I stare out the window of my office, focusing on the panoramic view of the city skyline and trying not to lose my damn mind.

“What do you mean you’re not coming?” I squeeze the tumbler of scotch I’m holding, willing myself not to break the glass.

Silence on the other end of the phone.

“Luke. We agreed that it was important to do this meeting together. The teams need to see a united front.”

Another long silence. I’m about to ask whether he’s even still on the line when I hear rustling over the speakerphone.

“I’m working,” he says.

“Are you really working? Or are you pouting?”

“I’m working.” He sounds genuinely insulted, which actually might be a good sign. “I thought that was more important than a meeting.”

I sigh. “It is important,” I admit. “But so is this.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not interested in facing those people and telling them why we don’t have a collection yet.”

“And whose fault is that?” I bark. “People are getting restless, Luke. They want to know why the photos aren’t ready. Shipping is fielding calls every fucking day from stores and designers, wondering when they’re going to be able to start placing orders. I got a whole marketing team sitting there with their thumbs up their asses, just waiting around for shit to put in the catalog.”

“If you would let me design the things I want to design, maybe we wouldn’t be in this position.”

I sigh. We’ve had this conversation so many times now I could practically have it by myself.

“You know we have to scale it back, Luke. Simplify. We can’t compete with the Ikeas of the world if you keep doing these ornate pieces that cost a fucking fortune to produce. We need cheap and cheerful — mass appeal. That's the direction this company needs to go in. We’ve been over this a thousand times.”

“Yeah, and I still don’t agree.”

“You don’t have to agree. That’s why I’m the CEO and you’re just…”

“Just what, Trent?” His voice is angry now and I realize I shouldn’t have said that.

“I didn’t mean ‘just’ anything, Luke. You’re the designer and the chief creative and I respect your work incredibly. You know that. I also know you can rise to a challenge when you need to — you just have to look at this new direction as a challenge to meet.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. As far as Luke is concerned, this conversation is over.

“I’ll come out and see you after work, how’s that? Maybe we can take a look at what you’ve got so far.”

Still no answer.

“Bye, Luke.”

I hit the button to disconnect the call. There are days that being the CEO is the absolute last thing I want to be doing. Today is one of them.

I briefly consider throwing it all away, taking the route our brother Jace had and running away to New York to work as a bartender.

Or maybe I can move to California and become a surfing instructor. The fact that I have no idea how to surf seems irrelevant. I’ve always wanted to learn; the only thing stopping me was a lack of free time, which I’d have in abundance if I took up the life of a beach bum.

I sigh and down the rest of my scotch. Who am I kidding? Loft & Barn is my life, my baby, my proudest accomplishment. I’ve spent my whole life building it up — Luke and I both have, together. He’s the creative side, I’m the business side. It’s worked well, at least up until now. For the first time since we opened our doors ten years ago, Luke and I are in disagreement about the direction of the company.

And while Luke gets to hide away in his workshop, I get to fend off the vultures who are just waiting for us to fail.

I look at my watch. Shit, time for that damn meeting. I have no idea yet what I’m going to say to them. I somehow have to convince them that everything is fine — and sell them on the fact that they’re going to have to work twice as hard once we get all the product so that we can actually still get everything out on time.

I smile at the ghost of my reflection in the window. This is a face you can trust, isn’t it? I smile wider, wider, wider, until I look like a wolf about to devour a small child.

“Mr. Whittaker?”

I turn and there’s Lottie, my secretary.

“They’re ready for you in the conference room.”

“I’ll be right there.”

* * *

The room is already packed to the gills. I squeeze my way past a few people, smiling and nodding, greeting a few who I actually know by name. I don’t recognize most of the people in the room though. I look down at the meeting note Lottie had loaded up on my tablet. Marketing was in the room today, with everyone else tuning in by video.

Great, face to face with the catalog cave dwellers.

“Hi everyone, great to see you all.” I plaster a grin across my face. “Wow, great energy in the room today. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Trent Whittaker.”

I turn the grin up a couple of watts and get a few laughs from the resident ass-kissers. I go through my spiel. Luke wanted to be here but he’s busy working. The collection is coming along great, nothing at all to worry about. Life here is exciting — so exciting, in fact, that you’re all going to have to work a whole bunch of overtime over the next few weeks ago. Blah blah blah.

I’m just about to wrap it up when some asshole in the front row puts up his hand. I glance over to Lottie — no one is supposed to ask questions in these meetings. It wastes time. But she just shrugs and I can’t ignore him now without looking like an asshole.

“Yeah, go ahead.” I memorize his face. I’m pretty sure he works in media buying.

Unsurprisingly, he asks about overtime. I should have known that was coming, and I kick myself for not having cut him off when I had the chance. I can’t say I blame him for asking — if I was on that side of the table, it would be the first thing I’d want to know too.

Except now I’m on this side of things, and there is no way I’m committing to overtime when I don’t even know if we’re going to have a collection this year.

So I give him a look. The one that stops most people cold.

“Let me ask you something,” I say, leaning close so he can feel my presence. “Do you have a family?”

I give what I think is a damn good speech, but I can tell the guy in the front row isn’t buying it.

And then I hear laughter from the back of the room.

I look up, scanning the crowd. I don’t know exactly who it came from — though it sounded like it was a woman. I stare them all down, trying to elicit a guilty look out of one of them, but most of them won’t even meet my eye. They all look away, and as I scan the crowd, they all start to blend together. Grey suits, black suits, heads down.

All except that sweet peach in the back with the yellow dress.

I’d make a comment about appropriate workplace attire, but damn if that dress isn’t making my dick twitch. She won’t quite meet my eye but I let mine rove all over her, taking in her shoulder-length chestnut hair, her plump lips, the way her tits are barely held in by that flimsy little dress.

Damn. If all of marketing looked like that, I’d have them up here for all my meetings.

But maybe I’ll just settle for her.

She finally looks up and our eyes lock. An electric current zips between us and I have a sudden image of being alone in the conference room with her, bending her over the table and lifting up that little dress. I bet she has a perfect little ass — just the right amount of padding to slam up against.

“Right.” I snap my folio closed. “That’s all we have time for today.” I have to get out of here before I have an embarrassing problem on my hands.

I go back to my office and think about having another scotch. Day drinking is one of the great perks about being the CEO. Except I had told Luke I’d come out to the country to see him, and I planned to drive myself since my driver is taking a well-earned day off.

I sit down at my desk with the intention of getting some work done before I call it a day, but almost automatically I find myself logging into Lovemail. I’m still hoping for a response from SweetVixen, but there’s nothing there. A twinge of disappointment courses through me.

I had finally suggested meeting up — to be honest, I have no idea why I waited so long to do it. I’d met tons of women on this site, but we typically only exchanged a couple of messages and a photo or two before meeting up. That was the only way to do it. I could probably use one of the swiping dating apps to make it even more efficient, but I’m not one of those guys who gets off on fucking vapid women. I like to know a woman can string two sentences together before I take her to bed.

That was why I had let my correspondence with SweetVixen go on for so long. That woman can do more than put together a sentence. Her emails are sweet, sexy, dirty — so fucking dirty. I hate to admit it but she has me on the hook. The messages we’ve exchanged have been like a month of extended foreplay, and I know it’s going to make things that much more intense when we finally fuck.

And make no mistake, I will be fucking her.

Because enough is enough. I want to meet her now.

I flick through the site for a few minutes, glancing at other profiles. Maybe I should start contacting other women, get the next one lined up now to save time.

I click on a profile, an icy blonde with huge tits. Totally my usual type. I look at the ‘message’ icon but I close out of the window without clicking it.

Maybe I’ll just wait another day or so. There’s no harm in seeing how things play out with SweetVixen, after all.