Page 29 of Brooklynaire
Meetings are the real drawback of being the head of a Fortune 500 company. Our liege can no longer always shut the door to his office and demand to be left alone. KTech is so big now that the important decisions eat up about half of his workweek. These days, when he has a groundbreaking new idea, he has to delegate the fun parts of it to otherpeople.
It’s a drag. It really is. But the paycheck is some comfort. With KTech phones for sale on six continents, the royal coffers now overfloweth with money. Nate owns an historic mansion in Brooklyn, two cars, and a private jet. He eats the best food that money can buy, and chooses wines without looking at the pricetag.
“Nate.”
Rebecca’s soft voice makes him look up from the screen. “Yes?” She’s wearing a wrap dress today that hugs her curves. It’s green, and the color makes her eyes pop. Her hair is longer than it used to be, and during meetings he spends more time than is healthy wondering what the texture would feel like if he ran his fingers throughit.
He feels bad for fantasizing about her. This began sometime after Juliet left, and a while after he had a long string of one-night stands trying to feel okay about the wholething.
At some point the trysts stopped being interesting. Right around the same time he began to find himself meditating on the shape of Becca’s curves, and closing his eyes when she stood near him. A well-timed deep breath could summon her lilac scent, sending it deep into his lonelychest.
The sound of her voice occasionally gives him goosebumps. When she laughs, he feels it in hischest.
But now he realizes he’s zoned out while she was talking, and has no idea what she has said. “Sorry,” he sighed. “One moretime?”
Becca rolls her pretty eyes. “The caller. On your line one. Someone from an NHL hockey team? It doesn’t sound like a call you’d want to take, but the maninsisted…”
“Oh,shit.” He checks the time. “I did ask him to call today. Push back the next meeting for ten minutes,okay?”
She takes this in stride, disappearing from his office doorway without comment. A ten-minute delay is nothing. Becca has entertained heads of state during moments when he’s double-booked. She’d flown cross-country just to bring him a prototype component he needed, because he hadn’t trusted anyone lower-ranking. She’s even endured harassment at the grabby hands of one of his Asian distributors. And because she didn’t want to sour the business deal, she only told Nate about it after thefact.
He canceled the deal and hasn’t done a cent of business with that company. And neverwill.
Rebecca is under his skin. She’s a friend. She’s his right-hand man. And now she’s his unlikelycrush.
He will never tell her, though. Never once has she given him any indication of returning the sentiment. So he doesn’t even have to waste time wondering if there’s a way around the fact that they’re also employer andemployee.
He’ll just have to stop craving her. Any day now.Hopefully.
“A hockey team?” she asks later that afternoon when he walks past her desk. It must be quitting time, because the administrative bullpen in the C-suite has already thinnedout.
He stops and sits on the edge of her desk. “What do you think, Bec. You likehockey?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. It’s a fast moving game. No bullshit.” She frowns. “You used to have season tickets to the Rangers, right? I guess you let thosego?”
He most certainly had, although he didn’t like talking about why. Hockey was something he’d always watched with Juliet. But now he had an opportunity he couldn’t passup.
“The team I talked to today needs a little work. But I mightinvest.”
“Really.” Her pretty eyes widened. “That sounds like fun. If you buy a hockey team, I get to plan the celebration. With all those hunky hockey players. And puck-shapedfood.”
He laughs, in spite of the hockey player comment that stabs him like a knife to the heart. “Puck-shaped food? Like…Oreos?”
“Pfft. Medallions of pork. Mini beefWellingtons.”
“Sushi rolls? Fuck. Now I’mhungry.”
They just smile at each other for a second. Nate could stay there forever, but they’re interrupted by a young man in a courier’s outfit. Nate expects him to hand an envelope over to Rebecca. But that’s not what happens. “There she is!” he says instead. “Ready?”
Then he leans over the desk and kisses Rebecca right on thelips.
Nate wants to kickhim.
Nate wants to kick himself,too.
He doesneither.
9
