect, I still hadn’t been able to figure out why she wanted nothing to do with me.

  For the next hour, I managed to push all thoughts of Elise as far back in my mind as I could so I’d be able to get my work done. That’s when there was a knock at the door.

  “Yeah,” I called out as I started putting the cam caps on the engine. “Come in.”

  The door opened, and Ryker walked in. As soon as I saw him, I realized he was the only guy who hadn’t said anything to me when I came into work this morning. And I remembered that Elise was Scarlet’s best friend. I could only imagine what she must have said about me.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  He let out a laugh and noted, “You keep saying that, but we all know it’s not the truth.”

  “What do you want me to say?” I returned, feeling a bit annoyed.

  “Whatever is on your mind,” he answered.

  “I’ve said all there is to say about the situation,” I insisted, continuing to work.

  Ryker didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he stood there and watched me while I kept my focus on what I was doing.

  After some time had passed, he said, “That was cool of you to do.”

  There was an edge of approval and respect in his tone, but I couldn’t understand what it was for. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You did a good thing by not dragging Elise through the mud and making her look bad in front of everyone,” he explained.

  “Why would I do that?” I returned. “She feels the way she does. I might not like it, but that doesn’t mean I need to be a dick about it.”

  “I understand that, and that’s precisely why I’m telling you that I think it’s cool you respected her decision, even if it’s a stupid one,” he declared.

  I looked up from the engine I was working on and cocked an eyebrow. “Why do I feel like you know more than what you’re saying?” I questioned him.

  Ryker shook his head. “I don’t know much,” he started. “But I do know that it’s more complicated than you made it out to be this morning.”

  “What gives you that impression?” I asked, hoping I sounded calm but secretly hoping he had something to give me.

  “Scarlet.”

  “Scarlet?” I repeated.

  He nodded. “Yeah, she’s worried about Elise,” he shared.

  I felt my gut clench. Not wanting to make it seem like I cared, I focused my attention back on my work and asked, “Oh yeah? Why is that?”

  Ryker started laughing. When he didn’t immediately stop and answer me, I stopped what I was doing and looked up at him again. He pulled himself together and apologized, “I’m sorry. I just think it’s funny how you’re pretending like you don’t care when I know that you do.”

  “You think that’s how it is?” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “I can’t wait to hear your reason for this,” I stated.

  The corners of Ryker’s mouth twitched before he replied, “Because I know what it feels like to want a girl who knows she wants to be with you and still fights that feeling.”

  “What gives you the indication she wants to be with me?” I wondered.

  He shrugged. “Just a feeling I got on Friday night seeing her with you at Lou’s,” he remarked. “Well, that and the fact that she and Scarlet spent what had to be close to two hours on a video call yesterday afternoon.”

  “What does Elise talking to Scarlet have to do with me?” I asked. “They’re best friends, so it wouldn’t seem odd to me that they’d spend that much time talking.”

  “Maybe not. But when my girl and I were having dinner last night, she told me how worried she is that Elise is making a mistake,” he began. “Scarlet would never betray Elise’s trust and share any specifics with me, but it was clear from what Scarlet did say that Elise herself was struggling with her own decision. I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but it was enough that she needed that time to talk to her best friend about it.”

  “I’m not sure what you want me to do with this information, Ryker,” I told him.

  “Nothing. I’m not telling you to do anything,” he assured me. “I just wanted to let you know that I found a lot more respect for a man that I already respected by the way you handled that this morning.”

  I could accept that. I nodded and replied, “I appreciate that.”

  “Okay, and maybe I do have one thing I want you to do with this information,” he added.

  I knew it. I knew he wasn’t just trying to be a nice guy.

  My eyes narrowed, and I asked, “What’s that?”

  “If you don’t already know, Elise is dealing with a lot,” he started. “I’m not going to get into the specifics of that, but I am going to tell you t
hat I think it’d be great for you and even her if you can just give her some time to work through it. Trust me when I tell you that you’re not the enemy here.”

  “Who is?” I pressed.

  “She is,” he stated. “She’s too busy coming up with excuses instead of grabbing ahold of what’s right in front of her. All I’m saying is to give her some time. If you do that, I think you stand to gain a lot.”

  I took in a deep breath and let it out. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but it made me feel a little bit better about the situation.

  “Thanks, Ryker.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  At that, he turned and walked out while I got back to work. And when I did, I could no longer stop myself from recalling the things I liked most about my night with Elise. It wasn’t a horrible way to spend my morning.

  It was time to put in the work.

  Monday morning.

  A fresh start.

  I woke up this morning feeling the desperate need for a different approach to the situation at Flynn Beauty. I would manifest what I believed. And if I continued to think that the worst was going to happen and that Flynn Beauty would collapse, then it would. If I didn’t believe in myself and my brand, why would my employees believe in me? Beyond that, there’d be no reason for the public to ever trust in me or my products again.

  So, I had to go in with the right mindset.

  And I hoped it would have the same trickle-down effect the terrible news did. If my employees saw that I was optimistic, if they saw that I no longer looked terrified, they’d have to feel some sort of relief. It would have to ease their mind, even if just a little bit, that things were on the mend.

  They should have been, right?

  It was just like Scarlet said. We did everything we could do. We acknowledged the mistake, we recalled the products, and we put out a public letter of apology. More than that, we didn’t just accept it as some random fluke. We did what was necessary to get to the bottom of the problem and figure out what had happened to make it right. And once we knew what the problem was, we took the steps necessary to rectify the situation.

  The person responsible for trying to bring down Flynn Beauty was no longer working here. I hadn’t yet decided what steps I was going to take concerning Skye. While I was sure I had just cause to bring a legal suit against her, I did not want my time right now to be spent on that. I needed to figure out how to rebuild the company back to its former glory.

  And it was all going to start with me.

  I pulled open the glass door, beamed at my receptionist, and greeted, “Good morning, Juliette.”

  There was an unmistakable look of shock on her face before she forced a smile and replied, “Good morning, Elise.”

  “Did you have a nice weekend?” I asked her.

  Still surprised, though a bit of the tension had eased, she answered, “Yes, I did. Thanks for asking.”

  “Good. Let’s have a great week, too.”

  “Of course.”

  I turned and strode off past the waiting area and down the hall toward my office. When I turned the corner and took a few steps, I saw Kat was already sitting at her desk. She was focused on something on her computer screen. I tapped lightly on her door. She jumped at the sudden and unexpected interruption. Shooting her the same smile I’d given to Juliette, I gestured with my hand for her to come over to my office.

  After clicking on her mouse a few times, she stood and hurried across the hall to my office.

  “Good morning, Elise,” she greeted me. “What’s going on?”

  “Good morning, Kat,” I replied. “Did you have a good weekend?”

  Her brows pulled together. I had a feeling it was going to take me seeing a few more people do that before it no longer threw me off balance. If nothing else, it was a perfect indicator of just how low everybody’s spirits were. Hopefully, this was going to work.

  “Yeah, I did,” she answered. “Are you okay?”

  Nodding, I confirmed, “I’m great.”

  I wasn’t technically lying. When it came to Flynn Beauty and the plan I had for getting things back on track here, I was doing great. Since my personal life never factored into that equation, I wasn’t going to answer based on that.

  I’m not sure if Kat believed what I was saying or if she was just going to ignore it, but she finally asked, “What did you need me for this morning?”

  “We’re rebuilding,” I declared.

  “What? Rebuilding what?” she questioned me.

  “The public’s trust in Flynn Beauty,” I told her. “And that’s got to start here on the inside. So, first up on the list this morning is figuring out what I’m going to do about a new lead project manager. Please get me the names of all the people we have working in that department to review them thoroughly. Until I’ve selected someone to take over the position, I’m going to need to have all approval requests with the labs coming directly through me.”

  “Okay. Is there anything else?” Kat wondered.

  “Start with that,” I urged. “I have a few things I want to go over right now, and I need to have a chat with Porter about some stuff, too.”

  “Did you want me to sit in on that meeting with him?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No, that’s okay. Just get me those names so I can start going through them.”

  Kat hesitated briefly but eventually replied, “Sure.”

  With that, she stepped through the door and walked across the hall back to her office. I watched her go, feeling the adrenaline pumping in my veins. This is what I had been missing over the last couple of weeks—excitement about my job. Maybe the reason for the excitement wasn’t the same, but it was excitement nonetheless. And I was going to take it where I could get it.

  Kat sat down at her desk and made a strange face at the notepad in front of her before she shook it off and got to work.

  I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a chuckle. Then I got to work on my emails so I could move on to more pressing issues.

  I spent my entire morning fully engrossed in my work, took a quick break when Kat brought me the list of names, and even decided to have a late working lunch in my office.

  Just as I was about to dive back in, I saw Porter walking back toward his office. He must have been returning from lunch. He glanced in as he walked past, and I held my hand out to wave him in. Taking a couple of steps backward, he opened the door and walked in.

  Smiling at me, he noted, “You look like you’re doing much better today.”

  I grinned. “I am,” I confirmed. “Thank you, again, for getting on top of that recall and for working out another public apology last week. As unfortunate as it was that we needed to make it, I’m glad that we’re transparent with our customers.”

  “It’s not a problem. And I agree with you. I think it’s been good for them to see the quick response to the issue,” he agreed.

  “How are the reviews?” I asked, referring to product reviews on our website.

  Since Porter handled everything concerning our site, he’d seen the influx of reviews after things went south. People were angry, rightfully so. But some weren’t related to their specific experience with the product. They were attacking me personally or just making false claims about the Flynn Beauty brand.

  Porter had suggested that as part of our way to manage the situation, we leave up the truly genuine reviews left by people who had had specific reactions to the products. He responded under the Flynn Beauty brand name, urging those customers to reach out to our customer service team, giving them instructions on getting the defective product back to us. We planned to ultimately replace the palettes free of charge to those who wanted them.

  When reviews came in under the products that were unrelated to the issue or were being made by someone who only wanted to continue to drag Flynn Beauty through the mud, Porter moderated those comments and removed them. The two of us had decided it was best to keep the genuine reviews, negative or not, to show that
we wouldn’t hide from our mistakes.

  “It’s gotten marginally better,” Porter answered. “While there is still a lot on both sides of this, I’m at least a little relieved to see that the ones attacking you and the entire brand have mostly stopped.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” I said. “Maybe things will start getting back to normal now. I haven’t checked social media, mostly because I’ve just not wanted to mess with my head on it, but maybe I should do that now just to see if things have settled a bit there, too.”

  “That was on my list of things to do today, too, so if you’d rather steer clear for a couple of extra days, I’m happy to fill you in on anything pertinent,” my brother offered.

  “I’d appreciate that,” I replied.

  “You know, while I’m here, I wanted to ask you about the next launch,” he started. “I wanted to see what your thoughts were on it.”

  “The spring collection?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I know it’s a seasonal thing, so we can’t delay it, but I was wondering if you wanted just to keep it more of a soft launch. You know, put the product out, make it available, but not put the advertising and heavy promotion in that we usually do.”

  The upcoming spring launch hadn’t crossed my mind. Caught up in what I was dealing with regarding all the negative publicity surrounding the winter eyeshadow palettes and the holiday bath products, I never gave a second thought to what was still a few weeks away from launching. Now that Porter was bringing it up, I was starting to feel my happy mood slip away.

  A soft launch?

  We’d always advertised heavily when it came to a product launch.

  “Do you think that’s the way to go?” I asked, valuing his opinion.

  “I do,” he insisted with a nod of his head. “I realize we’ve never done anything like that before, but with everything that has just happened, I’m not sure promoting a new product right away is the best marketing strategy.”

  “Even if we work hard between now and then to try and convince people to be excited about what’s coming from us next?” I pressed.