“You look miserable,” Connor yelled. “You could at least look like you’re not going to murder anyone who comes up to us.”
I chuckled, flashing a smile. “Sorry, I don’t know what it is. I’m just not feeling things.”
Connor set a shot down in front of me. “Give it some time, and a few shots. You’ll be feeling it in no time.”
I raised my eyebrow and lifted the liquor to my lips, my mouth already watering with preparation for the bitterness afterward. Slinging it back, I held the glass in place, amusing myself with the distortion of the scantily clad girls through the glass.
Connor took the shot glass away from me, rolling his eyes. “I don’t think it will be as hard as you’re making it out to be to get one of those companies on your list. You have a world renowned company now. It’s not like you’re trying to be the lowest bidder, you’re trying to woo them with your business acumen, and the success you’ve already had.”
I grumbled as I picked up my whiskey and coke. “Right, but if I can’t woo them, I am in some deep shit with the investors.”
Before I could follow up, Connor’s hand slapped into my stomach. His eyes were plastered to the right, staring out in the crowd. “Dude, who cares about your investors when the woman of tonight’s dreams is heading right for me?”
Just as I glanced over, this bubbling red head in a tight, low-cut shirt and black short skirt thrust her hand out at Connor. “Hi. I’m Lily. And this…” She pulled another girl forward from behind her with a grunt. “This is Mia. She’s a bit shy, but a beast in the sack.”
Mia’s mouth dropped open and she slapped Lily. Connor chuckled and put his arm over Lily’s shoulder, pulling her to his other side. “Nice to meet you. Why don’t we order some drinks?”
Lily winked at Mia but I acted like I didn’t see it. Instead, I pulled a stool up next to me and nodded to it. I had a feeling if I didn’t, she would have stood awkwardly right there for the rest of the night.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, sitting down on the stool, propping her worn Chuck Taylor’s on the ledge. “Sorry, my friend is definitely more excited about meeting new people than I am.”
I chuckled. “No, I totally get it. Connor is the social butterfly of the group. Can I get you a drink?”
She looked at her empty beer bottle and shrugged, setting it down. “Sure. Why not?”
I flicked up one hand at the bartender who immediately grabbed her a drink and set it down. She looked at me kind of crazy for a moment, probably astounded I could get a drink that fast and then thanked me for it. There was something about her. She was quiet, kind of nerdy, like she was going to break out with an explanation of the Theory of Relativity or something, but at the same time, she was really hot.
The bracelet on her wrist sparkled in the low bar lights. I recognized it immediately from the insignia on the small charm that hung from the clasp. It was a multi thousand dollar bracelet. So, nerdy, and rich, or at least from a rich family. I guess I couldn’t be too judgmental. I owned a tech company and came from the richest conglomerate owner in the world. Money had never been a thought in the extracurricular things we did, or the jewelry we bought either.
“This place is crazy,” she yelled out, biting on her lightly shimmering bottom lip. There was something that shot down my spine when she did that. From a distance I wouldn’t have even been able to imagine her do it, but she did, and I was struggling with it.
“Yeah,” I blurted out, feeling like I waited far too long to answer her question. “Definitely busy tonight. But its always like that. Are you from Chicago?”
She nodded, swallowing her gulp of beer. “Yeah. I grew up downtown, but the rents? live outside of the city. I just came back from college.”
“Nice,” I replied. “Where did you go?”
“Cornell for graduate,” she said proudly.
“Nice. New York,” I nodded. “I like New York, especially the country areas. More stars than I’ve ever seen.”
Her smile was intoxicating. “Yeah, I loved it out there at night. I’d walk home from the library studying for an exam and everyone was quiet, and the sky was clear. It was my favorite time there.”
My smile was a little forced but only because flashes of wild frat parties and topless girls dancing on pool tables flashed through my mind. Those had always been my fondest memories, not that I really had a variety of them. It was refreshing to hear that kind of viewpoint. She was a good girl. A sexy one at that. A distraction.
I took a deep breath at the thought and glanced around the bar. The kind of girl I had always gone for were the ones that would expect nothing out of me the next day. I had enough responsibilities as it was. This was not the one-night-stand kind of girl. She was the forever type girl, the one you date for a year, ask her father, get married, buy a house and have a puppy named Jack with. And while that wasn’t a terrible thing, I wasn’t sure I could fit that kind of commitment in between my 9am board meetings and my 3pm client calls.
Still, I sat there, listening to her tell stories, growing more chattery by the minute…or the beer really. The bartender walked up at about one thirty and glanced over at me. “We’ll take two waters.”
My eyes shifted over to her. “You don’t mind me ordering you water, do you? I just want to make sure you get home in one piece.”
While a normal girl would pout at that point, under the realization there would be no hot drunken sex, her eyes sparkled. “I don’t mind at all. Thank you for being a gentleman.”
I gave her a sweet grin. She really was this crazy sweetheart, nerdy but hot, and those lips were so enticing. But her, the girl talking about the time a rat got in her dorm, completely oblivious to the fact that her friend and Connor had left about forty minutes earlier, tongues down each other’s throats, was too endearing for me to take advantage of. Good lord what is wrong with me?
She sipped her water and took in a deep breath, finally realizing she was alone. “Oh. Well, I guess I should have paid attention. How long have they been gone?”
I looked at my watch. “Almost an hour.”
Her eyes went wide and she put her hand up for the bartender. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I’ve kept you here listening to my boring as hell stories about college and the whole time Lily was gone.”
I reached up and pushed her hand down, chuckling. “It’s alright. I paid the tabs already, for everyone. I didn’t mind, it was nice listening to them. Not the usual conversation you get. It was…refreshing.”
She snorted and then covered her mouth in shock. I laughed and stood up, grabbing my suit jacket and throwing it over my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you a cab.”
Mia nodded, walking in front of me as I waved to the bartender. Out on the street there were cabs everywhere, people flooding out of one bar and heading over to the after-hours ones. I waved to a cab and opened the door, smiling at her. She looked at me for a moment and smiled back. “Well, it was nice meeting you…um…”
“Evan,” I laughed.
She nodded. “Nice meeting you Evan. Be safe.”
“You too,” I replied, waiting until she was inside and the door was shut.
Off she went, this crazy weird feeling in my chest. From behind me the bartender yelled out. “Mr. Lagrange, you almost forgot your card.”
“Thanks,” I replied wincing. “Evan, please. My father is Mr. Lagrange.”
The screen was big in front of me, and I tried not to stare at my video image in the upper right hand corner. A man, about my father’s age, Japanese, sat on the other end, flipping through a file. Video chat was the worst of both worlds. I wasn’t in-person to use my normal charm, but I still had to control my facial expressions and have a conversation on the phone. But he was in California, and I was in Chicago and this was the quickest way to him.
“I like what your company has done,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Let me tell you a story, Mr. Lagrange. My family came to America in the forties and my father worked hard, ensuring he had
built a business and life out here. He was put in one of those internment camps near the end of it, but when he returned home, he wasn’t the same. He was even tougher.”
I nodded, swallowing a yawn as he continued.
He stared right into the screen. “I grew up knowing either I make a life for myself or I live in poverty. So, I built this company, manufacturing products from all over the world. Companies still come to me even though they can get it cheaper by outsourcing to the very country I come from. So, I have to stay at the top of the game. I need a technology, and a system, that can put me there. Something no one else has and something you will allow me to purchase the patent for once it is implemented.”
I furled my brow. “Mr. Hashimoto, that is very unorthodox, I…”
He nodded, putting up his hand. “I know. It’s not usually worth it to a company, but I will pay, let’s just say, more than your company is currently worth, to keep it mine. One day I will profit from it, but only once I am ready to let my secret out. I need to be the top.”
I cleared my throat trying to hide the shock that had struck me. “Alright, sir. We can make arrangements for that.”
“Good,” he replied. “But I have two terms for the agreement.”
I picked up my pen. “Alright hit me with them.”
I was pretty sure he could tell me he wanted a working replica of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man and I would agree. Though it wasn’t that, it was almost just as difficult.
“You are to be present for the production and implementation of the tech and system,” he said, taking me off guard. “I know you run a company, so I will set you up with an office here to keep up with business. Two, I need several proposals for this tech and system, just on paper, within a week. Then you draw up a prototype. As far as testing we can do all of that here.”
I cleared my throat. That was nuts. I ran a multi-million dollar company, how was I supposed to just leave? And where the hell would I find several designs for this complex manufacturing system in just a week? I was back against a wall. It may not have been the slow upward or stabilizing client my father was looking for, just creating more of an incline in the numbers, but how could I walk away from the chance to double my company’s worth?
“You got it, sir. I’ll send them over just as soon as they’re in my hands,” I replied, hoping to hell I could pull this off.
5
Mia
The alarm blared, startling me from my sleep. I snorted and wiped the drool from my chin, letting my face fall back into the pillow. The beer I drank the night before did not feel very good that morning. Opening one eye, I aimed my hand over the alarm and slammed down on it.
“You’re too early, go away,” I grumbled.
Suddenly, I remembered that it was my first day at work. My whole body jolted upward, my hair sticking out in all directions from the massive amount of hairspray that had been put into it the night before. In fact, I hadn’t even taken my clothes off before I’d passed out. So much for me clocking out early and having a bright face for my first day.
Putting my feet on the shag rug next to my bed, I squeezed my toes through it, stretching my arms out to the side and yawning loudly. Tilting my head, I examined the suit hanging on the back of my armoire. I had set everything out before I’d even left for the bar the night before. It was a good thing. Who knew how I would end up if I had to match anything at that moment? It was meticulous, just the same way I had been all of my life.
Hopping in the shower I used the mint bodywash to wake me up and cleared away all of the smudged makeup underneath my eyes. It was a bit wild for me, but hey, it had been fun. When I was done getting ready, I carried my shoes out to the kitchen and set them down, opening the fridge to look for the bread and jelly, the same breakfast I’d been eating since freshman year of my undergrad.
The front door creaked open and Lily backed in, trying not to wake me. I smiled and crossed my arms, watching her with amusement as she backed up and then turned right in front of me, jumping. “Holy shit, dude. Oh man, I didn’t want to wake you.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I have the first day today.”
She looked tired as hell and definitely hung over. “Is that today? Dang, I feel like I just left here.”
Walking her over to the breakfast stool, I helped her sit down. “I’ll pour you a cup of coffee. You look like you had a wild night.”
Her eyes went big and then droopy again. “Good lord, that is not even the half of it. I just did my first walk of shame in Chicago. Whoop!”
She pumped her hands for a moment and then cringed, holding her head. I handed her a cup of coffee and she wrapped her hands around it, holding it right under her nose as if it were her lifeline. “Thank you. Girl, that guy, Connor. Whew. He is a wild thing. Let’s just say, I’ve had enough man for at least a week or so.”
“Wow, that long? Won’t your lady bits shrivel up and fall off?” I asked laughing.
She shook her head wildly. “They are chapped. Why can’t they make Chapstick for down there? Not like that creepy jar of Vaseline but the kind that smells like cherries or café latte?”
I wrinkled my nose. “You want your Vijay to smell like a café latte? Like the gourmet ones or are we talking McDonald’s drive-through?”
“I think it would start out five star but after a night like that,” she replied sighing. “It would be like just a plain black coffee from the student lounge in C building on campus.”
I gasped in horror, putting my hand to my chest dramatically. “That is some crazy stuff then. I don’t think the coffee in student lounge C likes to smell the way it does.”
She grabbed a peach and bit into it, nodding knowingly. “You’re right. I was afraid the thing would blow up one day. But everyone still drank it. I don’t know what they used but it was like a shot of caffeine right to the soul.”
Giggling I sipped my coffee and put the travel lid on the mug. There was a tiny part of me, the guy from the bar flashing through my mind, that made me a little bit jealous of Lily. How free she was, how open everything was in her life. It worked for her. But I knew it would never work for me. I needed to keep focusing on my future.
Grabbing my bag, I kissed Lily on the forehead. “Try to get some food and sleep. Oh, and a shower. I don’t even know what that smell is, and don’t want to. But you might be dying.”
She giggled and waved as I walked to the door. “Good luck bestie. Make us the cash flow!”
Rolling my eyes with a smile, I shut the door being me and headed out to catch a cab. While the building was only six blocks away, I didn’t want to get there sweaty or gross on my first day so I sprung for the cab. Pulling up in front of the huge skyrise building, I paid the driver and got out, my mouth almost gaping at the place. I had done internships there multiple times, but for some reason, that day, it all felt so crazy. Maybe because it was no longer a temporary thing. This would be home for at least five to six years, when my next career move would be put into place.
The sound of honking in the street behind me, shook me out of my thoughts. I hurried in, checking-in at security and making my way down to HR. I knocked gently on the door and smiled, sticking my head inside. “Good morning.”
The woman behind the desk, Agnes, had been my HR rep for every internship I had. She looked up with a grumpy, stale face but it cracked into a full smile when she saw me. Standing up, the woman was about five feet four inches tall, wide hips, and as always, wearing something with a floral print. That day it was a conservative pant suit with a blue printed white linen top, and a matching black dress jacket.
Putting her arms out she pulled me in. “I saw that you were coming back, and this time as an official member of the team. Maybe you’ll actually be able to find someone to teach you something this time. I know in the internships most of you forget who you’re even working for, much less the corporate history.”
I laughed wholesomely. “I only came back for you, Mrs. Agnes. So, what do you have for me
today?”
She hurried back over to her desk and dropped a stack of files and paperwork. “I hope you did some wrist exercises, you have contracts, NDA’s, technological support, wavers, health insurance, savings plan, everything to sign.”
Puffing out my cheeks I walked over and took a seat. “Well, let’s rock and roll then, shall we? I thought I didn’t get benefits until after my 90 days.”
She waved her pen, pulling the first thick packet out. “They really wanted you. So, they offered the insurance and saving plan early. Just remember, when you sign this paper contract, you can’t work for another company like theirs for two years. But we are one-of-a -kind so it usually doesn’t affect the employee.”
I grinned in excitement and signed the first batch. “Good. I like to be forced to do what’s best for me. It’s the easiest way I know to get out of one thing and be stuck in another.”
Mrs. Agnes laughed, and launched into another story of her grandson, only an infant. When we were done with all the paperwork, Mrs. Agnes walked with me, getting inside the elevator and choosing the R&D department floor number where I would spend most of my time.
“Here you are, your security card code. At precisely 6am, this card will flash your daily code on the screen,” she explained, pointing at the card. “It’s the easiest way to keep our security tight. And this is your work badge, wear it when you’re in the building and most everyone will leave you be.”
I took everything from her and put the blue lanyard over my head, letting my ID card dangle in front of my chest. I clipped my security card with it for the time being. We reached the 25th floor and climbed out. It was considerably chattier there, but I could see why. It was the same team of people I interned with before, and just two new faces. We walked up to a stern looking woman, her arms crossed, looking over the R&D pit like Stalin over his troops. When she saw us though, her hardened expression melted and she looked like Lily’s mom whenever she went home.
Hating Him Wanting Him : A Contemporary Romance Collection Page 3
