Rodney
The investors were all present today, which was a sure sign it was a big day for the company. They sat around my board room table, eager to hear what I had to say. They would not be disappointed.
My news was big.
I sat at the head of the table, watching their faces as I let the anticipation build. From my best friend Markus Brown, to the talkative woman Stella, who had been the last to come on board, they all looked excited.
Time to give them what they’d been waiting for.
I stood up. “As you remember, the projections for the last quarter were steep. You were all worried about it. I’m here to tell you, you worried in vain.”
I opened the chart with the results for the past quarter and they were staggering. The investors all gasped in surprise. It was the same reaction I’d had when I’d gone through the numbers the first time.
Mark sat back in his chair with a smirk on his face, his dark eyes on me. He had been the first person to believe in me, and I knew that I had proved to him that his faith and his money had been well placed.
“What you see here,” I said, “is what Berry Software achieved over the last quarter. The release of the beta program was a success, clients are happy, and a survey suggests we’ll only move upward from here.”
“That’s impressive, Rodney,” Clair Holt said. “I have to say, I was skeptical when you showed us your projections, but you delivered. What do you have in mind for the next step?”
I rubbed my hands together. “I’m considering a new approach to one of our first products.”
“Like a relaunch?” Mark asked.
I nodded. “That’s exactly it. Why fix what isn’t broken, right? But we can definitely upgrade it.”
I replaced the projections slide with a preview of the new program I wanted to release.
“Impressive, Jones,” Tim Gallagher said. He was an old man with more money than he knew what to do with. That was saying something because Gallagher was a spender unlike the world has ever seen. In short, he was filthy rich and something of an inspiration.
“What I want to know is,” Gallagher carried on, “who you’re banging on the production line to produce such quality.”
Everyone laughed, including me, even though I didn’t think his joke was funny. They never were, but his investment constituted almost half of my funding money, so I would laugh until I was blue in the face. Life was all about which ass you were willing to kiss, and who was willing to kiss yours.
I’d started Berry Software when I was fresh out of college with nothing to my name but a handful of dreams and a student loan that would take me years to pay off. Markus Brown had been fresh out of college, too.
A few years before we graduated, he had accidentally wandered into the wrong dorm room one night when he was smashed. He hadn’t been able to remember what number his dorm room was, but somehow, he’d remembered the concept papers I had on my desk. He returned the next day to tell me he was interested in funding those concepts.
He’d received a large sum of inheritance money from a recently deceased grandfather, one he had barely known. The timing was perfect. I had desperately needed someone to believe in me.
Berry Software was born. We’d joked about popping our business cherries the way idiotic college students did, and the name had caught on. Berry had sounded better than Cherry Software, but we knew where we had started, and it was our inside joke. The downside of my company was the abbreviation. Shortening the name to BS didn’t go down well with anyone if I wanted to be taken seriously.
I wrapped up the meeting and thanked the investors for their time.
“We’ll see you again next month,” Claire said. “It’s always a pleasure to see how you’re handling our money.”
The other investors agreed, and one by one they shook my hand before trickling out of the boardroom. Mark stayed behind, and when it was only the two of us, he kicked back and put his feet up on the table, his hands behind his head.
“It’s such a pleasure to see the way you handle them,” Mark said. “It’s beautiful to see Gallagher’s pinched expression fade and his eyes twinkle when you talk money.”
“Keeping the lot of you happy is what I live for,” I joked.
“It sounds sad when you say it like that, but it’s the truth.” Mark folded his hands on his belly. It had grown over the years we had worked together.
We had both started out young and strong in college. Since then, Mark had had a good life, drinking and eating and being merry with a perfect family–a loving wife and two beautiful children. I, on the other hand, had known misery more intimately than happiness. I went to the gym regularly to metaphorically run away from my problems.
The downside was a ten-year-old with no mother. The upside was a great physique and an envious glance from my doctor who was the same age I was and hated that I was in better shape.
“What do you think about the relaunch?” I asked, gesturing toward the projector that still displayed my new idea.
“I think you need to keep doing what you’re doing,” Mark said. “It’s obviously working.”
I nodded, taking note. Mark was my best friend. He would tell me honestly if he thought my plans were going to fail, even if he funded them. We were as close as brothers and not scared to offend each other. I would do anything for the guy, and the feeling was mutual.
“I was wondering,” Mark said. “Do you have an open position in the company?”
I frowned. “For what? Are you thinking about getting a day job?”
Mark had retired early. He had made his millions through prediction software he had created in college. For a class project, he had created a system that could predict anything from sports outcomes to the weather. When he’d realized he was sitting on a goldmine, he hadn’t submitted it so it became property of the University. Instead, he had pulled an all-nighter and submitted a project that had been sub-par. He scraped through the class by the skin of his teeth and sold his initial software to Microsoft.
Mark laughed. “No thanks. I’m happy living out my days at home with Nina now that the kids are all grown up.”
I nodded. Mark had two children, Mark Jr. or just Junior, and Danielle. They were twenty-six and twenty-four respectively. I didn’t know Junior very well, but Danielle had babysat my own son since my wife died. Mark and his family had been in my house many times, being there for me in the hard times, being the type of friends you didn’t find just anywhere.
“Why do you ask?” I asked.
Mark took his feet off my table. “Danielle graduated last month, and I want her to work. I don’t want her lying around the house being lazy when I paid good money for a degree. It will be good for her to be a part of something bigger.”
I nodded. I could appreciate that. I liked Danielle. She had a solid head on her shoulders, and she thought about life like an adult, not a student that wanted to drink away her time.
“As a matter of fact, I’m looking for a new secretary,” I said. “What did she study?”
“She’s got a degree in Communications as a matter of fact.”
I nodded again. “I think that will work. I’m happy to give her a shot.”
Mark stood up and held his hand out to me. We shook on it.
“Tell her to send me her resume. It’s a formality for my records. I won’t bother with the interviewing process. I know her.”
“I’ll do that,” Mark said. “Thanks, Hot Rod.”
I laughed. Mark had called me Hot Rod since college. The nickname was out of place in the business world.
“I’ll see you around,” I said to Mark before he left the boardroom.
I walked back to my office and sat down behind my desk. I flipped through the pages in front of me, making sure I had covered everything I needed to do today. I had been getting by without a secretary for the simple reason that I’d been too busy to get a new one. The last one had quit after she decided she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom instead. It would be good to have someone take care of the paperwork and phone calls while I saw to what was important.
I received Danielle’s CV in my inbox an hour later. Either she was eager to get working, or Mark was pushing her. Either way, it was impressive when I looked through it.
I picked up the phone and dialed the number that was listed under her contact details, the same number I had dialed for a babysitter since Tommy was four months old.
“Rodney, hi,” Danielle said when she answered, recognizing my number. “It’s good to hear from you.” Her voice was a little husky, sexy, the kind of voice you wanted to wake up to in the morning. I knew I wasn’t supposed to think about her that way, but I couldn’t help it. I had good taste.
“I spoke to your dad today,” I said. “He mentioned you were looking for a job.”
She laughed. “It’s more like he’s looking for a job for me, but yes, he wants me busy. I guess I get where he’s coming from.”
I smiled when she laughed. It was a beautiful sound.
“Right. Well, I have an opening if you’re interested. It’s for my personal assistant. The work is fairly simple, but it’s a full-time position, and I’ll pay you well.”
“I know you pay well,” Danielle said warmly. She’d never asked for money when she watched Tommy for me, but I always insisted on paying her for her time.
“How soon can you start?” I asked.
“As soon as possible, I guess,” she said. “I’m not doing anything, which is what irritates my dad so much. When do you want me?”
All the time, I thought. Danielle was more than legal, and she had a body to die for. I had fantasized about her for a while now, something I should not have been doing, but I hadn’t been able to help myself.
“How does tomorrow work for you?” I asked, keeping it strictly business despite the dirty things that flashed through my mind.
“It sounds great,” she said. “What time?”
“Eight, sharp. I want to get you started as soon as possible.”
I gave her the address of my building before ending the call. I leaned back in my chair and swiveled toward the full-length windows that covered one wall of my office and looked out toward the Chrysler Building in Midtown Manhattan.
What would it be like to work so closely with Danielle? I liked her company, and I sure as hell liked her body. But that was off-limits. Not only was she half my age, but she was my best friend’s daughter. There couldn’t be anything more wrong with the match.
Still, having her around me as my secretary would allow me to ogle her as much as I liked, and I would be allowed to look, if not touch. That would have to be enough.
I closed my eyes and thought about her long dark hair, her eyes the color of emeralds, and the way her body curved in all the right places. She carried herself with elegance and pride.
No, looking would be plenty.