Chapter 16

Our seats were not as far placed as I’d initially thought, and a brief look in Elijah’s direction proved that he’d taken note of this too. He was in the middle of a conversation with the man beside him when our gazes met briefly before I dropped mine to the notepad I’d retrieved from the binder.

I uncapped my ballpoint, taking a moment to run my sweaty palms over my pants before scribbling down the date just as someone lowered themselves into the seat beside mine.

I looked to see that it was a vaguely familiar-looking man, broad shouldered and handsome, with a pair of rather deep-set light brown eyes. He smiled politely at me, and after a delay I mirrored his gesture, taking the hand he offered as I gave silent thanks that my palms were no longer sweaty.

“Vincent Grant,” he introduced in a distinctively southern accent, and when I told him my name he arched a brow and looked like he was about to say something, but I interrupted.

“If it’s a Sleeping Beauty reference then I don’t want to hear it.”

“I wasn’t about to make a Sleeping Beauty reference,” Vincent replied with a mischievous light in his eyes which betrayed how that was exactly what he’d been about to do. “But consider this fair warning: I’ve been known to randomly break into renditions of Once Upon a Dream.”

Maybe it was the way he said it, drawling and low, but his words cracked me up and I let slip an involuntary snicker, and a smug grin settled over his mouth.

Without a conscious thought I looked to where Elijah was sat and saw that he wore a slightly puzzled frown, like he was annoyed but couldn’t for the life of him tell why this was the case. Our gazes met once more, and his frown deepened but this time I made an effort to hold his eyes, determined to see him look away first until Vincent asked a question that broke through my concentration, and I turned to reply to him.

By the time I looked back Elijah was no longer staring in my direction.

The lone figure of a smartly dressed man snagged my attention as he climbed up to the podium in front of the room, taking a moment to clear his throat into the head-worn mic he had on to indicate that the event was about to commence.

The room fell considerably silent, and when he was sure that he had everyone’s attention he introduced himself to us as Pierre Dufort and welcomed us all in a crisp, matter-of-fact tone that brokered no interruptions, though I doubt anyone would’ve dared to.

“He reminds me a little bit of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings,” I said in a whisper to Vincent, unable to stop myself, and he squinted slightly, relaxing into his chair.

“I guess,” he agreed after a long moment. “I mean the beard could be a little bit longer—”

“I thought so too.”

“—but other than that he’ll do a fine job.”

Pierre gave a brief run through all that we were to look forward to over the course of the following three weeks, and when he finished, he welcomed us again once more before calling up the first speaker. I was surprised, but not shocked to hear him utter Vincent’s name, and when I looked over to him I saw that he was giving me a nervous smile.

“You could tell me what Lord of the Rings character I remind you of when I’m finished,” he teased as he smoothly got up. “Over lunch, maybe?”

He gave me a questioning look, but I said nothing, face red, when the dots in my head connected and I realized why he’d seemed familiar in the first place.

He was Vincent Grant of the Grants, an old money American shipping dynasty, mostly renowned for having amassed one of the world’s largest privately owned shipping fleets. Eventually he tired of waiting on me to reply and strode off.

Watching him now as he made his way up the podium to a smattering of polite applause, you would never have guessed that just mere minutes ago he’d made me laugh by confessing that he knew the lyrics to the Sleeping Beauty title track. And yet that was exactly what had happened.

I felt a hot flush of embarrassment burn through me when I watched him pull Pierre into a hug, as it was easy to deduce from the easy manner between them that both men were close, and I considered putting in a request to change seats so that by the time Vincent returned I wouldn’t be around, but I stopped myself.

It wasn’t like I’d been trying to be malicious. Even he had agreed that Pierre would make a great Gandalf.

Whatever the case, it hardly mattered. I was there to work, listen, take notes and filter through them to see if I could come up with suggestions that would help Wilkinson—nothing more, nothing less.

Once more I looked in Elijah’s direction, but just like everyone else his gaze remained firmly planted on Vincent. I sighed, hastily writing down a heading and underlining it when Vincent started to speak.

Just day one and already I could hardly wait for this whole thing to be over.

•

Fortunately for all of us, Vincent was a phenomenal speaker. He spoke clearly, and his presentation was engaging and easy enough to follow. Unfortunately, it ran for close to two hours, so that by the end of it more than half the room, I noticed, was fighting off yawns.

I, for what it’s worth, was exhausted.

Waking up at four a.m. to get ready for the day sounded like a good idea until you sat still for long enough, and by the end of it I’d given up on trying to understand any of the notes I took down. My handwriting was sloppy, and at some point I turned on my phone recorder to catch anything I missed.

If there and then, they’d asked me to sell my soul for a mattress that I could doze off on, I would’ve taken up the offer in a heartbeat.

The thought that this was what I had to look forward to for the next couple of weeks would’ve been enough to make me consider quitting if the proposed raise I was to be getting for this business trip hadn’t been so attractive.

It was all I could do to not get up and break into a tap dance when Vincent finally concluded, and I put in a mental reminder to turn in early tonight so I wouldn’t have to go through a repeat of the agony that I’d just sat through.

To my added pleasure, he completely bypassed our seat, excusing himself from the hall to probably go and receive a phone call, which meant that I didn’t see him again until Pierre took the stage to congratulate us on making it through the first day.

Chairs scraped across the floor as everyone got up and started to mingle with each other in a way that they hadn’t been able to upon our arrival.

I saw a flock of self-important corporate types converge around Elijah and decided that it would be best if I waited outside, instead of on the sidelines, where I was sure that some unfortunate would try to hit on me—a scenario I had absolutely no interest in living through after the past couple of hours that I’d just had.

Our eyes met over the heads of those who flocked around him, and Elijah threw me a questioning look, but I motioned towards the entrance and after a moment he nodded. We were settled and that was that then.

I hurried out; head downturned as I sidestepped the occasional group of magnates and didn’t stop until I’d gotten to the lobby proper, where I lowered myself into a seat and waited, using the short break to go through my phone and reply to texts, or emails, or just scroll through Instagram. Shortly after, someone dropped into the chair beside me and without having to look up I knew it was Vincent.

He cleared his throat after a few seconds had passed, and I tilted my head up so our eyes met, fixing on a pained smile on my face in the hopes that he would learn from my cue and conveniently develop a sudden case of selective amnesia.

“So,” he began, leaning in conspiratorially. “What Lord of the Rings character do I remind you of?”

I was unable to stop myself from grimacing.

“Legolas, maybe—or no.” A look of pure speculation settled over his face. “I think I’d make a great Aragon.”

He paused to see if I would say anything, contradict him maybe, but when I remained silent he shrugged, running his fingers through his mane of strawberry blond hair.

“How did I do with the lecture?” he asked, and I swallowed, letting out a sigh of relief that he’d moved onto something that didn’t involve teasing me to death.

“It was informative,” I answered, and when he arched a brow I added, “But a bit drawn out.”

Vincent let out a guffaw of laughter that took me by surprise. I didn’t think what I’d said was funny, not even slightly.

“Try talking for two hours straight and see how it feels,” he said after he’d sufficiently recovered. “But I’m sorry about that. Maybe we could talk about it over lunch? I’ve heard this place has mean appetizers.”

At first I laughed, thinking he was joking, but when I saw that the look on his face was dead serious my snickers petered out until eventually a thick wall of silence stood between us.

“What’s it going to be, Miss Martin?” he challenged. “An afternoon with me or an afternoon with me?”