First Love (Love Collection)

by Natalie Ann

  “I’ll send you something today. I promise.”

  He chuckled and turned to leave. He couldn’t remember the last time an employee said they’d promise to do something.

  ***

  Lauren had to figure out how to stop jumping all the time.

  She kept getting so caught up in her work that she never heard anything around her and then probably looked like a fool when she was surprised by people.

  It wasn’t just Jace that was making her jump. But Katy was down here all the time wanting to chat with her. She almost asked Katy if she had work to do to just get her out of the office, but she figured Katy got the hint more often than not when Lauren just started to work again while Katy stood there.

  She wasn’t interested in office gossip or politics. She was here to do a job, learn everything she could and try to find some peace in her life that she’d been lacking from what seemed like the day she was born.

  Even Sue startled her a few times, then laughed and made a comment how she wished more people worked so hard they tuned out everyone around them.

  She wasn’t trying to show anyone up; she was just doing her job to the best of her ability.

  She wanted to show her worth. Her value. Anything to make sure that she held onto her job.

  Her first weeks’ pay was almost equivalent to her rent payment for next month. She couldn’t believe how good it felt to see that big of a paycheck deposited into her account. If she could get another few years out of her used car, she’d be sitting pretty.

  Speaking of pretty. Her boss. Jace. It should be illegal for someone to look like that.

  His long legs in nicely fitted jeans that showed there might not be a lot of fat on his body. This morning he didn’t even have a dress shirt on, but rather a T-shirt that was fitted just as nice as his jeans.

  She liked that the office was business casual and found it funny that the CEO dressed down the most. She was surprised no one else followed in his footsteps, but had heard many talking that they’d like to but the elder Jason Stratton never allowed it and until Jace sent out a memo allowing it, no one was venturing into that territory.

  Many still seemed to be nervous with Jace in control, that they’d lose their jobs or be pushed out. The business investment he just made happened to scare more people than excite them. For those reasons alone, she was keeping to herself until she found out what was so scary about Jace.

  It sure the heck wasn’t his looks or the way he was around her. When he made her jump, he apologized. He never once talked down to her. He always had a friendly smile, like he was trying to make her relax.

  It’d be cheaper on her wallet if she did dress down, but the truth was, even her casual clothes weren’t nice enough and she didn’t want to consider spending more money than she already had to begin working here.

  She picked up the papers she was looking at before Jace interrupted her and got back to work. She hadn’t planned on presenting him with anything this early, but now she had to so she better make sure she came to the conclusion she was hoping for when she rushed in this morning.

  Wonder About her

  By two o’clock Jace had had enough with interruptions. He was never going to get anything done if people didn’t leave him the hell alone. That included Katy, so he told her to shut his door and not to bother him again today unless the building was on fire.

  If one more person came to him with a stupid question, he might scream. Since when had staff become so insecure about their jobs? His father never seemed to have this problem, yet every time he tried to find out what was causing people to not just do their job, they got more nervous.

  He liked the open door policy that his father never had, but now it was getting out of control and as much as he hated to do it, he was going to have to limit it.

  When he heard his email go off again, he pulled it up and saw it was from Lauren. He told himself to push it aside, that he had more important things to deal with than a report right now, yet his finger hovered over the mouse and he opened it up.

  He was impressed at the spreadsheet in front of him. Not just numbers, but charts and graphs, projections and then explanations as to what she’d found. Everything was clear as day for the non number minded and he wished more fiscal staff in his work history had presented things this clearly.

  Just bringing these two chains under Stratton’s, he was going to save easily over a hundred thousand dollars in payroll fees. That didn’t seem right to him.

  He looked more closely and realized she was right. She even deducted the cost of the current staff’s time to process payroll.

  He frowned when he read a few more things, then picked up his phone.

  “Yes. I mean, this is Lauren.”

  “Hi, Lauren. It’s Jace. I just opened your report. Do you have a minute to come to my office and talk to me about it?”

  “Sure. Let me know what works for you.”

  He rolled his eyes and smiled. “Now.”

  “Oh. I’ll be right there.” He heard the phone click before he could even say bye. She was almost too accommodating and strangely that was bringing up thoughts in his mind that had nothing to do with work.

  What was it about her that was drawing him in so much when no one else had interested him lately?

  Katy was prettier. She was more outgoing and she was throwing signs at him that a blind man could catch with one hand while standing on a pogo stick.

  Yet he wanted nothing to do with it. Nor had he wanted anything to do with an employee ever before.

  But here was Lauren making him wonder about her and want to get to know her more.

  “I’m sorry,” he heard outside of his office door. “Jace asked not to be disturbed.”

  He got up and walked to the door. “Katy, I just called and asked Lauren to come down and meet with me.”

  Katy frowned, but then said, “I’m sorry. You said you didn’t want to be bothered today.”

  He didn’t need to justify himself to his assistant and he wasn’t going to. “Lauren, come on in.”

  Lauren walked past Katy, cradling a binder in her arm like a newborn. She was wearing a skirt today and he was surprised he didn’t notice it earlier. Probably because her chair was pushed under her desk this morning when the last few times she’d been sitting back a little. And why did he remember that?

  He shut his door and turned to see Lauren standing there waiting for him to come in, the binder clutched in front of her like a life preserver now, even her knuckles were white.

  “I’m not going to bite. You can have a seat.” What the hell? Where did those words come from?

  She laughed though and visibly relaxed. “Sorry. This is my first job and I’m still not sure how things work. I just don’t want to do anything wrong.”

  He was surprised by her lack of confidence when her work was stellar. Even Skip and Sue had commented on it already, pretty much praising her work ethic and performance higher than he’d heard of anyone in the time he’d been here.

  “Your very first job ever?” he asked.

  “No. I’ve been working since I was fifteen. But this is my first office job. First job in my field of study,” she clarified.

  “Have a seat on the couch,” he said, gesturing toward the furniture on the other side of his office. She walked over and sat, so he took the chair opposite of her. “Where did you work before?”

  She frowned but answered. “Fast food and then a mini mart the past few years. I was able to get more hours there while in college. Not the fast food chains you just bought. That was burgers, not subs or frozen yogurt. And when I turned eighteen, I started working at the mini mart.”

  “How many hours did you work while in school?”

  “Around thirty. Sometimes more, but not until I was in college. In high school, I worked at least twenty.”

  “That’s a lot of hours going to school full-time. How did you manage it?”

  “I don’t sleep much,” she said and he decided to le
t it drop. This wasn’t the first time he got the feeling she didn’t want to talk much about herself.

  “We have that in common. If I get five hours in a night, it’s a lot.”

  “It kind of stinks, doesn’t it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

  He never thought of it that way, but it really did. Long gone were the days he could sleep until noon. Even in college he partied and still slept a lot more than he did now. Just too much to do and not enough time to do it. Too many things going on in his mind and always fearful he’d forget something.

  When you were the one responsible for thousands of employees, it was hard to get a good night’s sleep.

  “I’ll be able to sleep all I want when I’m dead,” he said, laughing.

  She made a funny face. “That’s kind of morbid and makes me want to go to bed early tonight now.”

  He burst out laughing. “You’ve got a pretty good personality.” Not many would have said that back to him. Not here. Not like when he was in California. “Why don’t you explain this report to me.”

  She looked shocked by his compliment, but opened her binder and set it on the coffee table in between them. “It’s not a mistake. I ran all the numbers. I’ve discovered a lot of things. Or I should say, trends.”

  “Like what?” he asked. “And I didn’t think you’d made a mistake. I just wanted to talk about it.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She let out a little breath and he smelled the mintiness of it from here blending in with the citrus of her shampoo. He really had to stop noticing those things. “The previous owners were older, right?”

  “The Robinsons? Yes, they were. How did you guess?”

  “Because they were way behind the times. They’ve got close to a hundred employees between the four sub shops and five yogurt places and yet they still pay a local CPA firm to do their payroll. The cost of that is much higher than if they’d gone with a payroll service strictly focusing on laws and HR related policies. One that at least paid their quarterly taxes on time too.”

  “So they wasted a lot of money on poor services?” he asked, surprised she’d found that. “How did you discover that and what made you even look at it?”

  “Like I said. Everything is a trend. I noticed they paid a lot of money to this CPA firm and I asked if I could see all the invoices for the past few years.” She started to flip through the invoices in the binders. “You can see their standard fee for payroll is very high. So just processing it in house here is significantly cheaper. But not only that, they were always late filing and paying taxes to the state and then pushed those fines and penalties on. I don’t think anyone noticed it, or questioned it. I don’t know what some of these other fees are either. I was going to talk to someone about it, but figured whatever they are you don’t need it anyway.”

  He shook his head. This was just one small reason why they were losing money and something that could have easily been rectified if anyone had questioned it. He could only imagine what more would be found.

  “Good job. I’m glad to see that you’re thinking outside of the box. I still believe there is more to be found.”

  “Oh, there definitely is,” she said nodding her head rapidly. “I’ve got a spreadsheet of everything I’m finding that I feel they’ve overspent on wasteful penalties and fines. Not to mention costs on supplies and such compared to what it costs here.”

  “That’s good. That’s exactly what I’m looking for right now.”

  She seemed to hesitate, and finally said, “I’d like to talk with some of their accountants at some point, but they haven’t been very helpful when I’ve questioned things.”

  “I’m not surprised.” The rumbling of her stomach broke through the room.

  “I’m sorry.” Her faced flushed adorably.

  “Have you eaten today?”

  “I was just getting ready to walk to the cafeteria. I lost track of time and when I ran out the door this morning I forgot to pack a lunch.”

  “Come on. We’ll go down together. I’ll treat you to lunch since I have a feeling you lost track of time trying to get this together for me.”

  “It wasn’t that,” she argued.

  He squinted one eye on her but decided to let it go. “I haven’t eaten either. Guess we both have the same thing in common again. I lost track and I’m starving myself. You can explain more about the trends you’re finding over lunch. A working lunch,” he said, figuring she was more likely to say yes if he phrased it that way.

  “Okay.” She stood up.

  “You can leave your binder here. If it’s okay, we’ll grab some lunch and come back here to eat?”

  “That works better. Then no one will see us together.”

  “What’s wrong if they do?” he asked, trying not to get insulted.

  ***

  Lauren knew she put her foot in her mouth just now.

  What was it about Jace that made her stumble so much?

  Sure, she was nervous that he was her boss, but it wasn’t just that. It was that he seemed to be talking to her and paying attention to her, when from what she’d heard from other employees, he never talked to many other than upper management.

  She had questioned Sue about it and was told repeatedly that she’d be working closely with him and it wasn’t a big deal. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

  And she had to stop wondering why so many people kept asking her what Jace was really like.

  It was hard to bite her tongue and keep the silly grin from her face and say he was really nice. He was sweet and considerate and the best boss she’d ever had.

  But she never did. Instead, when she was questioned, she just said, “I haven’t had a lot of dealings with him, but I find him very fair and easy to talk to.” Many walked away from her then. She figured they were looking for inside information. Not that she’d provide any, if she even had it.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said to him now. “Just that I wouldn’t want anyone to think it was odd that we were having lunch.”

  “We’re working. You work for me. Does it make you feel uncomfortable to be around me?”

  There seemed to be some kind of mysterious little sparkle in his eyes when he asked that. Like he was flirting with her. Could he be? Nah. She was a nobody to him. Just a new employee. He was only being nice again.

  Aside from being easily ten years younger than him, she was from the wrong side of the planet. She was reading more into that than she should be. Probably because she found him so attractive.

  “Not at all,” she said, smiling now and trying to find some confidence. She had to start acting older than she was. She was trying to look it so she should act like she had her shit together in more ways than just her work.

  “Then let’s go get some food and come back here and you can tell me more about the ideas and thoughts you’ve had.”

  She followed him to the door, where he opened it and held it for her. “Katy, Lauren and I are grabbing some lunch and will be back to finish our meeting in about twenty minutes.”

  “I can get you some lunch if you’d like, Jace?” Katy offered.

  Lauren was hoping he’d take Katy up on the offer but figured he wouldn’t. “We’ve got it.”

  Now she just needed to get it together herself.

  Comments and Actions

  That actually wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. Walking through the cafeteria and building a salad while Jace went to the other side and had a sandwich made and grabbed a bag of chips and a drink.

  She expected a ton of eyes on her and there was nothing. Guess she thought more of herself. That was a good thing in this instance.

  She was just walking to the register, hoping to cash out before him when he stepped in line before her. There was no reason to block him, and he actually grinned at her, like he knew what she was trying to do.

  But rather than make a production out of buying her lunch and potentially embarrassing them both, he bought the lunch of someone in front of hi
m too. The employee thanked Jace, nodded his head and took off fast.

  “Thank you again for lunch,” she said in the elevator. She’d thanked him when he bought it too.

  “No problem,” he said smiling at her. “At least you didn’t turn red and bob your head up and down like the person in front of me and then take off like I was some dictator handing over their last meal.”

  “You didn’t know who that was you bought lunch for?” she asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “I do it a lot. I’m not always here to eat or Katy goes down and gets me what I ordered. But when I do come down, I’ll do what I did today. I’ll buy a few lunches.”

  There’d been no one but the three of them in line at that moment. “That’s nice.”

  “I can be nice,” he said.

  “I didn’t say otherwise. Did I?” Had she given off that impression? She was trying to think back to all her comments and actions. Just another thing to like about him and push aside the comparisons to his father.

  “No, you haven’t. I like that you’re pretty upfront and to the point. You aren’t afraid of me like so many others are.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me why you aren’t afraid of me.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I mean I’m not really afraid of you. You’ve given me no reason to be other than you control my job.” She paused. “Since I really need my job maybe I should be afraid of you.”

  “Then why are you smiling right now as you say that?”

  “I’m just teasing. Well, not really the part about needing my job.”

  “So then let me ask you—why do you think other people are so afraid of me?”

  He looked serious and she found it odd. “You’re the CEO,” she pointed out. “That’s just natural. I’m guessing you’ve never had to worry about whether you’d lose your job before or not. That you’ve always had a safety net here.”

  He frowned. “I guess. It’s not like I’m going to go around firing people.”