Chapter Three
April spent a lot of time in her first few weeks on the job catching up on her team’s research, shadowing them to the future construction site, and drafting and re-drafting building designs by hand and on the computer. The latter might not have been her job, but as soon as Garcia, another team member, had figured out how quickly she could mock up a sketch, he encouraged their manager, Hutchinson, to make her an active part of the team.
Jones & Ramirez wasn’t what April expected from a Samson Bennett company. She expected ice-cold conference rooms and ice-cold employees. An atmosphere so ruthless that the Mongols would have been jealous. In actuality, the most daunting aspect of her work environment was that most her coworkers had known one another for years, and she felt a bit like an outsider. With the exception of Hutchinson, the rest of her team had inside jokes, long-standing traditions, and knew the names of one another’s children and pets.
“I know fences are popular, Don,” Jessie argued, “but I’ve yet to see them actually work as a deterrent to crime.”
“That isn’t the point,” Hutchinson said, leaning back in his chair with a frown. “The point is the façade of the front. The look of it.”
“I think a crime deterrent would be of some concern,” April ventured. “The lack of zoning in Houston means a lack of control over living in an area that doesn’t have a relatively high crime rate. And I’ve seen guys hop those fences without breaking a sweat. I wasn’t thrilled about it paying $575 a month for that. No way am I going to pay thousands of dollars to rent someplace with just the ‘façade’ of safety.” Jessie smiled, and both women looked at Hutchinson.
“I think our tenants will be able to afford a security system.” Hutchinson looked at April strictly.
April twirled her pen. “Dunno. That’s kind of a cold comfort when you can’t keep your balcony window open because dudes are jumping up there.”
“People cannot jump up on your balcony,” Hutchinson scoffed.
“Oh, they can. And they do, if you don’t plan the patio and the balcony well enough. I tell ya, it’s no fun waking up on your day off to see some guy poking his head in your sliding glass window.”
Garcia turned sharply. “Did that really happen?”
“It did, but once he saw me, he hopped down. I think he was hoping for easier pickings.” April sketched out the arrangement from her last apartment. “I’m not saying we can’t do what you want, Don. Of course, we want it to look good! But I agree with Jessie that we’ve really got to consider functionality here.” She held the design up and showed them the easy ways people could get into their complex.
Hutchinson stood and put his hands on his hips. “I won’t design this complex like a prison.”
“I don’t think you have to do that. We just have to commit to an exterior that discourages criminals from the outset, and an interior that’s not particularly easy to sniff around.” April started to sketch again, and Jessie leaned over her shoulder. Hutchinson was annoyed, but he leaned in as the team continued brainstorming.
Samson swung by that morning to show them a mockup of the selling points of the new complex: Security, luxury, and community. April was confident that she could think of ways to ensure that, but Hutchinson kept pushing for designs that were, while pretty, still the basic layout of most existing complexes in the city. There were dozens of little square places, all with two stories, laid out on a grid, and with a fence or wall around them. You could rent at any price point on the spectrum and get something similar in design, varying only in quality. That just wasn’t good enough—not for a project that might cement their firm’s name in the city, or perhaps even the region.
***
When it came time for a break, the team split into groups and headed out for lunch. Unnoticed, and a bit grateful for it, April headed for the break room where her homemade lunch was waiting. Cash flow was still tight until she got her first check. She was even borrowing some of Lana’s clothing for work right now.
There again in the break room was Samson, lingering by the coffee pot. He always seemed to be busy. He also always seemed to be around when she was on break or sometimes even heading to her car. The result was a fluttering heart and more sweaty palms. She knew that he would be at the office daily and that his effect on her might be a problem, but she hadn’t anticipated that she would see him quite this much.
April hesitated at the doorway. Maybe she could make a quick trip to the restroom, and he’d be gone by the time she ducked back in?
“Afternoon, April,” Samson said, making the decision for her.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Bennett.”
April glided past him to get to the refrigerator. Just then, he moved toward the handle, blocking her. She nearly grabbed his arm by accident
“Pardon me,” he said. Samson smiled as though he weren’t sorry at all and held the door open for her.
April leaned over, grabbed her insulated lunch bag, and moved over to the table.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I have coffee coming out of my pores by now.”
Samson chuckled and leaned against the counter. “Is Hutchinson working you too hard?”
“No, not at all. I’m just not used to having a normal schedule, yet.” April opened up her lunch and took out the little containers that held salad and cut fruit. “And, if I’m being honest, I’m a bit of a night owl. I get all my best ideas at midnight.”
“Do you? I hate to keep you up, then. I’m usually up late myself. Though, perhaps for different reasons.”
“The girl du jour won’t let you sleep?”
Samson cleared his throat. April looked back nervously. He staring at her very sternly.
“I’m sorry. I was just—”
“—You were joking, of course.” Samson leaned forward. “I do have a sense of humor, too.”
April pushed her salad around with her fork. “I’m sure you do. But you’re my boss. You can’t joke with a boss the same way you do a regular coworker.”
“You seem to be perfectly capable.”
“And you’re not making things any easier.”
“Oh?” Samson seemed amused. “How am I doing this?”
“When you glare at me after I make a joke, it feels like I’ve crossed a line. Then, you encourage me to joke around with you. Under these circumstances, it’s hard to get a sense of what is appropriate, and that’s important to have if I’m going to work here.”
“Is it?”
“Would you want Garcia ripping on you about your sex life and calling you ‘Sammy’?”
“I have a hard time imagining him doing such a thing,” he paused, and then said gravely, “No one calls me ‘Sammy.’”
“You also tower.”
Samson set his coffee down and narrowed his eyes. “How do I do that?”
“You’re impossibly tall, and you never just sit next to someone. You loom.” April shrugged. “That’s good for enforcing boundaries, if that’s what you want. It makes it harder to tell where someone stands with you.”
“Because I’m standing?” he smirked. God, that smirk of his.
“Because you’re looming.” April stabbed a cherry tomato and ate it. She wasn’t going to let him spoil her lunch. Though, once again, he seemed to be trying. “So I’m going to try not to make blue jokes, unless you decide you feel like sitting at the table with the rest of us.”
Samson placed his hand on his chest. “You cut me deep, April. Deprived of your jokes? I’m not sure what my day would be like without your wit.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me.” April continued with her lunch but paused, thinking for a moment. “You could drink coffee in your office, you know.”
“Am I banished from the break room, then?” Samson shook his head. “I feel your rules are too strict, mistress.”
“I’m just pointing it out. You could have Babette get your coffee, either from the pot over there, or have her go out to the café across the street, but you come lurking around here every day when we break for lunch, and most of the time when I’m just making a run for coffee, or extra pens or something.”
His brow furrowed, and he shifted his weight as he looked at her. He’d been teasing her before, but now she couldn’t read him at all.
“You don’t want my company?”
Was he hurt? He seemed genuinely put out.
“No, I’m just… Look. You are the boss here. You can be the buddy boss if you want, or the hard ass. You get to decide everything. But the rules are really there to protect us, and I’ve worked for plenty of guys who would break them up until the moment they suddenly felt threatened, and then your employees are the ones who suffer. We’re the ones out of a job.” April sipped her water. “If you want to have a lighter atmosphere, you have to make it comfortable for us to participate in it. And if you don’t, then don’t be mad when we pass on being the butt of your jokes. That’s all.”
Samson stared at her for a long moment. April felt her stomach churning. He was going to fire her. She’d done it again. Run her mouth and pissed off the man with all of the power.
Instead, he came over to sit across from the table with her. “I didn’t mean to offend you, April. I enjoy spending time with you and hearing your perspective on things.”
“Then why do you…” April looked down at the table for a moment, steeling her nerves. “Why do you go out of your way to make me feel like I’m doing things wrong?”
Samson’s long fingers circled around the edge of his mug. “Honestly… You made such an impression when I saw you in my sister’s apartment. You’re such an intriguing woman. It bothers me that I didn’t remember you at all from before. And when I see you demurring, holding back, it makes me wonder which you really are: the fierce lioness, or the shy little mouse.”
April squared her shoulders and sucked in her cheeks. “I’m neither.”
“Is that so?” Samson’s eyes scanned over her curiously. “Then what are you?”
“I’m a person,” April snapped.
Samson’s hand dropped from his mug. That obviously wasn’t what he was expecting. Finally, he said, “I know you are a person.”
“Maybe.” April packed up the contents of her lunch into the bag. “But fine, challenge me. Remember, though, that I’m a person. Not an object, or a toy, here for your amusement. People get uncertain. People need to know that the ground they’re standing on is firm. And people, especially people like me, are survivors. To survive, you have to be able to assess your situation and become whatever you have to be. So sorry if I disappoint you sometimes by not being memorable or entertaining enough.”
Samson said nothing as she finished packing up her lunch, and he let her leave the room without another word. Her hands were shaking again. She didn’t know if she spent so much time sweating and shaking around him because he could strip this opportunity away from her, or because he made her feel like a furnace had been stoked deep inside her, and she had no outlet for all that heat.
***
Ideally, April would get off work, go home, and be incredibly productive coming up with new designs and options for her team. In the real world, she turned on Netflix to some dumb sitcom from the 90s and opened up her laptop to scroll through her Facebook feed. The next hour elapsed to the sounds of canned laughter and the occasional YouTube video one of her friends had shared.
Then, she noticed a familiar face in the “Up Next” column. It was an interview with Samson Bennett on some late night comedy show. April paused the video she was watching and considered it. Didn’t she have enough problems navigating her relationship with this man without seeing how he performed for the camera?
An hour later, and she’d fallen pretty much all the way down the rabbit hole. From the late night circuit, to daytime television, to extended interviews with major news networks, Samson was possibly one of the most covered businessmen in the country. Granted, she could have made that guess given the amount of space he took up in tabloids, but those stories were all about Samson’s active sex life. The rest of the media covered every aspect of business possible, as well as his opinions on politics—
“Well, Andy, the problem isn’t funding; it’s ideology.”
Foreign policy—
“What we’re seeing is entirely predictable if you look at the broader scope of history.”
And macroeconomics—
“Really, you can’t make that kind of claim and still believe in the principles of capitalism. The consumers drive the market, and if they aren’t buying your product, you have to blame either the product or the marketing; not the consumer you haven’t reached out to.”
April had just thought of him as a trust fund playboy. And while he was that, he also knew about so much more than she had ever suspected. No wonder he was so incredibly arrogant. She wasn’t sure if that made him more intimidating or less.
Clicking on another video a few years prior from a visit to the White House, April tilted her head to the side and took in the snug cut of his suit and how easily he smiled when faced with the President.
No, no. It definitely made him more intimidating.