“We’ve been in here two seconds, and they’re already dropping like flies,” he grumbles, sighing hard and waving hands.
“Alright, alright. Is that person ok?” he calls out as several people swarm around the person on the ground.
“She’s breathing!” a redhead calls out. “I think she just passed out.”
“Nothing, huh?” I cut my eyes at my twin before finally sighing and shaking my head at him. I swear, we may share the exact same DNA, but Carter is way more of an asshole than I can be, even at my worst.
I move around him and head towards the back of the room where several people are kneeling around the person.
I see a pair of long legs, clad with red bottom heels, sprawled out on the ground.
“Gabs, hey. Gabs, are you alright?”
The blond woman kneeling over her moves back slightly, as the figure grumbles. She moves back just far enough that I’m able to get a good look at the woman.
My heart stops in my fucking chest as my eyes connect with her face.
Gabriella, the condom snatcher, stares up at me, her face as white as a sheet.
“Oh my god,” she murmurs. “This cannot be happening.”
“It’s ok,” the woman tells her. “It’s just a job, Gabby. We’ll find other ones.”
As I raise my eyebrow at her and she winces, I’m fairly certain that she wasn’t referring to the job.
She’s just as shocked to see me as I am to see her.
“Do you need me to call an ambulance for you?” I ask her as I cut my eyes in her direction.
“No.” She stands with the woman’s help, on shaky legs.
“I’m fine.”
I look her up and down as she runs her hands along her clothing, straightening herself out.
My eyes don’t want to pull away from those long legs of hers. The same legs that just two days ago were wrapped around me as I buried myself inside of her.
I will give it to her, she’s fucking gorgeous. I actually think that she’s even better looking to sober me than she was to drunk me.
Her dark hair is pulled back in a low ponytail at the base of her neck, which draws my attention to the beautiful features that make up her face.
Her eyes are huge, a crystal-clear blue, fanned with dark lashes. Her cheekbones are high, and then, there are her lips.
Those huge, plush, pink lips, that I had so desperately wanted wrapped around my cock.
That part didn’t happen, but many other amazing things did.
Up until she tried to steal my sperm.
I force my eyes away from her. She may be beautiful, but she’s definitely a nut.
I need to keep my distance from her and return to the task at hand, which is pretty shitty.
Carter and I have been buying out companies, either swooping in to save them, or breaking them up and selling them off for years. We’ve made a shit ton of money doing it, but at the end of the day, a lot of people lose their jobs.
I try to make right with it in my head, because if we didn’t buy the company out, they would all lose their jobs anyways when the company went under.
This company in particular is in dire straits. We are going to try to save it, because the profit potential is huge if we can get it back up and running correctly.
In order to do that, however, we need slim down our costs, starting first and foremost with losing employees.
I wait until Gabriella is once again seated before moving back to the front of the room and taking my spot next to my brother.
“Thank you all for coming today,” Carter starts as he scans the room and begins nodding at everyone. “I realize that this news must come as quite a shock to some of you, but unfortunately, the finances of this company have spiraled out of control. My brother and I have spent quite a bit of time going over the books, and we think that we can save this company. Unfortunately, that will mean running it bare bones for a while, until we can be profitable again.”
The blank stares and the worried looks don’t pass me. It’s hard to look these people in the eyes right now, when their entire livelihood is in jeopardy.
It’s a shitty world that we live in.
“If you work in marketing, you will be meeting with me at scheduled times this week. For our meeting, I need you to each come prepared with your resume and a brief synopsis of what you have done for this company. I simply want the highlights. If you work in finance, you need to prepare the exact same thing, however, you will be meeting with Conner.”
The room is so damn quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
“Our assistants will be in charge of setting up those meetings. Check your email after five pm today, and you should have a meeting time assigned. Until then, you are all dismissed.”
“Wait.” Someone raises their hand. “So, we just leave?”
“Yes.” Carter nods. “You just leave. Consider yourself terminated until your meeting time. After that, we will decide whether you are hired or will continue termination.”
He says it without missing a beat, which is why he is the lead speaker out of the two of us.
I’m not good at being the asshole and handing out the pink slips. Carter, on the other hand, couldn’t care less.
He doesn’t have a heart like I do.
The faces continue to stare at us as we each nod at them before turning around and exiting the room.
Happy fucking Monday.
“There are so fucking many employees,” Carter grumbles, tossing yet another file on top of the desk. “That was that idiot’s first problem. All of his profits were going out in payroll.”
“Sounds like the guy never did much here.” I shrug. “He inherited this company and ran it down the drain. From what I hear, he hardly ever even set foot in the office.”
“What a fucking idiot,” Carter sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I looked over the books. Ten years ago, this company made a lot of money. Fucking billions. But the books are shit, and there is so much damn money missing, that I can’t even figure out where to start looking for it. I don’t know if employees are embezzling, or if Joe Hoe bag was. I’m lost.”
I open another file and lean back in my own chair. I kick my feet up on the desk, and scan through the contents.
Bachelor’s in business, blah blah blah. Same with every other fucking file that I’ve gone through.
“Huh. Look at this one.” Carter hands me a folder. “This is the chick that passed out in the conference room. Her file’s fairly impressive. Harvard grad, at least.”
“Harvard, huh?” I open the file and see Gabriella’s smiling face. I scan through her information. Credit report, debt to income ratio, address, and education history. On this paper, she actually seems pretty boring. Twenty-nine, single, owns a home about twenty miles outside of the city. Pays her bills on time and has good credit. Graduated from a state school as an undergrad, and then got her master’s in finance from Harvard. Impressive, but, boring.
“We should put the master’s degrees in one pile.” I shrug. “It could help with the decision.”
“I suppose.” Carter shrugs. “But honestly, I don’t give a fuck. I want the people who work hard. The ones who will make us money. Someone business smart, and not just book smart. But if you want to sort yours that way, go ahead. That chick is finance anyways. She’s in your pile.”
She’s more than in my pile. She was also just in my bed, but I leave that part out.
The last thing that I want to do is share that awful reminder with my brother.
He’s always after me about my sleeping around, and he’s told me more than once to be careful as to not get caught up with a woman.
He’d go fucking nuts if he knew that my sperm was almost stolen.
“I’m about done here for today. I’ve been staring at this stuff for so long that my eyes are about to cross. Are you about ready?”
“Go ahead.” I nod at him. “I’m going to stick around here a bit longer.”
“Suit yourself.” Carter shr
ugs and rises to his feet. “See you later for dinner?”
I nod, and Carter leaves.
Once he’s gone, I pick Gabriella’s file back up.
I have no idea why I’m so interested in her, yet, I am. I should despise the woman, but I am curious about the woman who was trying to get pregnant with my child.
I mean, she can’t really be collecting condoms, right?
I can’t believe I’m even entertaining that thought. Of course, she was trying to get knocked up.
The question is, why?
From all accounts, she’s successful. Her income isn’t anything to write home about, but she obviously lives within her means, and lives fairly well.
She doesn’t have a lot of debt and has a clean bill of health. She’s educated and beautiful. ;
I’m sure that she could find some guy to give her a baby. Why is she resorting to stealing sperm?
I glance around the quiet office for just a moment before hopping to my feet and beginning my search.
It takes me several tries, but finally, I find her office.
If I hadn’t looked at the plaque on the door, I still would have known it was her office, because of the smell.
The faint hint of vanilla, witch hazel, and jasmine lingers inside of the room, the same scent that had intoxicated me the night that I met her.
Her office is cute, homey even. She has curtains hung over the warehouse blinds, a cute, bright red lamp with a patterned shade on a small end table next to a stuffed chair, and a brightly colored rug in front of her desk.
I sink down into her chair and scan the room.
This is the office of a sperm snatcher.
Huh.
Curiosity overtakes me, and in a moment, I’m literally going through everything. I dig through her drawers, not finding anything of interest, just the basic office supplies.
I drum my fingers on her desk, and then, glance down.
Jackpot.
On the top of her desk, sits a small calendar. I stare at the blocks, and notice that the date two days ago is circled in red. The letters FML are written in the center of the circle.
Find male lead? Finish me later? What they stand for, I can’t really be sure. But as I flip through the months, I notice that every four weeks, a date is circled, with the same letters.
It has to mean something, and I know for certain that Gabriella wasn’t trying to collect condoms.
She was trying to collect baby daddies.
5
Gabriella
“I can’t go through with it.”
I run my hands through my hair and continue to stare across the table to Maria.
“I cannot face him.”
“You’re going to have to. You have to put your big girl panties on and just do it!”
“I can’t,” I wail, being ever so dramatic and throwing myself back in my chair and resting my head against the wall.
“Listen, Gabs. You don’t have to, but you should. You’re going to have to face him, one way or another. He’s technically your boss now.”
“Actually, no. They terminated us all. It’s up to them if they rehire us or not.”
“That is so shitty! I can’t even believe that any of this happened.”
“You can’t believe it? Are you fucking kidding me? You didn’t have to face the guy, after being caught red handed trying to steal his sperm!”
“I mean, yeah. That had to be awkward.”
“Awkward?” I glare at her. “It was worse than awkward; it was humiliating. He looked at me like I was gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe.”
Maria shrugs.
“Well, yeah. What did you expect? You tried to steal his sperm!”
“The whole thing was your idea.” I cut my eyes at her. “You are the reason that I’m in this mess to begin with.”
“I told you not to get caught.” She wags her finger my way, and for a moment, I contemplate breaking it.
Instead, I sit on my hands so that I don’t do something in the heat of the moment that I might regret.
“And, either way, you would have been fired. I had no hand in that.”
“True, but, I would maybe at least have a shot at keeping my job. There is no way that he will hire me back. No fucking way. That’s why I’m not going.”
Maria levels her gaze with mine and frowns.
“So, you’re just going to give up? I thought that you liked your job.”
“Yeah, I like it. But I don’t love it. And I certainly don’t like it enough to face him again. I need to keep the one shred of dignity that I have left, and just cut my loses. I’ve got enough money saved to last me a few months, so I’ll be good. Worst case scenario, I can work for my dad.”
I grimace at the thought, but hey, a job is a job.
Working for my dad’s plumbing company is not my dream job, but, at least I would be working in the office.
It could totally be worse.
Maria rolls her eyes.
“Who are you, anyways? The Gabby that I know would storm in there and tell that guy to go and fuck himself for firing all of you. This Gabby’s acting like a little bitch. Just an FYI.”
I reconsider breaking her finger when she wags it my way again, but lucky for her, she reads my mind and pulls it back quickly.
“You’re not right.” She frowns at me, and I give her a sick smile.
“Wave that finger at me again, and you will find just how much I’m not right.”
6
Conner
“Can you believe this? Most of my people didn’t even fucking show up!”
Carter bursts through the door of the office where I’ve been holding my interviews and folds his arms across his chest.
“I had six no shows in a row, and then one person showed up, and then the next five, no shows! Don’t people want their fucking jobs?”
“I guess not.” I shrug, since I had almost the exact same outcome.
“This is fucking nuts.” Carter is still fuming as he drops down into the chair across from my desk. “Joe Schmo told us that he had dedicated employees. What a fucking crock.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been so harsh when you told them how this would go down.” I level my gaze with his. “I told you that terminating everyone from the start was a bad idea. That’s on you, brother.”
“You don’t want to give people hope. It’s better to knock them down right from the start.” He glares at me, and I just nod.
“Whatever you say, man.”
“I mean, fuck! We need some people in here to run this place while we figure out what to do with it. I didn’t even have enough people show to do that!”
“Me either.”
“Fuck.” He throws his hands up, before finally, running them through his hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! This may just be our worst business decision ever.”
Again, buying this company was his idea, not mine. But, Carter usually has an eye for good business decisions, so I went with it.
We’ve made a lot of money over the last five years, buying drowning companies and turning them around. We’ve dabbled in just about everything as investors, and it’s always panned out. Until now, that is.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Carter finally stares at me. “We’ve got to figure something out, and quick. Did your finance manager show?”
I swallow hard as I glance down at Gabriella’s file.
“No.” I had basically assumed that she wouldn’t.
“My marketing manager didn’t either. That’s the plan, brother. That’s the best plan that we have.”
“What plan is this?”
Carter finally relaxes a bit, as a slow smile spreads across his face.
“We get the managers on board. Let them pick a few employees. The employees will listen to them. They will trust them, because they know them. We let them solve our problem.”
Well, fuck.
“I don’t know, man. I really…”
“What’s not to kn
ow? The employees didn’t show today because they don’t trust us, and no one wants to work for someone that they don’t trust. They trust the managers, and they will listen to them. You get the finance manager on board, and I will get the marketing manager. Bam. We have employees.”
Fuck.
I pull my rental car in front Gabriella’s small, blue bungalow. Her house is located on a quiet street in Edgewood, which is a small town, about twenty minutes outside of town according to Google maps, but more like forty minutes when you add in traffic.
All of the homes on the street look similar to hers. They are all on the smaller side, circa the fifties, likely built during the baby boomer era.
Gabriella’s home has flowers blooming in the front yard, a white front porch with a rocking chair, and a swing, along with potted flowers flanking each side of the front door.
I pause for a moment, trying my best to wrap my mind around what I need to say to her.
It’s going to be hard, not bringing up the incident and still managing to get her on board.
It’s going to take everything that I have to do so.
But, business calls, and I can’t allow us to lose millions of dollars on a bad deal. Carter is right, we have to have employees on board, otherwise this entire deal was a complete waste of time and money.
Both of which I do not like to lose.
I muster up the courage and finally manage to walk up the flagstone pathway that leads from the sidewalk to her front porch. I pause for only a second before finally jogging up the wooden porch steps and standing in front of her door.
The front door is wide open, with only the screen door shut. From where I stand, I can see all of the way inside of her home.
A hint of apple pie fills the air, and my stomach growls. Fuck, that smells good.
My nanny used to bake Carter and I apple pie when we were kids, on the first day of school. I remember how bummed we would be that summer was coming to an end, but she always tried to bake us a fresh pie to make up for it.
God, we loved her. Ms. Appleton was her name. Fitting, right?
But then, Mother fired her on our very first day of fifth grade.
Getting the Goods Page 3
