Zoe smirked at me.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“I’d imagine that acquiring Borroni hasn’t exactly made it easier or given you more time to focus on other parts of your life,” she said.
“You’re right about that. But this was my grandfather’s business. I want it to be as successful as possible. Unfortunately, that means that my own relationships fall by the wayside sometimes.”
Zoe straightened and looked straight at me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Is yours just your love life, or all relationships? I think I could deal with the lack of romantic relationships if I was more immersed in my friendships and relationships with my family, but they all seem to take a backseat to my job.”
“It’s all relationships for me, too. I have friends, but I am my job.”
Zoe sighed. “I just wish things were different sometimes. I’m grateful for Mr. Borroni, and for my job, but the balance isn’t there. This is probably crazy to be saying, especially to someone who has the capacity to fire me, but you’re the first person I’ve come across in a long time who has sacrificed as much for his career as I feel like I have for mine.”
My heart dropped. I wished there was something I could do for Zoe, because I knew how difficult it could be to feel like everyone around you was moving on with their life while you stayed the same. It didn’t matter how much money I had or how many businesses I acquired. There was still that emptiness, the one Zoe had described, each time another friend had a child or got married. The feeling that even the best job in the world couldn’t erase.
“Take Ellie, my best friend, for example,” Zoe continued. “I want her baby to know me. I want to be Aunt Zoe, the fun aunt, not Aunt Zoe the workaholic she only sees on Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
I knew the feeling all too well, more than Zoe might ever know. Sometimes it felt like everyone was moving on with their lives while I was just staying in the same spot.
Sure, from the outside, I seemed to have it all—the money, the celebrity, the success. But that wasn’t how I viewed it. In my own mind, I’d worked at the same company since the day I’d graduated college and hadn’t progressed since. While my university friends had followed different, exciting paths, I’d had my life planned out for me from the time I was a child, and Cadieux was at the forefront of that plan.
I thought of my brother Benoit. I hadn’t seen him in nearly five years, all because of some stupid argument. I couldn’t even remember the specifics of the fight, but the hurt lingered in my mind every day. I’d put the business before my family, and I’d been paying the price ever since. Zoe may have missed her friend’s baby shower, but at least she’d been invited. I hadn’t even been invited to Benoit’s wedding last year.
More than that, I hadn’t been a part of my brother’s life. I’d been watching from the outskirts like an outsider. While I’d taken over the family business and put Cadieux first, he’d decided that other things were more important. He’d probably be starting a family soon, maybe buying a new house or moving somewhere to start a new life. He’d found a sense of balance in his life that just so happened to not include me. Last I’d heard, he was working at a tech company, the sort of job where he put in a forty-hour week and then had nights and weekends to spend with his new wife and their group of friends.
Would I ever have that? Or would I always be the guy who buried himself in his work and didn’t worry about any of the possible consequences of that decision?
I turned my attention back to Zoe as we continued sharing our feelings about our work-life balance, or lack thereof. I did my best to shake Benoit from my mind. I’d decided a long time ago that there was no point in dwelling on what couldn’t be changed, and I wasn’t about to start now.
Chapter 6
Zoe
It was only then that I caught myself; here I was, spilling my guts to the company’s new owner. Talk about overstepping the bounds!
“Don’t get me wrong. I love my job more than anything,” I rushed to add.
“I understand,” Lucas said with a nod. “And if that’s not how you feel, that’s okay, too. You don’t have to say that just because I’m your boss.”
I shook my head. “It is how I feel, and that’s the problem sometimes. I put my heart and soul into that company every single day. But it sort of feels like my job is my life. Sometimes I worry that it’s all that I am. If Borroni Chocolates were to disappear, who would I be? Is that a silly thing to wonder?”
I heard the words coming from my mouth, but I still couldn’t fully understand why I was sharing my innermost thoughts with a man I hardly knew. I hadn’t even talked to my closest friends about this. They all knew I was pretty much a workaholic, and they’d made the occasional crack when tipsy about how I hadn’t been in a serious relationship in years, but I wasn’t sure they knew how I actually felt about the situation.
Ellie had enough to worry about with her first baby due to arrive in a matter of weeks. Isabel, who’d only just landed her first full-time teaching gig after four years of substitute teaching, would’ve just said that I was ungrateful and needed to stop complaining. Laura might’ve understood, but she was a full-time writer, so it was definitely normal that her job was also a huge part of her life. Not to mention, they all had husbands and houses and were starting families.
I was the career-obsessed one of the group, the one who resorted to the occasional no-strings-attached fling at industry conferences because I didn’t have time—or the desire—for actual dating. Worst of all, I was sharing this information with the first guy I’d felt an actual connection with in a long time. What if he never took me seriously again after this conversation?
“I must sound ridiculous,” I said, speaking my thoughts aloud.
“Not at all,” Lucas replied. “It’s nice to talk to someone who understands how I live. Job first, life second.”
I could tell from the look in his eyes that he meant what he said. It warmed my heart to realize that Lucas and I, who seemed to come from two totally different worlds, had some common ground. Most of the other Borroni employees, other VPs included, left their work at the office or brought a minimal amount of work home. I, on the other hand, slept with a notepad next to my bed in case a marketing idea came to me in my sleep.
Quite honestly, it spooked me how well Lucas and I were getting along. I’d been so sure that this trip, minus the gorgeous beaches and warm weather, was going to be miserable. Greg had made it seem that way, too, and he’d spent almost all of the past week getting to know Lucas.
And yet, the more time I spent with Lucas, the more certain I was that he was closer to being the kind, flirty Lucas I’d met in the coffee shop, not the demanding Lucas who’d come into Borroni Chocolates and thrown us all for a loop.
Maybe he wasn’t the big bad boss everyone had thought he was. After all, he’d been incredibly kind over the past two days. For starters, he’d let Greg go home to be with his sick daughter. I imagined that a lot of CEOs would have told their assistants to find some alternative care for their children and still attend the conference. Not only had he allowed Greg the time off, but he’d kept from bothering him, even when we could have really used his help.
Sure, that had resulted in more work for me, but it had been a sweet gesture on Lucas’s part, not to mention a good bonding experience for the two of us. Then there was his offer to let me fly back to Chicago to make Ellie’s baby shower. It hadn’t been the most sensible suggestion, but it had shown that he really was a kind soul.
“So, what made you decide on Borroni being your next conquest?” I asked, hoping that I could subtly shift the conversation to that horrifying speech he’d given on his first day with us.
Lucas hesitated, and it wasn’t until he shifted in his spot that I stopped regretting asking the question.
“I actually met Nicolo last year,” he said.
“Oh yeah?”
He nodded.
“At the Confectioners’ Symposium in Austin.”
I hadn’t considered that the two had met in the past at that annual meeting, the most prestigious among those in our line of business. It made sense. Mr. Borroni looked forward to it every year, and it was one of the only conferences he attended solo.
“He’s a really amazing man,” Lucas continued. “Just an all-around happy-go-lucky, chatty, cheerful guy. One of my favorite people I’ve met at all of these nonsensical conferences.”
“Nonsensical?” I repeated. Call me crazy, but Lucas struck me as the kind of guy who would live for those conferences and symposiums, the guy who relished any opportunity to show off his chocolate empire.
“Maybe that’s not the right choice of word. It just gets redundant sometimes. I’m actually pleasantly surprised by how many ideas we’ve come up with based on the seminars here.”
“I sent you on a tangent,” I said. “Tell me more about how you became my CEO.”
Lucas chuckled. “Normally I send some of my international VPs to seek out new subsidiaries,” he said. “I’m rarely as involved with branch takeovers, but I made a promise to Nicolo that I’d personally ensure a smooth transition. When we met last year, I mentioned that I was interested in some sort of collaboration or acquisition. Nicolo politely declined.”
“That’s typical Nicolo for you. He’s gotten dozens of offers over the years, but he never took any of them—until now, of course.”
“Can I be honest with you?” he said.
I nodded, curious. “Of course.”
“Nicolo actually approached me about selling.”
The words hung there as I tried to digest them. He’d sought out Lucas? I would have bet any amount of money that it had been the other way around. But maybe there was more to the picture than just what I’d been seeing. My job could be incredibly stressful at times, so I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much stress Mr. Borroni had been under every single day.
“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“He called me up on what he said was the fiftieth anniversary of when he’d started working at the family business. He told me that he’d started as a teen, working alongside his aunts and uncles and brothers, and had continued on while the rest of his family found their own paths. He loved it, but he’d made a promise to himself when he was young that fifty years would be his limit.”
I took a moment to process that. Fifty years. I hadn’t realized he’d been there that long. Thirty-five or forty, maybe, but fifty was unimaginable. We’d celebrated the company’s anniversary—it would be 102 years this October—but he’d never mentioned his own tenure at the company.
“He never told me that,” I said softly.
“You probably know him far better than I do,” Lucas started. “But Nicolo strikes me as the kind of guy who didn’t want to deal with all of the sappy goodbyes or hoopla surrounding his retirement. He was in the business because he loved it, but he figured now was as good a time as any to leave on a high note and spend more time with his family.”
“I get that,” I said. “He’s devoted his entire life to the company. When his wife Pam died a few years back, he grieved by throwing himself into his work.”
“Pam? The namesake behind Pam’s Choco-Peanut Butter Pretzels?”
“That’s her.” I couldn’t help but smile. “She was obsessed with all things peanut butter. Nicolo created that product as a tribute to her for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.”
Lucas’s gaze met mine. “And that, Zoe, is why I was honored to acquire Borroni Chocolates. Quite frankly, it was one of the costliest acquisitions I’ve made, but the products are top-notch, and I admire that it’s a family business, much like my own. Nicolo called me on that Friday night with a number, I agreed, and the paperwork was complete by Sunday night. Honestly, he seemed thrilled. Sure, it was a strategic business move, but I can’t deny that it made me feel good to make an old, hardworking man happy.”
I swooned at the words. At the staff meeting that first day, he’d seemed like some strict CEO just out to get a quick buck without caring at all about the people his decisions affected. Each moment I’d spent with him in Hawaii had directly contradicted that first impression.
While it was hard to wrap my mind around the idea that Mr. Borroni had sought Lucas out to take over the company, the more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Just a few weeks ago, Nicolo had cut our usual weekly meeting short to video chat with his son so he could catch a few minutes of his grandson’s baseball game. We couldn’t get through a day without him beaming about how Brandon had gotten an A on a spelling quiz, or Caylee had made the cheerleading squad. He’d done more than enough hard work to last a lifetime, and I was glad he was finally getting the chance to spend some time with his grandkids.
It was still bizarre, though, that my grandfatherly CEO had been traded in for the hottie in front of me. As I glanced at Lucas, another thought tugged at my mind. Now was my time to ask, since we were being so open with one another.
“Does Mr. Borroni know he handed his company over to a tyrant?” I teased.
Lucas said nothing, simply fidgeting in his spot on the picnic blanket, and I wondered if I’d just taken things a step too far.
I was about to blurt out an apology, to desperately attempt to backpedal what I’d said, when Lucas got to his feet.
“Would you like to take a walk?” he said.
I nodded and tried not to let him feel the beads of sweat on my palms as he helped me up.
Was this his way of deflecting the question, or was he looking for a change of scenery as he answered the question? Either way, he hadn’t fired me yet, so I had that to be grateful for at least.
We stepped toward the ocean without a word, toddler babble and teenaged laughter filling the air around us. I’d gotten so lost in our conversation that I hadn’t realized quite how many people had been sitting around us. I followed Lucas’s lead, and we walked side by side, away from the sun
Lucas turned to me. “You’re talking about the speech I gave the day I started at Borroni, yes?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, you basically told us that our jobs aren’t guaranteed and most of us are completely replaceable.”
“Zoe, I have no intention of gutting the company. I have no intention of letting anyone go unless their performance is subpar. I took over the company with a promise to Nicolo that I would keep the integrity of the company the same, and a large part of that integrity is its employees.”
I considered the possibility that I had misinterpreted what he’d said that first day, but then I remembered the concern on the faces of everyone who’d been sitting around me. I thought about the soft whispers and lack of small talk and quick lunch breaks that had plagued the past week. I hadn’t been imagining it.
I shrugged. “Then you might need to work on your word choice a bit.”
“Look, if my time as CEO of Cadieux has taught me anything, it’s that there’s nothing like fear to motivate people.” He hesitated, as if he had to carefully choose his words. “I needed to see at what level the Borroni employees can perform. When there’s no incentive, when you’re convinced that your job is 100% secure, there’s no motivation to perform. People get lazy.”
I wasn’t convinced. Fear could be motivating, sure, but I’d never seen it be effective as a long-term solution. Mr. Borroni had taken almost the exact opposite approach, relying on a sort of familial bond within the company as a motivating force. On my first day, he had taken me out to lunch to get to know more about me and help me learn more about the company. Lucas, on the contrary, had made it so no one would ever want to spend an extended period of time alone with him.
Oh, the irony. Here I was, the only one who had witnessed another side of Lucas before, and I was the only one experiencing it this time, as well. I couldn’t help but wonder if he would be as light-hearted and conversational if Greg had been the one on the trip with him. I wasn’t conceited enough to think
that I was the only person at Borroni he’d be nice to.
“So, your solution is to scare them?” I pushed.
“I think of it more as sizing up the company.”
“And how long do you plan on keeping up this charade?”
“Now, I wouldn’t call it a charade. I may not be as strict or curt as I’ve made myself out to be, but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve dedicated employees who do their best work every day. I’m still the leader of a large company who wants to see my company succeed. I still need to make difficult decisions. I’m sorry if you feel otherwise.”
I stared down at my bare feet, my toes covered in the soft Hawaiian sand. Part of me felt totally comfortable ripping into Lucas and telling him how ridiculous I thought that sounded and how it hadn’t helped him build a rapport with the company. The other part of me centered in on the fact that he was my boss and I needed to be careful about what I said.
“What’s on your mind?” Lucas said. “Go on. I’d love to hear your thoughts.”
“Unfiltered?”
“Unfiltered.”
Well, if he insisted.
“It feels like it’s a threat that’s looming over our heads,” I said. “I know from spending time with you that you’re not the big bad CEO you’ve made yourself out to be over the past week. I also realize that you may be right in fear being effective in increasing productivity, but that’s only in the short term. That looming fear of being fired is something every employee carries with them every day.”
I was surprised by my candidness. It felt good to get the words off my chest. I thought about all of my colleagues who’d spent the past week on pins and needles, hoping for some sort of reassurance that they’d still have their job a week or a month from now, and was proud that I’d stood up for them. Lucas was a nice guy. He just needed the rest of the company to see that, and I wasn’t sure if it was too late for that.
The Deal With Triplets Page 4
