Chapter 9

Grant

Ever since our encounter, it seemed Crissy had learned her lesson. The past couple days had presented a more subdued Crissy, but I had to admit I missed the flirting. She kept me on my toes in a way no female had in quite some time, but the sobering thought of her age forced me to cast those thoughts out just as quickly as they entered my head.

Crissy was working hard, getting things right. My schedule was impeccable and organized, my books were alphabetized, and my calls were always fielded. I didn’t take on any unnecessary drama since she stopped everyone at her desk before they entered, and not once did any of the junior executives come to bother her in the process.

Not only that, but she kept showing me little tidbits here and there of her intelligence. The ability she had to remember things around her was astounding, and there were times I wondered if she could recall things like that if she read them, too. She would also slip little pieces of advice into conversations. Well, not really advice, but she’d juxtapose ideas of mine with ideas of her own. They weren’t all good ideas. After all, she was only twenty-two and fresh out of college. But it showed that her gears were constantly turning and that she was always willing to learn.

That, I could work with.

She had a passion within her that she kept buried. That much was for certain. Why, I honestly wasn’t sure. It probably had a bit to do with her home life and the dynamic between her and her stepmother, but that wasn’t any of my business. I wasn’t her therapist. I was her boss, her mentor. By the time I was done with her, not only would I offer her a fulltime position working here, but I’d open doors for her she never would’ve dreamed she’d encounter in all the years she had lived.

If she listened, of course.

There was more to her than simply flirting and living off daddy’s money, and that was expected of her. All of this was. Buckling down, working hard, learning the job, and taking on advice when it was given to her—it was all par for the course.

Her work outfits were more appropriate now. She’d traded in her tight-ass pencil skirts for more conservative work pants. Her blouses for work didn’t have buttons that could be teased open by her beautiful tits, but the curves she hid underneath those clothes couldn’t stay hidden forever. I still caught myself glancing at her ass whenever she walked away. Sometimes my eyes fell to her breasts whenever she was reading something off a piece of paper. Crissy Marks was a beautiful young woman, and there were moments when that kiss clouded my mind.

I knew it did the same for her, because I’d see her watching my lips. I’d see her studying my body when she thought I was simply looking out the window. Her tits would grow hard, pressing those beautiful barbells against her shirt.

And holy fuck, it made me hard as stone.

This afternoon was spent prepping for a massive meeting on Monday. Potential investors were gathering, and not just to talk about the potential acquisition before I sent off the offer. They were also investors in a fund I managed that needed to be addressed. The fund had grown exponentially since we’d expanded up the East Coast, but with a massive growth spurt usually came a couple quarters where it stagnated.

I needed to prepare them for that stagnation.

I gave Crissy the task of organizing the meeting files. They needed to be in a specific order so they could be easily grabbed Monday morning, but I was too busy readying a PowerPoint. She’d had her headphones in all afternoon, bobbing those thick hips to the beat while her tits bounced against her body. I told her the folders needed to be filed chronologically and then grouped by location. That was how I had them all sitting around the table, and it would make it the easiest to grab the files before I handed them out.

I watched her at her desk, leaning over everything while she swayed her hips. Her shoulders were broad and focused, holding up her weight as her tits dangled over her desk. I was salivating, my eyes running over every bump and divot her body had to offer. I was an hour behind on the PowerPoint because she kept distracting me with her movements, and suddenly, I was rising from my chair.

It was like her body was magnetized, drawing me in even as I tried to resist. I kept repeating her age, repeating that her father was my best friend. I kept telling myself that this was nuts, that I couldn’t possibly be feeling this way for another woman.

Not after what happened to my wife.

But as I drew nearer, I eyed the stacks. Everything was out of order and nothing was grouped by location. This woman had been dancing around out here like a maniac while working, and she hadn’t done a damn thing I’d asked her to do. She was alphabetizing them by name, sloppily stacking them on the corner of her desk, and losing herself in her music. Hours had been wasted by her. Hours she couldn’t get back.

That I couldn’t get back.

I yanked the ear buds from her ears, and she shot up to meet my stare. At first her eyes were full of fire. They wondered who the fuck had had the audacity to come over and rip her music out of her ears. But the moment she looked up at me, she backed down.

“What the hell is this?” I asked.

“The files, Mr. Jacobs. I’m organizing them.”

“No, you’re not. You’re alphabetizing them.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?” she asked.

“No, Miss Marks. That’s nowhere near what I asked of you. Don’t you ever listen? Don’t you ever open those ears of yours and just take in what people are saying around you?”

“Mr. Jacobs, how did you want—”

“I wanted them organized chronologically. You know, by date. Do you know what that means? Then I needed these files grouped by location.”

“But the files have names on them,” she said.

“I don’t give a damn if the files have blood on them, Miss Marks. You use that little vault of yours that stores all your little tricks and put it to good use when I give you instructions. Are we clear?”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Jacobs.”

“Sorry doesn’t get back the time I’m going to have to spend helping you correct this mistake. This meeting is on Monday. If I can’t trust you with it the first time, I’ve got no choice but to hover over you and help you do it.”

Tears lined her eyes, but I was too angry to care. For a woman who could rattle off to me an entire ten-minute conversation verbatim, there was absolutely no reason for this. She knew what she was supposed to be doing, and she had blatantly ignored it, probably because she thought she could do better.

“Here, let me show you.” I grabbed a folder as her watery eyes panned over to the desk. I flipped it open and pointed to the date in the top right-hand corner, then began explaining to her what that meant.

“This is the date the paperwork in this folder was originally filed. Those are the dates I wanted organized. But that’s not the piece of information you start with.”

“Okay,” she said.

“See the location in the upper left-hand corner?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s what you start with,” I said. “The names don’t mean anything. I mean, they do, but not for the purpose I’m using them for with the meeting. Group them in their piles by location, then organize them by date. That’s the easiest way to do this.”

“But, that doesn’t make any sense, Mr. Jacobs.”

“And why not?” I asked.

“Well, these files are all investment exchanges and funds that have been given to you to use at your discretion, correct?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Aren’t the investors also going to want copies of these? Of the individual amounts they originally gave to you to compare to their lists and accounts to make sure everything’s in order?”

“It’s their responsibility to keep up with that paperwork,” I said. “They each get a copy when these files are signed and witnessed.”

“Well, I was organizing them by name before I made copies. I was going to do the original organizing like you asked after I made copies and split them up by name. You know, in case someone couldn’t find paperwork. Then you wouldn’t look like a liar or anything.”

She said the last part so quietly, I almost didn’t hear her. The entire time she had been talking to me, she hadn’t once raised her voice. She was being uncharacteristically quiet, and she wasn’t allowing her eyes to meet my gaze. What started out as me chastising her before I showed her how it was done had turned into yet another moment where she had thought about something I hadn’t.

“That was a really good idea,” I said. “Thank you, Crissy.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was shaky, and a tear dropped down onto the paper beneath us. It was well past five and everyone had already gone home for the weekend. Alex was probably wondering where the hell his daughter was, but I couldn’t send her home like this. In another world or with another company, her initiative would have been favored. It would’ve been seen as a good idea in any other circumstances.

With any other company.

With any other CEO.

“Don’t be sorry, Crissy,” I said. “Just focus. You get these ideas into your head, and they’re good ideas, but they end up replacing the original order given to you. Every business owner and CEO once had to take orders, and they had to take them well. Focus on the original task, don’t drop the details, and never be afraid to make your voice heard. Don’t just change things because you think it’s a good idea. Voice it first.”

Her cheeks heated up, and for a split second, I thought she was going to continue crying. Her hands pressed into the files, her fingertips curling, and I was ready to send her home. I could stay behind and finish this work if need be. The only thing her emotion showed me was that she wasn’t ready. She had ideas and suggestions, but she didn’t understand how to take simple commands.

But when she slowly turned her angry gaze to me, I knew I was about to get a glimpse of the Crissy I’d just admitted to missing this morning.

“Not everyone can be perfect like you, Grant,” she said.

“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” I said. “I’m asking you listen.”

“You want listening? Well, then open your ears, Mr. Jacobs. I didn’t want this job, not by a longshot. I came home and my stepmother couldn’t stand to be around me, so my dad sent me here, out of her hair and out of his life so he could keep playing with his little trophy wife. I didn’t want this job. I didn’t seek out this job. Hell, I put in applications to other places that would’ve paid me twice the money you’re paying me now. And I would’ve gotten those positions, too, had my father not been fielding those fucking interview phone calls and telling them I already had a job. He goes from not giving a shit about me to meddling in all my shit, and now you want me to organize your files in some shit way that doesn’t accomplish anything just so you can see my ass bounce to some music? Are you insane? Listen to this, Mr. Jacobs: If I suck so much, then why the hell haven’t you fired me yet?”

I clenched my jaw and held her gaze. Hot tears streamed down her face as her words hit me hard. I wasn’t firing her because I saw potential. I saw the intelligence she had wrapped up in the body of a hurt, vulnerable, neglected young girl. She had all the potential to take on this world and win if she could put her fucking pride aside long enough to figure any of it out.

But apparently she wasn’t doing that today.

“And another thing—since you say my voice should he heard: You’re going about this meeting all wrong. If you want to talk with them about the acquisition, then you need figures on your precious little PowerPoint. You don’t need to remind them of the money they’ve entrusted with you in the past. Don’t insult their intelligence. Just give them the overall figures on your PowerPoint, then press a few buttons and have an arrow that skyrockets into the heavens. Smooth talk them. Tell them about the money they’ll make. Show them proof: case files, areas where you took their money and grew it. You don’t need original sums. You need the growth percentages, the interest rates, the fees they paid you and how that doesn’t make a fucking dent in the money they’re swimming in down in their basements.”

Her chest heaved as I listened to every word pouring from her lips. I couldn’t help but smirk at her and the way passion was pouring from her body. Never in my life had I seen a woman devour business the way she was, but I needed her to know she was still learning.

She still didn’t have the upper hand, though she so desperately wanted it.

“Miss Marks, let me ask you this: Have you bothered to flip past the first page of these files?”

She froze. The confidence drained from her face, paling the color of her skin. I reached beside her and flipped open a file, then turned the page, revealing to her all the information she was correct about me needing. I flipped through page after page of statistics and accurate growth charts for each individual sum of money donated by the men I was meeting with on Monday, and I watched the frustration of defeat simmer behind her eyes.

“Whatever.” She rounded her desk and grabbed her purse and shoved her phone in it. She put her earbuds in her purse before she stepped out from behind her station, but I reached out to grab her arm. The last thing Crissy needed to do was run away from this situation. Whether she realized it or not, this would be good for her.

“You can’t run away from confrontation, Crissy,” I said.

Her arm flexed beneath my hold, and the hairs on my skin stood on end. The sunset began to stream through the windows of my office, casting a warm glow upon Crissy’s body. She slowly turned her head, the sunlight reflecting in her eyes as her gaze held mine, and all of a sudden, the air around us crackled with energy.

I held her gaze and she held mine, and for a brief moment, nothing else existed. The fire behind her eyes raged to a burning, volcanic explosion, and it sucked the breath from my lungs.

She’d never looked more appetizing to me than she did in that moment, bathed in the light of the sun as it descended over Baton Rouge. The moment she threw herself at me and grabbed my collar, I knew I was done for.

I was about to snap.