Chapter 40
Grant
Grant felt a thousand feet tall the next morning. He practically skipped downstairs.
“You seem confident,” his father said, looking up from his newspaper.
“Yes, sir,” Grant replied with a grin. “I’m ready! Let’s do this.”
“Did you drug him?” his father asked Kate half jokingly. She shook her head, her mouth full of granola.
Grant wanted to say, “I’m high on Kate!” but she would probably be mad. He felt as if they had really made a connection the previous night.
He mentally patted himself on the back for offering the whiskey. Kate seemed to like that. It was better than just dragging her into his bed. He grimaced. He probably should have done the whiskey first or actually invited her on a real date. Drinks after sex probably didn’t count. But he did need it, and she had enjoyed it. She didn’t run away after, so that was progress, right?
The self-doubt started creeping back in as they walked into the elevator in the lobby of Holbrook Enterprises. He tried to hype himself up as if he were about to go into battle. But in the war zone, he had the advantage of bullets flying to really ground him in the present. Here, it was a series of suit-wearing upper-class men who didn’t look as if they’d seen a hard day’s work in their entire lives. They were all seated around the large reclaimed-wood table. Martin, the VP of sales, was there, as was Randal.
Kate took a seat in the corner of the room. Grant was asked to sit at the center of the table with his back against the door. It already put him on edge. Maybe he shouldn’t have pretended he was going into battle. The paranoia and the heightened senses were probably no good for this environment. He didn’t feel prepared at all.
Calm, he told himself. Be calm and confident. Kate gave him a small thumbs-up, and he felt his heart rate slow.
“Thank you for coming in for an interview,” Martin said.
Just then, his father walked in and said, “Hey, Grant.”
Grant had not expected him to be there.
“We have an unorthodox corporate organizational structure,” Walter explained in response to Grant’s quizzical look. “I have human resources and sales under me. A lot of places put sales under the COO or the CFO, but our business relies so much on sales that I felt it was important for sales to be integrated in the broader vision of how we structure the company and the strategic direction our company takes. You all on the sales force have your finger on the pulse of the market in real time.”
Martin smiled at Grant broadly. “This is why he’s been on the cover of every major financial magazine on multiple occasions. The Maverick CEO.”
Martin pulled out copies of Grant’s resume and cover letter. “You have eight years in the US Marine Corps, and in the infantry, no less. You also have no college degree. How will that translate to working sales?”
Grant cleared his throat. “I hear you all have developed a new type of server bank that cools more efficiently. It would be good for some of these warmer climates. With the projected boom in the developing world, this is a market Holbrook Enterprises really wants to move into. It seems simple and obvious, but these types of cultures can sometimes be hard to break into. I have contacts through the military that I could tap from people whose families immigrated here from a lot of these countries.”
“Sounds good to me,” Martin said.
One of the regional managers leaned forward and said to Grant, “I admit, we were thinking maybe you would concentrate on North America and Randal could move to international.”
“I can do whatever you need me to do,” Grant said. “There is a lot of focus right now in sub-Saharan Africa with the terrorist activity there. Getting internet and data management infrastructure in these areas is in everyone’s best interest. Plus, I can hold my own in a lot of these more undeveloped places.”
“I’m sure you can,” the regional manager replied.
Martin looked around. “I’m sold. When can you start?”
“I’ll be processing my final EAS paperwork in in the next few days. Once that clears, I’m all yours.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Grant shook hands with everyone in the room then left.
He felt charged and elevated, especially when Kate smiled at him when they came face-to-face in the hallway.
“Sounds like you nailed it,” she said.
“I guess so. It wasn’t as hard as I thought.”
“I told you they were going to hire you anyway. This is a formality. The real test is if you deliver.” She looked him over critically. “We’ll need to order you some more suits, a nice coat, and your own assistant.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I work for your father. You should have your own assistant.”
Grant didn’t like that. How was he going to win Kate if they wouldn’t even be working together anymore?
Grant spent the rest of the day at the Holbrook Foundation, meeting with the team developing the stray dogs and veterans program. He had to stand in front of a camera and say some lines they were going to use in a commercial. He also had his picture taken, and one of the interns had him write out answers to interview questions they were going to post on the site. Nancy stopped by to see how everything was progressing. Everyone seemed to respect her opinion and listened attentively when she gave advice.
“Nancy Holbrook rules this place with an iron fist,” one of the programmers told him. “But in a good way. She didn’t really know much about programming, so she’s been taking classes so that she could keep up with what we were doing. She’s a force of nature.”
He met up with his father that evening at an upscale bar. They shook hands stiffly, then Grant sat across from Walter at the table.
“They are going to formally offer you the job. Not that they weren’t going to anyways, but the regional manager was a bit tempered. You really blew them away. We recently acquired several companies that we need to integrate into the company and launch their services. We’re by no means tapped out in North America and Europe, but it would be a big win to break into the African continent and give the Chinese firms a run for their money.”
“We’ll see,” Grant said.
“There have been people getting kidnapped out there or attacked,” Walter told him, taking a sip of his water. “It’s not like going to Geneva for business.”
“I can handle it,” Grant said.
“Yes, I suppose you can.” His father paused as the waiter came by with salads. As Grant picked at his, his father asked, “Are you all right after what happened in the club house, that much death?”
“I’m fine,” Grant said, stabbing a crouton with his fork. “That wasn’t the first time I’ve killed anyone.”
“Yes, you mentioned it the first night I met you. I had Kate do some more digging into your activities in Afghanistan.”
Grant’s eyes narrowed. What had she dug up? Was that why she was acting as if she hated him?
“I did some things I regret,” he said, not breaking eye contact with his father. “And some things I don’t.”
His father was silent for a moment then said, “So you murdered three Afghan soldiers, among other things.”
“Yep,” said Grant brusquely.
“How come you weren’t arrested, kicked out, or whatever they do in the military?”
Grant shrugged. “We were out on patrol. No one in my unit liked the guys. They hated that they were pedos. So I shot them, and the official story was that I thought they were going to kill us. There was a lot of that going on—the Afghan soldiers killing us with suicide bombs or ambushes, stuff like that. I don’t regret it. There are things I regret but not that. Anything else?”
“What about the ambush you were involved in? You received your Medal of Honor for your actions. How are you adjusting—?”
“I’m fine,” Grant said, his grip on his water glass so tight he thought it would shatter. “Nothing I can’t handle.” If he were feeling petty, he would have made his father talk about his birth mother, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to deal with that right now.
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” his father said as the waiter cleared their plates.
Grant slowly shook his head and downed his drink. “Doesn’t matter. It happened. I have to square with that.”
“Maybe you can find some friends or invite your friends from the military…”
“My close friends all died,” Grant said, cutting off his father.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to lose people you care about. You know we can find you some help.”
“I don’t need it.”
They sat in silence for another moment.
“We would always go to Martha’s Vineyard around this time,” Walter said. “The kids would all be so excited. They could ride horses and hunt for clams on the beach.”
“Nancy wants you to go this summer,” Grant told him.
“I know. I don’t think I can.”
“Everything is the first,” Grant said. “The first time you go to chow without them, the first time you go on patrol without them. You avoid it as long as possible, but then you can’t avoid it anymore.”
His father nodded.
“The first year’s the hardest. Then it doesn’t grow easier, but you learn to live with the pain.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Because it feels like a betrayal,” Grant finished. “Maybe you can find a nice girl and settle down.”
“That’s my line. There are lots of nice young women in this town. You have your pick. You should try dating.”
“So should you.”
“Not with my soon-to-be-ex running around.” His father massaged his temples. “I need to do something about her. Maybe Kate has some ideas.”
“How long have you worked with Kate?”
“A little over a year now. She’s invaluable. She knows everyone in town and is as smart as a whip. She fell into a spot of trouble at her MFA program. I’m shady on the details, but whatever put her in my path has been fate working in my favor.”
And in mine, Grant thought. “I’ll drink to that.”