CHAPTER FOUR: Candice
It was a quiet car ride back to our offices at Goldman & Stern because the other members of my team were as dumbfounded as I was by the actions of Tanner Wright.
The silence in the car spoke volumes.
I knew what they were all thinking. They were wondering how long it would take for Stan to boot me off the team, even though I hadn’t done a thing to deserve getting the axe.
Juliette was sitting in the front passenger seat and Stan was driving. I was in the back seat, scotched between Bob and Irving. Bob stared out the window the entire way back to the office. Irving was sitting up straight with his eyes open, softly snoring.
Every now and then, I’d catch Stan glancing at me in the rear-view mirror. When our eyes met, he quickly looked away.
Juliette sat staring straight ahead and didn’t say a word. I could almost hear her teeth gnashing.
I was sure Tanner’s behavior in the meeting would be the talk of Goldman when we got back and Juliette got the gossip mill started. She’d like nothing better than to see me kicked off the team even though I posed no threat to her. That was just Juliette’s way. She simply didn’t like other women. She was more of a male chauvinist that any man I’d ever met. If she had her way, she would be the only woman working at Goldman, if not the only woman on the planet.
All I could do was shake my head and bite my tongue. I’d deal with Stan when the time came; which I knew would be soon.
Tanner Wright’s smirking face flashed into my mind. I could hear the pop of electricity as our fingers touched. I could smell the faint hint of ozone in the air. He had won the Douchebag of the Century Award, hands down. I had never met anyone so cocky and full of himself.
Fine, he was a hot billionaire with a big bulge in his pants, but did he have to pull me into his silly little game?
I was completely innocent in all this. It would be remarkably unfair to kick me off the team just because of Tanner’s actions.
Turned out, Stan felt otherwise. After he parked the car in the underground garage and the others were headed toward the bank of elevators, he asked me to hang back.
“What was that all about back there?” he asked with an air of accusation to his tone.
“I have no idea what that was, Stan,” I said, huffing at him. “Probably just another rich asshole jerking us around. Isn’t that the way this works? We’re management consultants. We get jerked around by rich assholes then bill them a thousand dollars an hour for it?”
“It was more than that,” Stan said, rubbing his chin as he studied me with narrow eyes. “You’ve never met him before, have you?”
“No, never.”
“Never had any contact with him at all?”
“None.”
I knew where this was going. I’ve never been one to bite my tongue and I was too good at my job to fear losing it, so I spread out my hands and gave it to him straight.
“Look, Stan, if you’re thinking about bouncing me off this project because Tanner Wright is a flirt, you can forget it. You need me on this team. Nobody knows the digital side of telecom like I do. I’m a consummate professional and you know it.”
“I know you’re a professional, Candice,” Stan said with a sigh. “I’m just not so sure about Tanner Wright.”
* * *
I didn’t even bother going up to the office. I knew Juliette was already up there telling anyone who would listen how I disrupted the meeting by flirting with Tanner Wright.
She wouldn’t tell the whole story, of course.
Her version would undoubtedly have me oohing and goohing at him with my tits hanging out.
By Monday, I’d be fodder for the office gossip mill.
I’d be branded as the junior consultant who almost killed a ten-million-dollar deal because she couldn’t resist flirting the bad boy billionaire.
It would all be a lie, but it wouldn’t matter.
The only saving grace was that it was after five on Friday afternoon, and most of the Goldman employees would already be headed for home.
It was little solace.
I caught a cab and made it home around six. I held it together as I rode the elevator up to my tenth-floor apartment. I hurried down the hall and unlocked my door.
The moment I stepped inside and locked the door behind me, I fell to my knees and began to sob.
The hard, crusty shell that I wrapped myself in every day to face the world was left cracked and broken outside my door.
In here, all alone, it was just me, Candice Marie Carlson, the insecure farm girl from Nebraska who was doing her best to get ahead and hold it together in a cruel and unfair world.
Candice Carlson, the girl who was sitting on the floor in the dark with her back against the door to keep the world outside.
Candice Carlson, the girl who cried herself to sleep many nights because the emotional armor she wore to battle the demons of the world was so heavy that it squeezed the emotions out of her like a juice press.
Candice Carlson, the girl who was hard as stone on the outside, but soft as marshmallow on the inside.
I put my forearms on my knees and rest my head on my arms.
I sat there and cried until I had no more tears to give.