Page 37 of Most Eligible Billionaire

Good.

No mediator in their right mind will think this is anything but harmful to the company.

Mandy goes on about deeper integration of our construction, development, and architectural businesses.

I watch Vicky follow along. She asks a few questions—rookie ones, but she’s interested. I was right about the construction stuff. Numbers bore her, but timelines and construction methods don’t. It makes sense, I suppose. She has that Etsy store. She’s made this jewelry and some of this throne. She does on a small scale what we do on a large one.

It’s too bad she’s the enemy.

When Mandy’s done, Vicky turns to Smuckers. “What do you think?”

“Smuckers’s share of the company will increase with this,” I say. “This makes Smuckers richer while delivering better service.”

She winces.

“What?” I ask.

“Smuckers doesn’t like the idea of new software. The learning curve—he’s not into it.”

I frown. “If we wanted to stay away from learning curves we’d still be adding and subtracting on abacuses.”

She shrugs. “You’re preaching to the choir, dude. I’m not the one to be convinced here.” She widens her eyes and tips her head toward Smuckers.

“Smuckers can hear me just fine,” I say.

She holds up a finger and turns to the dog as if listening intently.

Mandy sighs loudly. Brett keeps filming.

Vicky says, “Smuckers doesn’t like how you’re talking to me when he’s the one making the decisions. He feels alienated.”

“Does he,” I say.

“You should make your arguments directly to Smuckers,” she says. “If you want him on your side you need to work a little harder.”

“We’re not going to do that, Vicky.”

She frowns, eyes dark and dazzling. “Smuckers isn’t feeling favorable to the funding, that’s the problem here.”

“We need this funding,” Kaleb says. “We could lose millions of dollars of business here.”

She shrugs. “Then I’d suggest you tell Smuckers directly why he should cast a yes vote. Really talk to him. Make him feel included. Because, between you all and me and the Locke Worldwide flagpoles, you’re not treating him with the respect he feels is his due. You tried to defraud him in the last meeting, and now you’re ignoring him. Can you blame him for being unhappy?”

Smuckers is standing on his dog bed, wagging his tail, sensing the energy in the room.

I’ve done battle many times in the corporate world. I know the language of battle, the feel and sound of it. I know the moves, the signals, the rules.

She tried to play our game last time and nearly lost. We played dirty. She’s asserting her power now, being unreasonable. Forcing us to orbit around her. And something else.

It’s as if she’s operating out of some kind of disdain, and most of it seems pointed at me.

She disdains me. It’s…electrifying.

“Dreoger starts on the fifteenth,” Mandy says to me, jolting me out of my haze.

I nod. “Right.” We need the software. We needed it yesterday.

“That right there,” Vicky says. “When you talk like that without giving Smuckers any kind of background, he feels unhappy.”

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