Page 22 of Perfect Night

It was Tuesday morning when he arrived in the London office. He’d had to deal with something in New York on Monday, so he took a night flight. Sebastian had made no steps towards tracking Charlie down yet. He was still hoping Charlie would call him.

Sebastian was between meetings when he checked his email. There was an invitation for tomorrow’s meeting with Sumptua. The attendee list included Charlie Davidson, who was the marketing executive.

It had to be a coincidence. The world couldn’t be that small. He looked at the company website, but they only had bios for the leadership team. He went to LinkedIn instead, keeping his own profile private so Charlie wouldn’t know he’d looked.

Sebastian let out a huge breath when he saw the beautiful face staring back at him. He’d found him – and not only that, he’d be in his office tomorrow with the arsehole boss he’d spoken of. Candice had reservations about Nathaniel Klein from their first meeting. Charlie had confirmed everything she suspected.

Sebastian was in two minds about pulling the whole contract immediately. He didn’t want to work with a company who treated their staff like that, but then he’d lose the opportunity to see Charlie again.

How should he play this? If he blindsided Charlie, it could blow up in his face and put Charlie’s job in jeopardy. Now he had his full name and where he worked, it wouldn’t take long for him to get Charlie’s number. He could give him a heads-up, but then he might not come. It was a conundrum, but he couldn’t help but smile at the fact he’d be seeing Charlie again soon.

Back at the hotel, he had the same suite. He’d called in a favour and now had Charlie’s number and his address. It wasn’t his finest moment and would hardly endear him to Charlie, but he needed a backup in case he didn’t show tomorrow, or their meeting was a disaster. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to play it, but that night he slept better than he had since the night he fell asleep with Charlie still in his arms.

“They’re here,” said Candice, popping her head round the office door. “You sure you want to be in this one?”

“Yes. I just want to see how the guy treats his staff. It’s your meeting to run.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in there.”

He was nervous. Sebastian didn’t get nervous. But he’d decided, and it was too late to back out of it now. A quick call to Reception confirmed Charlie was there. He straightened up his suit and headed to the boardroom. The door was still open, and he could hear chatter. He walked in and spotted Charlie straight away. He was busying himself with his laptop, connecting it to the videoconferencing equipment.

“Nathaniel, this our CEO, Sebastian Steele.”

At that, Charlie looked up, and his jaw dropped. He recovered quickly and looked nervous as he stood up. It took a lot for Sebastian not to go straight over to him, but he had to play this cool. He shook Nathaniel’s hand. The smile on his face was fake. There were two other people who seemed to be just as vacuous as Nathaniel, and then it came to Charlie.

“This is our executive, Charlie. We thought it’d be a good experience for him to see how a business meeting works,” said Nathaniel.

That immediately got Sebastian’s back up. He knew full well why Charlie was here. He’d done all the work.

“Good to meet you, Charlie,” he said, shaking his hand.

“Yes, erm, you too . . . sir.”

Well, that word had given Sebastian a semi, and was something they’d need to revisit later. Preferably when he had Charlie alone back at his hotel suite.

Sebastian gestured for everyone to take their seats. Charlie knocked his chair over and muttered an apology. His boss glared at him, which pissed Sebastian off, but he kept quiet, knowing Charlie wouldn’t appreciate him causing a scene.

Candice started the meeting and Nathaniel went into his sales patter. He brought the other two in, but Charlie was ignored. It looked like he’d been brought along to press the button to move the slides on. They moved on to the socialmedia campaign part of their pitch, which was what made them stand out from the others. The rest was the same thing everyone was offering, but the social media strategy was one of the most creative things he’d ever seen, and that was before he knew it was Charlie’s work.

“My understanding is that Charlie created the social media strategy,” said Candice.

“He helped,” said Nathaniel.

“Okay, well, perhaps he should take this section.”

“Actually, Ocean here is going to handle that. She’ll be leading this work when the project starts.”

Ocean? First, it was child abuse to give someone a name like that. Second, all Ocean seemed to have going for her was that she was pretty and heavy-busted. Candice didn’t look impressed with Nathaniel’s dismissal of Charlie and she didn’t hide it. Sebastian didn’t know how Charlie felt about it, as he’d refused to make eye contact since their introduction. Sebastian was doing as he promised, and keeping out of it, but even if he didn’t know Charlie there would be no way he’d work with a guy like Nathaniel. He went against everything Steele Property Holdings stood for. A company was only successful if you treated your people with respect.

The presentation continued, and there were at least two instances when Ocean spoke and made no sense, which caused Charlie to frown. His boss noticed and shot a ‘shut the fuck up’ look at him.

“This is fine, but you still haven’t explained thewhy,” said Candice.

“What do you mean?” asked Ocean.

“Why did you make these choices?”

Nathaniel went to speak, but Sebastian had heard enough.

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