Amanda
“Why aren’t you giving me any direct answers?” I asked. Caleb sat behind his desk like it was a throne, his hands flat on the surface. His expression was bored. I sat opposite him in a chair that wasn’t very comfortable.
“What else do you want me to say to you, Amanda?”
I shook my head. I was getting tired of whatever games they were playing.
“I know she’s not just an apprentice, or whatever you want to call her.”
Caleb looked at me with a mask that showed nothing. I hated the business world sometimes – it was so easy to rule but so difficult when something happened that I wasn’t at the top anymore.
“If you want to do a background check on her, be my guest. She has a history as an accountant, most financial advisors do, and she is a hard worker. I don’t know why you’re so upset.”
“I think James is sleeping with her,” I said.
Caleb snorted, a smile cracking the expressionless mask on his face.
“If that’s all you’re worried about… James rarely doesn’t sleep with a woman. You know this – he’s always going around having sex with everyone we’re in contact with. I didn’t think it would bother you that much.”
I shook my head. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something is wrong. I don’t think it’s just straightforward sex. I think there’s more.”
I leaned forward, changing my position. My shoulders were tense and it made my back ache.
Caleb shrugged. “Well, that would be a first for James. You know he never takes it further.”
I shook my head. “I don’t mean a relationship. I’m talking about her. I don’t want her coming to the company anymore.”
Caleb nodded slowly. “I see,” he said. “Well, I can ask her not to come with me when I visit your offices but I can’t stop what James does. If he invites her there I can hardly forbid her to go. She’s a free agent and so is James, I’m sure you understand that.”
I nodded. I didn’t like it but I couldn’t disagree. I didn’t like what was going on, though. I felt like I was being left out of the loop and I didn’t like being on the outside. I was the partner of the company. If anyone had to be in the loop, it was me.
“Do you think this is why he’s stalling for time?” I asked.
Caleb blinked at me like he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“The woman,” I said. “Do you think it’s because of her that he’s not making a move on the expansion? I can’t get him going at all.” I moved so that I sat on the edge of the seat, my knees pressed together, heels touching.
Caleb shrugged again. He was being very nonchalant. “I don’t know. You know how distracted he can get. I don’t remember him being like this before, though? Do you?”
I shook my head. As absent as James was from the company most days, he was onboard when it was serious. It was the only reason it still worked at all, and it was why I let everything else slide. When it really mattered, James was on top of it.
Except for this time.
“Look, there’s no rush to get this leg of your company up and running, right? Why don’t you just let him get it out of his system and then you can carry on?”
I shook my head. “There’s no reason to rush, you’re right, but we’ve been talking about this for a while. The only way to go is forward and James isn’t doing that.”
Caleb sighed. “I know what you’re saying. I agree on that front.”
I frowned at him. I had the feeling he wasn’t talking about work. He couldn’t be referring to anything else, right?
I thought about what he said for a while. There was no rush… the point was that it was a business venture and I wanted what I wanted.
I cleared my throat. “I didn’t start this company to wait. I started this company so that it could grow as fast as possible, to be a powerful empire. Does that look like it’s happening?”
Caleb shook his head. “You didn’t start it all alone, though. James was there all the way, putting himself into this, too. Maybe not the way you did it. If I remember correctly, he was the one that approached you with this idea. It wasn’t the other way around.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Are you trying to suggest that I have fewer rights than he does because it wasn’t my idea?”
Caleb shook his head. “It’s not what I’m saying at all,” he said, exasperated. “The point I’m trying to make is that you’re not the only one invested in the well-being of the company. He is, too, and you should trust that he is doing the right thing.”
I laughed sarcastically. “The right thing? For who? His company or his dick?”
Caleb flinched slightly. “There’s no reason to get crude about it,” he said.
“Oh, come on. Let’s be real. You’re always sticking up for him.”
“Quad Corp hired me as a financial advisor. It’s my job to stick up for the company.”
I picked up my handbag, clutching onto the shoulder strap. I wanted to leave. I wanted something that would help, not a useless conversation that went in circles.
“I’m not talking about the company,” I said. “I’m talking about James. You were friends long before the company even existed.”
Caleb nodded. “I am still doing my job,” he said. “Unless you’re suggesting I’m being unprofessional?”
I shook my head. I didn’t have proof of anything. I didn’t like Caleb but that was never enough to accuse someone of anything. If that was the case the business world would be an empty place.
“I’m suggesting that something is wrong. I will get to the bottom of it. If I find out that you were behind this at all…”
“What?” Caleb asked. “At the very worst I won’t be your financial advisor anymore. What will that do to me? I have other clients. I can live without you. Don’t come to me with empty threats, Amanda. I can make threats of my own. I have enough insight to the company that I can very well cause damage of my own. If you want to play this game, that is.”
I frowned, his words flitting by me like knives. The last two sentences were a hit.
“What do you mean you have insight? What do you know that’s so dangerous?”
Caleb shook his head. “Let’s just leave it here, shall we? I’m not going to be petty with you. We don’t have to throw around metaphorical punches.”
I wanted to know what he knew. It was probably nothing – a bluff. But what if it wasn’t?
I left Caleb’s office feeling like nothing had been resolved. I had gone there to find peace of mind, another reassurance that he didn’t know anything more than he should have. Instead, I left tenser than when I’d arrived. I despised the man. It was bad enough that I had to deal with him when everything was fine, never mind when I needed to speak to him in confidence. I never felt like he was on my side. With James in the picture, there was no way I could get rid of him.
A cab took me back to the offices. It was a beautiful day and the office wasn’t far – I could have walked – but I was angrier than I liked to show in public and my shoes would rub blisters if I walked too far on them. I had bought them for how they looked, not how comfortable they were.
When I walked through the lobby doors, Fischer was on her way out.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Still here?”
She looked irritated. “I was just leaving, as you can see.”
I shifted my weight onto my other foot. “I thought I said I didn’t want to see you again.”
Fischer nodded. “You did say that. But I don’t work for you, I work for Caleb. James asked us to be in the office this morning. I can’t refuse Caleb.”
She looked cool and collected. When I’d seen her first that confidence had struck me as interesting – not many women were, it was my strength in the workplace. Now, it irritated me. I wanted to be able to intimidate her. I was everything she wasn’t – beautiful, elegant, rich, important. I would have preferred if she was unsure around me. Instead, she looked like she was at the top of the food chain and her collected attitude made me feel intimidated, instead.
I shook my head and walked past her, not gracing her with a goodbye of any kind. She hadn’t won, I told myself. I had been the one to walk away. I hadn’t had the time for her. This wasn’t about anything other than me not wanting to waste time with commoners. She hadn’t won.
Instead of going straight to my office, I marched to James’s door and opened without knocking. He worked on his laptop and looked up at me.
“Yes, you may come in,” he said sarcastically.
“I don’t think I need to tell you how I feel about you entertaining the Fischer woman in here.”
James shook his head. “You don’t. But I can do what I want to because this is my office and I own half the company.”
I stifled half a groan. The whole thing was starting to leave a bitter taste at the back of my throat.
“How long is this going to carry on?” I asked.
James leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“It’s disrupting everything around here!”
James smiled. I wanted to wipe that smile off his face for him with an open palm.
“It’s not disrupting anything. My work is up to date. The only person running around wasting time on things that really don’t matter is you.”
I huffed. I was furious. How dare he? It was true though. I was the only one that seemed upset. Everyone else looked either bored or irritated with my asking so many questions as if it was old news.
I took a deep breath and blew it out. It had unsettled me. I wasn’t as composed as I usually was.
“Please, just make sure all the paperwork you need to do is handled.” My voice was calm and almost monotone again, making me sound more like myself. “I would love to kick this thing off. We have lost enough time.”
James nodded. “I’ll let you know the moment we can move forward, Amanda,” he said.
It wasn’t the answer I’d been hoping for. He kept saying that like it would make more sense the more he repeated it. I was getting tired of that line. I didn’t want him to tell me when we could carry on with the plans. I wanted to be the one to tell him. I wanted to do it now.
I turned around and left his office, closing the door behind me. In my own office, I locked the door and walked to the window. I had to stop letting this trainee get to me. She was getting me to come undone at the seams and she wasn’t even doing anything.
Caleb had been right. I just had to wait. There was no rush.
Maybe, if I told myself that again and again, I would start believing it.
The irritation returned, an itch in my chest that I couldn’t scratch.