Chapter 4: Hailey

Being in the building where Daybreak Solutions was situated was overwhelming all by itself. The place was decorated like no money had been spared – from mohair rugs in the waiting area to the mahogany office doors. Ken Nettles’ office was bigger than my entire apartment with a view to die for. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t been able to study it very well once I’d introduced myself, though.

Ken Nettles was also an intimidating man – I guessed it went with the territory – but he had a way about him that had made me relax somewhat. Before I walked in, I’d been so nervous it had made me nauseous. But, when I spoke to Ken, I instantly felt a little better. He was able to put me at ease without even trying.

His son, Zach, was a different story.

He was beautiful. Sexy. Strong. Confident.

Every cell in my body woke up as he eye-fucked me, his boldness affecting me much more than I should have let it. I took a deep breath, unable to pull my eyes away from him. He was a carbon copy of his father – dark hair and piercing green eyes, but a face and body that belonged on the catwalk. A strong and chiselled jaw, peppered with dark stubble, cheekbones that seemed wasted on a man. His chest and arms muscles pressed against his button down shirt, and his pants fit him so well that I had no question whether he was hung or not.

Warmth spread up my chest and covered my cheeks and throat. Fuck me for blushing, but I couldn’t help it. I’d never been with a man before, but God I wanted him. A laugh bubbled up within me, but I stifled it. He was way too much man for me, and cocky…God, he was cocky.

I could immediately tell that he didn’t have the same upright and formal manner that his father seemed to exude. Still, he seemed to radiate his own power.

He wore black jeans instead of suit pants, an un-tucked collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Without overtly staring, I saw some lines of ink on his muscled forearms. I had never been into tattoos but I suddenly found myself wondering what the remainder of the pattern was under his shirt.

I cleared my throat. Get a grip, Hailey.

The atmosphere had been thick and tense. And, Zach Nettles was scowling at me. I got the sense that I was interrupting something.

I didn’t know what they would say about me when I’d been sent to wait outside. Maybe they told each other how young and incompetent I looked. Maybe they’d seen right through me from the start, knowing that I wasn’t as experienced as I should be.

I shook myself out of my negative self-talk. No. I couldn’t think like that. Jess nominated me for this job but Otto had given it to me for a reason. If the team had faith in me, it was high time I believed in myself. I knew I could do this.

Zach came out, his expression neutral, and announced he would go to the men’s room before we spoke. More than anything, I felt a sense of relief when he walked away because he hadn’t fired me on the spot. A part of me had still expected it. From his stance, it was clear that he had the attitude of someone with a lot of money and a lot of confidence. His authority suggested that he knew where he stood in life and he didn’t have people tell him what he should do. He’d worn his scowl like it was comfortable. I had the feeling this wasn’t the face he showed the world, though. Zach Nettles couldn’t be this antisocial.

I straightened up, steeled my spine. My job might not be that easy. I was here to tell one of the richest men in Denver what to do. I wasn’t sure how well it would go down, but Ken Nettles hired me for a reason and I would do my job.

I was on my phone when I felt someone staring at me. At the same moment, his phone beeped and I looked up to find Zach looking at me. Our eyes locked for a moment. The expression on his face was hard to read – he looked brooding and still a little irritated. He cleared his throat and walked toward me, like a force of nature with a bad attitude.

“Shall we go to lunch, Miss Woods?” Zach asked. In contrast to his expression, his voice was as smooth as velvet. I stood up and nodded.

“Hailey, please. Miss Woods is too formal.”

Zach inclined his head and walked away. I assumed I was supposed to follow so I did, keeping up with his pace. He glanced over his shoulder at me. I was under no illusion that he wanted anything to do with me.

What a way to kick things off.

The building had a cafeteria that was fancier than any of the restaurants I’d ever been in. The shiny hardwood floor stretched wall to wall with round tables of different sizes dotted across the open space. They were all decorated with cream tablecloths and silver cutlery with ornaments as centerpieces.

Zach nodded at the staff and walked to a table. He hesitated before pulling out a chair for me. It was the first act of gallantry I’d seen from him. When I sat down he walked around the small table he’d chosen for us and pulled his chair out. He sat opposite me. The table was small enough to make the meeting feel intimate. I glanced around, trying to ignore the stares from the other staff that were directed my way.

“What will you have to eat, Miss Woods?” he asked.

“Hailey. And I’m not sure.” Did he not hear me before?

“There are specials every day. You have a few to choose from.”

I looked down at the smart, calligraphic-font menu in front of me. The dishes all sounded like they belonged in five-star restaurants – veal with wild rice and sautéed vegetables, cold cucumber and avocado soup, duck a l’orange. Jesus, they eat like this, everyday?

“The food’s very elaborate,” I said.

Zach nodded. “Only the best for the staff at Daybreak.”

He smiled at me and it immediately transformed his features. A small dimple appeared in his left cheek and softened his face. Whatever was eating him earlier seemed to melt away. His green eyes were warmer. His whole demeanor changed from sulking and brusque to gallant and charming. For a second, sitting here with him, made me feel like I was on a date instead of a business meeting.

“The soup is always great if you can’t decide,” he said. I nodded and he ordered the soup for us.

“I’m glad we can take some time to get to know each other before we really start working,” I said. “It’s always good to know a client beforehand.”

Zach nodded. “I agree with you, but when you get to know me you’ll realize how unnecessary this whole thing is.”

I frowned at him. “This whole thing?”

Zach was still smiling. “You see, my father is very serious about the business. He’s just overreacting. The Company is all he has and he’s nervous that it will go down.”

I looked at Zach. He was smooth and charming and he spoke about his father with absolute disregard, like he was a worried old man. Ken Nettles hadn’t come across like that at all.

“So, you think working together isn’t necessary?” I asked. “You don’t want to hear what your father has to say about it?”

He narrowed his eyes and a bit of that irritability I’d seen in the office shone through.

“I’ve heard what he has to say. He doesn’t understand me.” He smiled again, breaking that tension that so easily crept onto his face.

I smiled and nodded. “Right. What is it that he’s so worried about, then?”

Zach glanced at me. “What do you mean?”

“You said he was overreacting. What about?”

Zach shrugged and looked around as if there were more interesting things than this conversation.

He shrugged. “Oh, you know how it goes. He’s not happy with the way I’m doing things. It’s a classic generational gap situation.”

“What does he disagree with?” I asked, pressing on.

Zach waved his hand. A waiter appeared with two bowls of light green soup. It had a swirl of white cream in the middle and was garnished with a sprig of parsley.

“This looks beautiful,” I said.

Zach looked down at his plate. “Beautiful?” he asked like I used the word out of context. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

I dipped a spoon into the soup and tasted it. I wouldn’t have thought to pair cucumber and avocado, and cold soup sounded like what you got when there was a power outage, but it tasted divine.

“So, tell me about yourself,” Zach said. “How long have you been in the PR business?”

I glanced up at him. “You haven’t answered my question.”

He was evasive, but so was I. I didn’t want him to know that I hadn’t been a PR agent for longer than a month. With everything he had going for him he would lose all respect for me if he realized what a newbie I really was. Besides, I wanted to know what he was trying to avoid.

“What question is that?” he asked. His eyes were a bright green and they were alive, amused and smiling.

“I asked what your father is so upset about.”

Zach nodded and stirred his soup with his silver spoon.

“He just doesn't understand the world I live in,” he said. “It’s too modern for his taste and he’s the type that holds on to the past.”

It was the second answer that very diplomatically did not tell me anything. Zach was trying to avoid the question. That made me feel like whatever it was his father wanted me to fix, was very much a real problem. Zach wouldn’t try so hard to blow off if it didn’t mean anything. Ken Nettles didn’t look like the type to overreact – I didn’t know much about him, but you didn’t run a big company like Daybreak on overreactions – and Zach was trying to get rid of me.

“Mr. Nettles,” I said and Zach looked up at me, his eyes intense. I’d used his surname to get his attention and it worked. “I know that you don’t want me here. It’s not hard to tell. I don’t know what exactly your father would like us to work on, but I have no intention of walking away. I am here to do a job and I’m going to do it.”

“Right. While we’re being straight, Miss Woods,” he said, taking the same route I had. I squirmed, uncomfortable. Now that he’d dropped his charm he was as intimidating as he’d been before. I got the feeling you didn’t want to be on his bad side. “I’m not here to be told how I should live my life, no matter what the reason. I can very well fire you on the spot and send a bad report to your boss.”

I nodded and lifted my chin. “Yes, you can send a bad report to my boss. You can ruin my reputation with a snap of your fingers, I’m sure.” I had almost said ‘before it even started’ but I’d caught myself in time. “The problem is that you’re not the one hiring me, your father is. So, you can’t fire me. As for my boss, he trusts me to do what I do best, and I won’t give him any less.”

Zach’s eyes were dark, swirling with anger, making him impossibly hot. Some part of me was terrified of him, and the rest? So turned on that it hurt.

I imagined heads could roll when he looked at people that way, but I wasn’t here to play games and Zach was my assignment. If this had been anything other than my first real project I would have run for the hills, but I couldn’t let Otto down or ruin my own chances of getting further in the business. I couldn’t prove Jess wrong for believing in me. There was too much at stake here for me already for me to just roll over and show my belly.

“Fine,” he snapped. “If you’re going to be a pain in the ass, then I can be one too. It won’t take more than a week for you to realize that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. You’re not in charge, pretty girl. You might think you are, but good luck. Better hold on tight. I buck. A lot.”

I needed to see a shrink. Instead of being intimidated by him, I was wet and aching for a long afternoon of letting him touch every inch of me. What the hell was wrong with me? All these years of being good with saving myself and this alpha asshole turns me into a hot mess over a lunch? It was beyond unnerving. But I wasn’t about to back down. I couldn’t. No matter how turned on I was. I had a job to do. Period.

“I’ll be in your office tomorrow morning at seven,” I said very bluntly, as if he didn’t matter. “Then we can start.”

Zach frowned. “I don’t come in until nine, so you can sit your pretty ass there until I get in.”

I started to give a rebuttal, but pursed my lips instead and nodded. He could think he was in charge for the first day. He’d learn soon enough that his father hired me for a reason. A damn good one, it would seem.

When I didn’t respond, he jumped back in, his voice low, dominate, commanding. “Right, well. I have a meeting to get to. I hope you enjoy your soup, Miss Woods. I trust you’ll be able to find your way out?”

I nodded. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you. And thank you for lunch.”

“It’s just lunch.” He winked and turned, walking away with his shoulders square and head up. Every woman in the room turned to look at him.

I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding and forced myself to relax. My fingers trembled slightly when I reached for my spoon. I was determined to finish my lunch, even though I didn’t have an appetite anymore.

I didn’t know what Zach was hiding but it was bigger than I thought it was. I would start doing my research about the family – maybe if I’d done it last night I would have had more of a handle on Zach Nettles – and I would know everything there was to know about him. Tomorrow morning, at seven, we were going to get started and I would be more than prepared. Even if I had to sit my ass there for two hours to do it.

Zach hadn’t looked very happy about the time or the fact that I wouldn’t back down. That was fine by me. I wasn’t a child anymore and I wasn’t going to let someone walk all over me. I knew how people saw me – fragile, small, and easily persuaded. They were wrong every time. There were days where I doubted myself, but when I put my mind to something, I wasn’t going to give up.

That, and the fact that this was still my first job and I couldn’t afford to fail, made for a killer combination of not-giving-up. When my soup was finished I pushed the plate back. The waiter came to remove the plates and I thanked him for the delicious food. Then, I rode the elevator back down to the lobby.

Tomorrow I would retrace these steps. Tomorrow the fun would begin.