Page 7 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
“Are you sure?” Anders asked, trepidation still lingering in his tone.
She stared at the gong in her bag. “Don’t you worry. I’ve got it covered. I’ve got everything under control.”
Okay, having lost the majority of her teaching gigs over the last seventy-five days might not be the definition of having it under control. Still, despite the hit to her chi and her absent O, she knew today, a door would open—a door that would lead to prosperity. And that prosperity would ensure that she could help support her brothers.
“Thanks, Libbs, you’re the best. We owe you everything,” Alec replied as a calming relief coated his words.
“We love you, yoga master sister,” Anders chimed.
A warmth spread through her as she ended the call. She sighed, then peered at the spot where Cleo and Laney had stood—their floral scents still lingering in the air. She couldn’t let the women’s cosmic karma one-eighty cloud her perception of the Tri-Derrick group. There could be several reasons why the women had soured when she asked for their opinion on the company. Perhaps they needed the meeting room, and the venture capitalists had reserved it first. That could be it. It could be as simple as a scheduling snafu.
She closed her eyes and released a slow breath. “Your path will lead you to your intended destination,” she whispered, her words mingling with the faint floral wisps of scent. She checked herself in the mirror and lifted her chin, taking in the hues of green, red, white, and gold. She was cloaked in the colors that would usher in success. She opened the door to the restroom, searched the hallway for the meeting room, then spied a piece of torn notebook paper taped to the wall.
Tri-Derrick Venture Capitalist International this waywas scribbled in black ink with an arrow pointing to the left.
She started down the hall and inhaled the floral scent. Laney and Cleo must work down this corridor, too. She turned the corner, then startled as a young woman barreled down the hallway, sniffling and wiping tears from her cheeks as she charged toward the bank of elevators on the other side of the building. The blubbering gal disappeared in a bluster of muffled whimpering when a harsh voice called out.
“Are you Libby Lamb?”
She turned toward the sound and saw a man standing at the entrance of a glassed-in conference room. “Yes, that’s me. I’m here for the interview with the Tri-Derrick Group.”
The man looked her up and down once, then twice, then a third time. A sickening sensation washed over her, and she closed her wrap, concealing her exposed midsection as she did her own once-over on the guy.
She didn’t know any venture capitalists, but she certainly hadn’t expected one to dress like this. Sporting track pants and a faded T-shirt with Greek letters printed across the front, he looked more like someone heading to a kegger than a business meeting.
Maybe this man was an assistant.
She glanced past the guy in leisure-frat attire. Two other men sat at a long conference table in giant overstuffed chairs. A few sheets of paper were strewn haphazardly across the table where one man sat snapping selfies and another focused on his phone. Both men were clad in outfits mirroring the guy at the door. Across from the imposing table, a lone chair sat in the center of the room like an island divorced from the mainland.
“Are you coming in or not?” the guy asked.
Libby touched the jade beads at her wrist for luck. “Yes, I’m coming in. I’m prepared to present to your group,” she replied, all business.
The guy shrugged, then plopped onto a third overstuffed chair as she scrambled in behind him. The door caught halfway, and she tried to pull it closed but to no avail. And she sure didn’t want her first impression to be one of breaking their office space. That was no way to make an entrance.
“Don’t worry about the door. I told my dad about it,” the man who’d met her outside the conference room offered.
“You told your dad?” she stammered, scanning the room before heading toward the chair that had to be a good twenty feet from the conference table. Something had been off with her energy for weeks, but even her discombobulated chi was aware of the psychic alarm bells going off left and right. Neither of the men at the table even registered her presence. No matter. She was there to wow and impress. Pulling the little gong from her bag, she set it on the chair and rested the mallet beside it.
“My dad owns this building,” the guy answered, then pulled his phone out and joined the other men in obsessing over the internet.
She took in the not-so-corporate lay of the land. These guys were probably rich, but they’d have to be. That was the whole point of venture capitalism, right? She mustered a grin. Did her frazzled chi make her want to march up to them and rip their cells right out of their hands?
Yeah, it did.
The explosive anger that had been simmering in her belly the last seventy-five days was even okay with her taking the tiny mallet and smashing the hell out of their devices. But she couldn’t allow her unsteady energy to screw this up.
Don’t make snap judgments based on appearances.
Since she’d become a yoga instructor, she’d taught at senior living facilities, community rec centers, and pricy, high-end studios. And for the most part, it didn’t matter if she was leading a class of millionaires or folks popping in for a free stretch. Those who practiced yoga were good, kind people. She was teaching a restorative yoga class at an exclusive studio in the Crystal Creek neighborhood tonight.
The breath caught in her throat. This was the only studio where she still held a steady teaching gig. The simmering anger in her belly morphed into a slow boil at the thought of tonight’s class. The beefcake creep who’d wrecked her chi trained at an exclusive private boxing gym next door. Would he be there this evening to thwart her meditative practice, again, banging and crashing and hollering like he was the King of the Jungle?
“Libby?” the guy who’d led her into the conference room called, his voice snapping her back to this monumentally huge moment that she wasn’t about to let some beefcake ruin.
She straightened and clasped her hands in front of her.
Resonate peace and tranquility.
