by Alina Jacobs
"By contracting with us, your company will have access to more systems that we can integrate into your security solution. It's more cost-effective for you and our other clients," Grant said smoothly.
"And there's only one company to deal with. It's much better for accounting," Wes added.
"Yes, that does make it much easier on our side," said the partner. "Have your people send over a proposal, and we'll start looking it over."
Wes could see why Walter had put Grant in charge of a large portion of the company. He was a natural at schmoozing with clients. Not that Wes would ever tell him that.
After several more meetings over lunch, then coffee, then drinks at an upscale bar, Wes and Grant walked back uptown. Wes had promised to meet Dana for dinner at the Salt House.
After all the talking and networking of the day, he and Grant walked to the subway in silence. Grant flicked a glance in his direction when they both got off at the same stop.
"You don't have to keep following me. We're done for the day."
"I know," Wes said. "I have a dinner scheduled in this neighborhood."
"Oh. So do I."
Wes tried to ignore the nagging feeling as he and Grant walked in the same direction, skirting people heading home from the office.
He could tell Grant was annoyed. He had probably figured out what was happening.
They both stopped in front of the Salt House restaurant.
"Dana invite you for dinner?" Wes asked his half brother.
"Yep," said Grant as he pulled the heavy door open.
"Hello, boys!" Dana called as the hostess led them to the table.
"You tricked us into coming here," Wes complained.
Dana tossed her hair. "It's not like I was trying to hide it. It's not my fault you two are too pigheaded to communicate like adults. Sit down. Have a drink."
"Did Sven Svensson recommend this place to you?" Wes asked as he perused the drink menu.
"Sven Svensson?" Grant asked.
"Sven isn't actually his name," Dana said. "Wes just made up that offensive nickname."
"But his last name is Svensson? Like the pharmaceuticals? And the investment firm?" Grant demanded.
Dana's eyes widened slightly. "Those are owned by his brothers. He doesn't have much to do with their companies."
"The Svenssons hate the Holbrooks. So I hope you and your boyfriend don't have long-term plans," Grant said as he studied the menu.
"He's not my boyfriend. It's just business."
"Why do they hate you?" Wes asked. "Did you try to steal one of their companies?"
"Sort of," Grant grimaced. "My father apparently stabbed one of the Svenssons in the back. Metaphorically," he said to Dana's raised eyebrow. "I'm hazy on the details. There was a lawsuit."
Wes could feel the sour burn of anger in his gut. He drained the expensive cocktail the waiter brought him, but it didn't help. He needed to slow down. He'd drank more in the past few weeks than he normally did.
"So, you're just like your father, then," Wes commented.
"Your father too," Grant countered.
"I already have a father."
"Speaking of that," Dana said, "he's still furious. He moved out—"
"He's not living with me," Wes interrupted.
"Maybe you could extend an olive branch," Dana suggested.
"I didn't do anything wrong."
"You know what your problem is? Your problem is that you always wanted Dad's approval," she snapped at him.
"And your problem is that you could have come to my company and helped me instead of doing your stupid reality TV show production."
"Web series. And the last one we filmed was very popular, so you can shove it."
Grant seemed uncomfortable as he watched them bicker.
"You have siblings now," Dana said to him sweetly. "You're going to have to grow a thicker skin."
15
Liz
"Sit," Anastasia said as soon as Liz walked over to the bar in the Tasty Goat. "I've ordered for us. Not that the food here is anything to write about."
Liz sighed. Eating out with Anastasia was such a chore, but she did want to talk to someone about Wes. "Have you been here before?" Liz asked as she climbed up onto one of the tall bar chairs. She was definitely going to the gym tomorrow. No excuses.
The bartender slid the drinks toward them. Liz reached for hers.
"Wait," Anastasia said and took out her camera.
Liz watched as she carefully took pictures of the drinks. Liz always felt dumpy around Anastasia. The food blogger was tall and thin and had glossy chestnut hair that went down to her waist. Liz constantly struggled with her curvy figure and frizz-prone hair.
Anastasia finally put down the camera and picked up her drink.
"Cheers!" she said.
Liz sipped the cocktail. "How's the blog?"
"It's going. A few men didn't like the reviews I left of their restaurant. It's not my fault they don't know how to cook scallops and their steak tastes like it was sourced from a sewer. Honestly. I don't know who is handing out Michelin stars these days. Advertising dollars for blogs are drying up though. I've had to start doing videos to make up the lost revenue."
"You could always come work for Holbrook," Liz said. "You have the marketing chops to do well. Or you could go to the Holbrook Foundation."
Anastasia wrinkled her nose slightly.
"I'd rather just marry a Holbrook. Let me know if you decide to kick Wes to the curb."
"There is nothing—"
Anastasia stuck her tongue out between her teeth and smiled. "Just pulling your leg, Liz. Lighten up!"
"There's always Mark," Liz said.
"Yes," Anastasia said thoughtfully. "I suppose I could go after him. He's a bit straightlaced though."
"I think he's starting a company," Liz said. "I'd let him readjust before doing anything."
"You're right. He doesn't need the distraction. Plus I'm quite busy with this food stuff. I might have a deal with a few web streaming services. One of the Svenssons started a web channel. They have insipid programming on right now, but maybe I'll approach them and see if they want to level up, so to speak."
"The Svenssons also have money," Liz said.
"Yes, but their companies are all upstate."
"They have an investment firm here."
"I'm so over bankers."
"Of course you are," Liz said. She would give anything to have a rich banker at her beck and call.
The food arrived, and Liz squirmed impatiently while Anastasia took carefully framed photos.
Liz took a taste of the food. "It's pretty good."
"It's terrible," Anastasia said after she ate one bite. The bartender smiled at Liz in sympathy.
"Have you started planning Brandy's gender reveal?" Anastasia asked her.
Liz chewed and swallowed. "No. Are you sure you can't help?"
"I told you I'm far too busy," Anastasia said.
Liz looked sadly at the empty plate in front of her. "I can't believe Brandy is married and has a child on the way. It's so unfair! She's such a horrible person. I wish I could find a wealthy handsome husband. I want the happily ever after."
"You'll find it eventually," Anastasia said after she ordered them another round of drinks.
"Maybe, but if I want an awesome wedding, I'm almost too old for it. It's tacky if you're too far into your thirties. Then people think you should grow up and have an understated wedding. I can't be a thirty-five-year-old bride."
Anastasia rolled her eyes. "It would be fine."
"It wouldn't be the same."
"Are Carter and Allie getting engaged any time soon?"
"I don't know. I would assume so." Liz hoped it didn't actually happen soon. She didn't know if she could stomach planning Allie's wedding events while being confronted with her own inadequacies.
"But let's talk about the newest Holbrook in town—Wes. A corporate scion; I like it! I hope he's better in bed than he is at
keeping ahold of his company."
Liz blushed. "That's not—"
"So, you haven't hit that yet? Too bad," Anastasia said.
Liz turned beet red. The bartender handed her another drink. "He couldn't help it about the company. It was bad luck on his part that I already had the shell LLCs and hedge funds set up."
"No," Anastasia said. "It was good planning on your part. Stop selling yourself short."
"I don't see how he could actually want a relationship with me. What if he never forgives me? He was so angry."
Anastasia shrugged. "It was business. He was outsmarted. Maybe you guys won't marry, but you can at least have some fun. The way he was looking at you that night of Mark's party, he looked like he was already in love with you."
Liz didn't know what to think about that. But what if Anastasia was right? What if Wes wanted her?
When she went home that night, she was still quite tipsy. "I really should have stopped at two drinks," she told herself as she opened the closet where all her scrapbook supplies were hidden.
She grabbed the latest scrapbook subscription box, tore it open, and grinned. There was white and gold paper, a little stamp to make flowers, and wedding-related cutouts and stickers. "Maybe it's a sign!" she exclaimed.
Every month she would forget to cancel her scrapbook subscription box, but now she was glad she had it. She pulled out the rest of the boxes, dumped them all out, then pulled out an unfinished scrapbook she had started when she still dreamed that she and Carter Holbrook would one day marry.
"Here's to new beginnings," she said, dumping the book in the trash. Then she printed out several photos of Wes, spread everything out on her kitchen table, and set to work.
It was late when she finished the first few pages. In all of his pictures, Wes was in a high-end suit or a tux. She loved the way his dark hair curled slightly at his temple, the elegant line of his mouth. He fit right in with the carefully cut-out ribbons, pressed dried flowers, and gold tissue that Liz used to meticulously design each page.
Anastasia had said to just have fun with Wes, but Liz couldn't help but want something more than that. That night she dreamed of Wes and weddings. Right as he was about to kiss her, the alarm on her phone rang.
"It's four a.m. I can't do this," Liz groaned and rolled over to go back to sleep. The second alarm she set shrieked from its hiding place in her closet.
"Just get up," she said. Before she could talk herself out of it, she stood up, stretched, then fumbled around in the dark for her never-worn workout clothes.
"Today is the first day of the rest of your life," she said in the mirror.
She wasn't feeling that pumped when she walked into the gym on the second floor of the building the next block over.
Holbrook Enterprises had a gym that employees were encouraged to use. Liz never went. The people using the Holbrook gym were people like Allie and Carter, who worked out for an hour and a half every morning. They were toned. Liz poked her stomach. She was not toned.
She had bought a membership way back in January and had only used it a few times since. The gym was just as she remembered but mostly empty so early in the morning. The few people there really seemed to know what they were doing. Liz jogged lightly on a treadmill for twenty minutes then decided to try her hand at one of the weight machines.
As she struggled to load the weights on the machine, she felt someone come up behind her.
"You're doing it wrong."
She whirled around. "Wes? Why aren't you using the Holbrook gym?" Liz blurted out.
He looked down his nose at her. His height was balanced by his broad shoulders and chest that tapered down under a tight-fitting gray shirt. "Why aren't you using the Holbrook gym?" he asked as he pulled some levers on the machine and rearranged the weights. "It should be fine now. I'll spot you." Liz awkwardly stepped over the bench.
"Keep your back straight and your legs in alignment," Wes coached.
She was sweating and breathing hard by the time she finished a set.
"You aren't going to do another set?" Wes asked.
Liz shook her head. "This is more than enough for me."
"Spot me, then," he said.
She nodded and watched him load up at least five times as much weight as she had put on the machine. Then she tried not to drool as the muscles in his arms bulged during the repetitions of the exercise.
When he was finished, she ran to grab a wipe to clean off the machine. She needed a minute or ten.
"Thanks," Wes said.
She almost reached out to touch his chest but controlled herself.
The slight gesture earned her a grin from Wes. "Looks like someone failed anti-harassment training. You aren't supposed to touch employees."
"You aren't my employee," she said.
"You're my liaison. That makes you in charge of me."
"Does it?" Liz asked. She could smell his underlying masculine scent and see the light sheen of sweat. It was very distracting.
Anastasia's voice blared in her head. Just have some fun with him.
Wes handed her a towel, and she let it hang limp in her grasp while she watched him rip off his sweat-soaked shirt and rub off.
"I'll see you in the office," he said and walked off to the locker room.
Liz knew her eyes were as big as saucers, and she stared as he moved. His broad shoulders rippled, and she followed the lines of his muscles down to his hips and firm backside.
Another woman on a nearby machine looked over at her and made eye contact. They both grinned.
"This is why I wake up at four," the woman said with a thumbs-up.
"Amen, sister."
16
Wes
Wes had been surprised to see Liz at that gym. He had joined right after moving into his new apartment—it was close by, and the equipment was well maintained—but Wes had never seen Liz there before.
As he showered back at his apartment, he thought about her. The way her yoga pants hugged her hips, the way her shirt stretched over her tits while she strained at the machine.
He switched the water to freezing cold and gasped. He had to stay focused. This was the first big meeting since the disastrous board meeting in Connecticut. They were going to hash out what was going to happen to all the Walsh Systech assets.
Walter greeted him when he walked into the glass-enclosed meeting room that looked out over the city from the top of the Holbrook Enterprises tower.
Liz looked at him and blushed. He smiled to himself; he'd clearly made an impression on her at the gym.
"Shall we?" Grant asked. Kate was sitting next to Grant, taking notes on her laptop. She barely looked at Wes. So, it was going to be that kind of meeting. Good to know. Wes geared himself up for a fight.
"Have you all figured out who is moving?"
"Do you need any water or coffee or anything?" Kate asked him with a bland smile.
"No, thank you," Wes replied.
Kate punched a button, and the screen flashed on. Wes looked at the charts.
Liz cleared her throat. "As you can see," she began, "we have a number of redundancies, especially in human resources, legal, accounting, sales. The engineers and scientists will stay where they are, obviously, but Holbrook cannot absorb everyone in these other departments."
"You could just leave everything as is," Wes stated. "Just because you own the company doesn't mean you have to restructure everything."
"Actually," Liz said, "since we're both publicly traded companies, we have a duty to the shareholders to reduce costs. At the next shareholder's' meeting, people will wonder, if we don't at least have a plan in place."
"So, this is Holbrook," Wes spat. "You just kowtow to quarterly profits."
"There is no good reason to wait," Grant said. "The SEC is going to approve the sale of the stock the shell companies own to Holbrook Enterprises. It's better to make this transition as smooth and quick as possible."
"The CEO doesn't have anything he wants to add?" We
s asked, cutting off his brother. "Or does Grant speak for you, Walter?"
"He does not," Walter said, "however, Liz is correct. We wanted your company because we saw a hole in our market share where Walsh operates. It makes sense on our end to integrate your products and engineers into our company as opposed to having it separate. This has nothing to do with quarterly reporting. Please continue, Liz."
Wes could feel the anger building behind his eyes, making his head pound as he watched slide after slide about how Walsh Systech, his company, would be chopped up and which of his employees would be slated to lose their jobs and livelihoods.
He could tell Grant and Kate and Walter were looking at him with thinly veiled concern as Liz finished her presentation.
She concluded with, "I'm sorry. I know this is a lot of people."
"It's twenty percent of the company," Wes choked out.
"You had a larger-than-normal sales force," Liz said. "You were going to have to remove some of these people sooner or later."
Wes watched her. The dissonance between the cute girl at the gym and the sociopathic corporate-mercenary bitch standing in front of him clashed in his brain. She was just like the rest of these people.
He had tuned out whatever Liz was saying but forced himself to concentrate when Grant said, "Will that be acceptable, Wes?"
"Fine," Wes replied. Whatever he was agreeing to do didn't matter. This was worse, much worse, than he thought. Walsh Systech had made promises to these employees. And now they would be laid off, just like that.
"I know layoffs are tough," Walter said, "but it's just the nature of business. They'll understand. We'll do what we can to help them land on their feet."
I hate you, Wes thought, but he forced himself to put on a bland smile. "Sounds fine."
The rest of the day was a blur of meetings. Liz and Grant tried to ask him for his opinions on various things. He could barely manage a grunt. His mind was fully consumed with thoughts of revenge.
