chapter
Three
It was late afternoon when I scooped up a stack of folders, took a deep breath, squared my shoulders as though I were about to do a roundoff, and walked next door to Isaac Maat’s office.
Daddy and Hank had stopped by my door just before noon and invited me to lunch to celebrate my employment. I had agreed without thinking, if only to escape the silent judgment emanating from the adjoining office. Since I had read through a few of the files, I’d also hoped to pick their brains some more about what I was meant to accomplish, but the way they hesitated and stammered—trying to align their clarifications without contradicting each other—was damning. They had no idea of me accomplishing anything.
If walking out the door had felt awkward as hell, returning was even worse. How often are company peons escorted to a two-hour lunch by the president and the CFO on their first day of employment, for chrissake? I had skittered up the staircase to my office instead of waiting for the elevator with Daddy and Hank.
Now I stood watching my supervisor for a moment, his forehead marred with a pinched crease of concern or irritation. Attention on his monitor’s screen, he either didn’t notice me standing there or he was pointedly ignoring me.
I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Maat?”
His eyes shifted to me, and I swear there was a tic near his jawline that was becoming all too familiar. “Yes?”
I took one step into his office. Here, the afternoon sunlight had been filtered by a shade through which the blue sky was still visible. The interior lighting was all strategically positioned lamps—the harsh fluorescents weren’t even on. Warmth and masculinity exuded from matte taupe walls and rich furniture—dark, burnished walnut and darker leather, professional with a suggestion of both comfort and power. The space suited him. But unless the interior decorating fairy had paid a visit when he wasn’t here, he had a lot of nerve belittling me for taking time to personalize my own teeny, tiny space. He’d clearly done so, and the results were stunning.
Even so, I felt as though I was entering a cave inhabited by a menacing bear with a short temper. He stared at me from behind his desk—eyes never wavering from mine, mouth uncurving, expression frozen—making his annoyance at my interruption, or perhaps my mere presence in the building if not the world, all too plain.
I barreled ahead despite his lack of enthusiasm at my existence. “So, I have a file cabinet full of green-tabbed projects that appear to be on target and have satisfied clients. And then there are a couple dozen clients ranging from not-so-satisfied to hostile, as determined by the notes and email trails. Their folders are tabbed yellow, orange, or red.”
No response. Zilch.
Under his inflexible gaze, I felt like a tiresome nitwit babbling nonsense. “Um, what do those tabs mean? I thought maybe they were divided by the budgets of the projects, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.”
I trailed off when I spotted that little spasm at the edge of his jaw again, like he was trying to crush glass with his teeth.
Lord love a duck, I thought, staring back. What?
He blinked and took a moment to pull a long, slow breath through his nose as if he was gearing up to deadlift a new world record. Or explain something simple to an unwelcome new employee who should have been able to figure it out herself. “They’re client risk levels. Hazard ranks, if you will.” Why, God, why did his voice have to be so velvety when he clearly wanted to see my backside running out the door, never to return?
I focused on the words. “Risk levels, as in how unhappy they are with us? How likely they are to try to terminate the project and refuse to pay?”
He nodded, brows lifting about a millimeter, which might indicate reluctant approval. “Or litigate. Or both.”
“So the Beadles”—I tapped the yellow-tabbed folder on top—“are a level one? More salvageable?” I pulled a red-tabbed folder from the bottom. “And this Mr. Jansen… He thinks his ass is on fire and we’re holding the lighter, the kerosene, the marshmallows, and a couple of wire hangers?”
A short chuckle snuck through his exasperated mien, but he cleared his throat and flattened his expression as though it hadn’t occurred. This guy really didn’t want to like me. “Uh, yeah.”
I worried that behind his exasperation was real indignation, regardless of that brief, husky laugh. Attempting to break through that wall might be a catastrophically ill-advised move.
“Should I begin with the red-tabbed clients, then, since their projects are deemed most at risk?”
He cocked his head, the movement a trivial provocation, like a matador flicking the edge of the sword-concealing cape at the wary bull. “There’s only one red folder at present, and you’re holding it.”
I felt the tug in my chest, a stirring of the Erin I used to be, who never backed down from a dare or surrendered to ultimatums. He was laying down a challenge. One I knew he didn’t want me to take and certainly didn’t expect me to succeed in conquering.
“Oh. Well. Let’s make that no red folders then,” I said, knocked sideways by a spark of confidence I hadn’t felt in ages. I would wheedle into this Jansen guy’s psyche to find the thorn in his paw. Everyone had one.
Isaac Maat clenched his jaw, and I saw my chance slipping away.
“I’ll just go set up an appointment to see Mr. Jansen. The folder contains all the details of his complaint and what we’ve done to appease him thus far, right?”
He gave a reluctant nod, and I knew he was debating whether he ought to forbid me from diving right into the feasibly perilous deep end with our most irate client.
I didn’t intend to give him time to interject any of his misgivings.
“Cool. I’ll let you know if I have any questions.”
I all but ran back to my shoebox and studied the contents of Wayne Jansen’s folder with increasing apprehension and a healthy dose of Oh fuck. And then I took a deep breath and tried to read between the lines.
Everyone in management had weighed in on the shitstorm this guy had caused over the past year. His profession was listed as “commercial airline pilot” and he had no construction experience that anyone knew of, but that hadn’t deterred his relentless torrent of criticism. There wasn’t a single aspect of the project he hadn’t nitpicked or filed complaints over, from framing to interior trim to the texture of the kitchen cabinets’ wood grain. He’d chosen and approved the interior color only to insist—after over six thousand feet of wall had been painted—that it looked like puke. He’d left a scrawled note and sent seven follow-up emails citing a “defective faucet with a too-wide stream.” He was prone to popping up at the job site without warning to berate the laborers.
We couldn’t really tell clients they weren’t allowed on their own home site, though when I asked Leo, he said we tried to discourage it. My oldest sibling had always lived by the tenet It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
“Yeah, man, that guy’s a giant douche,” he said, once he bothered to return my call. “Glad he’s not one of mine. I’da throat-punched him by now if one of my guys didn’t beat me to it.”
Construction wasn’t easy work, whether it was highly skilled electrical labor or a newbie nail-gunning wallboard to a frame. While I couldn’t imagine that these rough-edged men were easily butthurt, nobody needed some raging fuckwit criticizing their work while they were trying to do it. Report notes from Kenny LaCross, the unfortunate construction foreman on the Jansen project, indicated that he’d had to dismiss teams for the day more than once to prevent them from resigning altogether.
There was no way in hell Isaac Maat believed I could appease this client.
Which made me more determined to do it.
• • • • • • • • • •
“Hello, Mr. Jansen?”
My nails tapped out a quick staccato on the laminate wood desktop, and I braced for his reaction, anticipation stilling my breath and revving my heart as though he could breathe fire through the corded receiver. I was sure he’d read the caller ID before he picked up. People who got their jollies berating the world at large often suffered from low self-esteem, and people who suffered from low self-esteem were frequently distrustful if not outright paranoid.
“Who is this?” Jansen—I assumed—growled the words. This dude was the epitome of hostile.
“This is Erin McIntyre from Jeffrey McIntyre Custom—”
“What do you want now? Did you replace those defective faucets? What about the substandard cabinets? I want you to rip those cheap-ass things out of my kitchen—they look like shit. Speaking of which—that paint color. It’s hideous and there is no damn way I chose that. I haven’t heard from anyone in well over a week. It’s like you people don’t know a goddamn thing about customer service.”
I swear my hair blew back a little. What a nutjob. He wasn’t passive about his complaints either. He must have known that whatever my job at JMCH was, I wouldn’t be personally replacing the faucets or cabinets, but that’s how his demands came across. In addition, within the past four days, the Sales VP had emailed him and the construction foreman had called and left a voicemail. He hadn’t responded to either attempt to contact him.
I wouldn’t be able to temper his outrage by arguing those points, and coaxing him to calm down and sign off on this project was my job. So I forced myself to smile, because even if you’re in a total funk, the smile comes through your voice. Props to my middle school cheer coach for that one, which I’d used on everyone from parents irked about a curfew violation, to teachers ticked off over incomplete assignments, to Jacqueline—my initially reserved freshman-year roommate who’d quickly become my best friend.
“I’ve spoken to the foreman and read over your concerns, Mr. Jansen, and I’d appreciate it if you could meet me at the site this evening at say, six o’clock?” I maintained my daft grin by envisioning myself elbowing this asshat right in the windpipe, a move I’d learned in a self-defense course I’d taken sophomore year. “We’ll do a walk-through and address each of those concerns so we can get you into your new home as soon as possible.”
“Make it five.”
“Well, the workers will still be there at fi—”
“I don’t give a flying crap. That’s when I’m available, Miss— What was your name?”
The imaginary throat punch in my head became a knee to the nutsack. “Erin. McIntyre.”
I waited, but instead of any further comment from Mr. Jansen, the annoying onk-onk-onk-onk reorder tone sounded in my ear. For one harebrained moment, I assumed the call had been dropped and started to dial him back. And then I faced the startling realization that he’d disconnected, on purpose, without so much as a Later, let alone a more polite I’ll see you then or Goodbye.
I stared at my phone. “That cretinistic dickhead.”
“Bad time?” I heard from the door. I turned to see one of the three sales agents—the only guy—leaning against the frame, arms crossed over his chest. He smiled conspiratorially and one dimple appeared. “Or do I need to kick somebody’s ass for sassing the new girl?”
I sighed and gave a little chuckle as though I appreciated his useless, unsolicited rescue offer while I struggled to recall his name among the two dozen people I had met this morning. My brain had experienced near power failure by the time we got to Sales. I’d filed Cynthia Pike in my memory bank because she was the VP but blanked on the rest of them. This day was sucking ass hard enough to leave a mark.
“Oh, ha ha—nothing I can’t handle…” Jacob, Justin, Jasper—
“Joshua Swearingen at your service, ma’am.” He was all frat-boy cuteness in a late-twenties package—a bit less hardbody, no less cocky swagger. He touched his finger to his forehead in a flirtatious little salute.
Maybe it was the channeling of my mother this morning, or maybe it was the fact that I had brothers and had long been subjected to an excessive amount of their bodily emissions and thought processes—such as they were—but Joshua Swearingen seemed like a mischievous kid, and I was in no mood.
Fabulous. I’d started my first full-time job and swerved hardcore toward middle age. If I’d had a lawn handy, I’d have ordered him off it.
“Joshua—yes, sorry, I almost had it.” Not.
“No big. You met lots of folks today. Can’t be expected to remember everyone. I’ll just have to make sure to impress you enough to be memorable.” He winked. Seriously. “Sure I can’t defend your honor to whoever you were just talking to?” He glanced over his shoulder and his voice lowered. “It wasn’t Maat, was it? Most everyone thinks he’s kind of a dick.”
Despite the fact that I’d had similar contemplations, Hank had said the opposite, plus it kind of pissed me off that one of our sales agents would refer to my boss like that so casually.
“Uppity, you know?” he all but whispered.
No, I don’t know. What do you mean, exactly? was on the tip of my tongue, but I never got a word out because the subject of this unsettling comment appeared over his shoulder. Joshua should have looked sheepish at what he’d just said, but instead he straightened in the doorway and threw his shoulders back, his eyes hard.
“Excuse me, Swearingen,” Isaac Maat said, his voice a smooth, deep well of sound, far from juvenile. He stood equally straight and tall, but on him it was his natural posture, not the issuing of a silly macho challenge. “I need to speak with Ms. McIntyre if you don’t mind.” His tone said he didn’t give a goddamn whether Joshua Swearingen minded or not.
“Yeah, sure.” Joshua shrugged and stepped back into the hallway. “Later, Erin,” he said, his eyes flicking over my boss as though his appearance at my door was an unreasonable intrusion.
Isaac didn’t appear to have overheard Joshua’s derogatory comment or noticed his peacocking, and I was relieved because I didn’t want him to think I’d welcomed or initiated a conversation that was definitely gossipy and possibly bigoted. I might dislike my new boss at the moment, but that was my business, and I’d learned not to place blind trust in first impressions because (a) I’d been wrong before, and (b) I didn’t like it when people judged me on superficial traits like my looks or my parents’ money.
Like Isaac Maat had done the moment I walked in the door, if not before.
But it was day one, and I still had hopes that the indignant, preemptory scan he’d given me when I entered the building this morning and his derisive tone since the moment we met would become irrelevant to our working relationship going forward.
I forced a pleasant expression and waited patiently as he looked down at the papers in his hand, rolling them into a tube. His silent examination of what he held—or his pause until Joshua was out of earshot—allowed me both time and excuse to stare.
My new boss was as easy on the eyes as he could be. His was a face of contradictions—soft and hard, curved and honed, at odds with itself. I wondered what that told me about the man inside, if anything. Because his outside was as hot as bare pavement in the middle of summer, and that was pretty damned inconvenient in a hundred and ten ways.
That was when I realized a pop-sexy soundtrack of my perusal was issuing from my computer speaker. I fought the urge to mute it out of fear of what he thought of the spoiled white girl listening to Taylor Swift. I could feel the word predictable circling the room even though he had given no indication of his thoughts about my music choices. This is your office, my inner voice groused. You can listen to whatever you want.
And then the end of that track blended into the beginning of the next and it didn’t take long before I realized that yes, it could actually get worse. The beat pounded as Usher promised to make the object of his affections scream.
“I’m heading upstairs for a meeting and wanted to make sure you have everything you need before I’m inaccessible,” Isaac said, eyes back on mine.
I searched frantically for the Mute key. It wasn’t where I thought it should be, and though I knew it was somewhere on the keyboard, I couldn’t find it. We were a captive audience as Usher progressed to picturing his would-be lover naked in the club. I felt my face catch fire. Some people ugly cry; I ugly blush. I prayed my Urban Decay foundation would conceal the inevitable blotches.
“I think I have what I need for now!” I bellowed in my thunderous cheerleader voice.
What the fucking hell with this damned keyboard? my mortified mind wailed. The layout was nothing like my MacBook. Did assholian designers make different models backassward out of spite, just to screw with tech-challenged people like me?
Meanwhile, Isaac’s expression went from impassive to that face people make when they believe someone is experiencing a psychotic episode right in front of them: eyes widened, brows high, no sudden movements.
“I’m actually about to head out to meet Mr. Jansen at his home site,” I all but roared as Usher promised an entire night of his highly proficient company.
“Tonight?” Isaac deadpanned, with such impeccable timing I almost thought he did it on purpose.
Finally I located the button and slammed my index finger on it, putting a blessed end to Usher’s litany of fuck skills.
I nodded. “At five.” My voice emerged breathy with relief that had nothing to do with my impending appointment. “I know construction teams are likely to still be there. I was just about to message Kenny LaCross to give him a heads-up.”
He scowled, a line darting between his brows, as if I’d just said something so outrageous and wrong that he didn’t know where to start in telling me so. But he pinned his lips like he was physically holding in the words and gave one curt nod. And then he turned and left.