Page 5 of Enemies to French Kisses
“Good.” Guillaume sips his coffee standing. “Then listen up, because we have a tight timeline and a combination of market and prototype development to do.”
Now he’s speaking my language.
Within ten minutes we have the low down. A Dutch company has been tracking our progress but needs us to adjust to government regulations on contract, compensation, and tech regulations.
If I pretend that Marc isn’t standing just to my left as I sport my sensible-but-stylish riding boots, this is almost the perfect storm I’ve been hoping for since I started at Innov’.
“Two weeks,” Guillaume says. “I need your top proposal within two weeks. And I want the best out of each of you.”
The best out of me is a promise. Vincent has never been known to let anyone down. But Marc? My eyes flick to him involuntarily and he catches me looking. He winks at me.
Yuck.
Guillaume marches around the three of us like an army captain. “Two weeks and you must become a team. I expect you will eat, drink, sleep, stroll, take apéro, and pet your cats together.”
Pet our cats together?
“Do you have cats?” I whisper to Vincent.
“I’m allergic,” he whispers back. “But yes, I do.”
“Ev-ery-thing.” Guillaume says it slow and intentional. “Become each other’s best friend. That’s how we will land this deal.” He lays a hand on Marc’s shoulder as he walks through the group of us and straight to the door. “Everything.” He closes the door behind him, leaving us to our first ever so-called dream team session.
The silence is unbearable. I don’t know what to say, where do I even start? I could propose a strategy, but with these two, it can’t be just any strategy, it has to be my best. I can hardly be expected to come up with my best when under this pressure, but they are both looking at me like I’m thede-factoleader.
“I’m not in charge, you know.”Great first line, Laura. Way to build trust and confidence in your abilities.It’s because of Marc and his stupid raised eyebrow!
Marc laughs. “No? I thought that was the only way you knew how to be.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Laura,” Vincent whispers, “you are a natural born leader.”
My cheeks heat up. “Thank you, Vincent. I’m humbled.”
“How come whenhesays it, you’re humbled, but when I say it, you’re offended?”
Marc exhales heavily and drifts towards the window. "Americans," he says with a shake of his head.
“There!” I point at his back and glance at Vincent, “You see what I mean? You see what he did there?” I look back to Marc who stands by the window with his arms crossed and an inappropriately bemused look on his face. “It’s because of that. When you say a thing, it’s an insult. When Vincent says it, it’s a compliment.”
“Imeantit as a compliment!”
“Not with that tone of voice, you didn’t.”
“Please.” Vincent steps between us. “If we have to pet each other’s’ cats for the next two weeks, then you’re going to have to stop raising your voices. Antoinette is very sensitive.”
I have nothing to say to that, and neither does Marc.
“Thank you.” Vincent’s shoulders relax back into place. “Now, let’s start with the outlined ‘use cases’ for this proposal, which I pulled from the German contract as they are the most applicable to the Dutch regulations from what I’ve seen so far.”
“Indeed,” Marc struts to Guillaume’s desk where the folders and papers and scrawled prototypes fill the space. “Wise choice,mon grand.”
Mon grandis what my friend Chrissy, who’s anau pair, calls the kids under her charge. Leave it to Marc to offer a compliment and a dig in one fell swoop. Sometimes that man is so low you couldn’t put a rug under him.
“You know you aren’t supposed to call me that anymore,” Vincent whispers as he pulls the folders back into a pile.
My phone pings with a text as I reach the leaning tower of dossiers.“Don’t forget, Sacre Coeur tonight. Bal trad!”
