Chapter Eleven

“How’d you and Abigail get to be friends?” Max asked me on Monday morning. I was in his cube pretending to show him how to do his timesheet, but really we were lying in wait for Paul. Over the weekend, the Cubs had advanced in the playoffs, the Bears had lost to the Vikings, the Blackhawks scored four goals against the Wild, and the Chicago Fire did…something. I couldn’t remember; hopefully, Max did.

“We’re not really friends,” I said. “Not outside of work anyway.”

“Still,” he answered. “I’ve never seen her comfortable with another woman the way she is with you. She thinks you’re funny. She trusts you.”

“She should,” I retorted. “She did something dumb once, and I prevented her from getting fired.”

He leaned closer, glanced around to make sure no one else was nearby. “What did she do?”

I hesitated, but I was pretty sure Abigail wouldn’t mind Max knowing what happened. “She found a vulnerability in our HR system and accessed payroll data she’s not authorized to see.”

He whistled. “That’s a pretty serious offense.”

“Yeah. A guy on one of my teams noticed it when he was reviewing security logs late one afternoon. Luckily, he came to me instead of going to Paul or straight to HR.” I hadn’t slept a wink that night. I’d been positive I’d have to fire her. I had no problem firing people when they deserved it, but something told me that Abigail didn’t. I didn’t know her as well then, but I knew she was bright and worked really hard.

“First thing the next morning, I called her into my office and asked her why she did it.” Abigail’s face had gone sheet white, and she’d started trembling. I felt like a high school principal chastising a freshman who cheated on a test.

“Why did she?” Max asked.

“She suspected that she was paid less than all of the men on the programming team, even the ones who were hired at the same time she was.” I grimaced. “She was right too. I do have authorized access to that information, and I checked as soon as she left my office. She went about things in a totally inappropriate way, but she uncovered something really unfair.”

Max abandoned our pretending-to-look-at-the-timesheet game. “What’d you do?”

“If I’d discovered the breach, I would have just ignored it. I don’t condone what she did, but in this case—as in a lot of cases—the why was really important. But it was Nick who found it, and I knew he was expecting some sort of action to be taken.” Max nodded quickly, fascinated.

Another glance around to make sure we were still alone. “Luckily, I had a scintillating little tidbit of information about Nick as well. A month before all this happened, I found his phone in the conference room. It was blowing up with texts, and I looked at a few to see if I could figure out whose phone it was.” I snorted. “It was a conversation about how a particular brand of pot makes meetings with your boss tolerable. Apparently, Nick is an avid user of weed during workdays.”

Max teased me, winking. “And did you reflect on the why in Nick’s case?”

Straight-faced, I nodded. “Absolutely. I came to the conclusion that Nick smokes pot because getting high is awesome.”

Max closed his eyes, suppressing one of those big laughs. I finished the story. “Anyway, I mentioned to Nick that we all made poor decisions at times and let him know I knew about his not-sanctioned-by-the-workplace habit, and I said that Abigail had done it by accident, blah blah blah. He knew it was bullshit, but he also knows it’s a fireable offense to be high at work.”

“So is this how you came into your position of power?” Max grinned. “By becoming a keeper of secrets?”

“It never hurts to know where the bodies are buried,” I said matter-of-factly. A familiar gray head was bopping along the hallway. “Showtime.”

Paul ambled by, only too happy to be stopped with an exhilarated spazz-out from me concerning the Cubs game five victory over the Nationals. After a sentence or two, I pretended to answer a call on my phone, letting Max take over. From a short distance, I watched Paul and Max commiserate together about the Bears’ miserable offense.

Max didn’t even really need Abigail’s or my help, I knew now. He was surprisingly social for a techie, and he would have been able to charm Paul all on his own without our hints. For the thousandth time, I wondered what he’d done at his previous job to get fired and blacklisted. Genius programmers with strong social skills were unicorns. He must have done something really unforgivable. Which did not jive with his true-blue Boy Scout persona. Of course, he said it was for a good reason.

Ah well, I’d learn his secret sooner or later. I always did.

A few days later, Paul came to my office with a short stack of résumés. “I’ve been looking through all of our applicants for the open senior programmer position.”

I pushed my reading glasses up on my head. “And?” Please say Max is the most qualified by far. Please say Max is the most qualified by far.

“It looks like that young man who’s been contracting for us, Matt, is the most qualified applicant by a long shot.”

“Max,” I corrected gently. My least favorite of Paul’s quirks; I’d been Jess for longer than I’d care to admit. “I agree. He blows the other candidates out of the water.”

“We still need to interview three different people, per our HR regulations,” Paul said. He handed over two other résumés, and I scanned them quickly. “I’ll set up the interviews for next week.”

“Great!”

I gave him my most professional smile and turned back to my computer, pretending not to feel the accelerated thumping of my heart. I wished that my stupid heart wasn’t excited at all. I was ecstatic that the “hire Max as payment” part of the plan was working so well, of course. But my asinine heart was pounding not at that, but at the thought of Max being around past the end of the month.

Which was beyond stupid. There was absolutely no romantic future possible between Max and myself, and I needed to resolve this disconnect between my brain and my body ASAP. I wasn’t his type. He liked nice girls, and his ex in particular. He’s not your type either. I hadn’t dated a guy like Max in seven years. Max was a rare breed, the kind of guy I thought of as a “long-term” guy. Long-term guys were smart and funny. Long-term guys usually had their shit together in terms of career and savings. Long-term guys weren’t afraid of emotional attachment or commitment. Long-term guys put other people’s happiness before their own.

After I’d smashed Daniel’s life and pride into a trillion pieces, I’d decided I’d never date a long-term guy again. I liked and respected them. In some cases, I lusted after them. But I’d never get involved with one again.

To put it simply, I wasn’t a long-term girl.

On Friday afternoon, I watched Paul sneak out of the office around 3:00 and did a little cheer. Perhaps I’d head to an early weekend myself. I stood and did a little shimmy to the door. Fizz, here I come! But then my desk phone rang, damn it. Resigned, I plopped back down in my chair and answered it.

“Tess, thank God. We have a serious problem!” It was Ron, our VP of sales. His voice was panicked.

“What’s up?”

“You know our meeting with Zack Morris from Away-Ho?”

“Of course.” After the infamously difficult CEO had canceled on us twice, we had him pinned down for a meeting on Monday morning. Paul and I had worked on a strategy and prepared for the meeting all week. Sales was supposed to do a high-level discussion on pricing, but the meeting was mainly designed for our IT solutions to shine. The plan was for me to do the presentation and field all their questions, but Paul would sit in as backup.

Ron lowered his voice to a whisper. “There was some sort of mix-up with the scheduling. They’re here right now!”

“What?” I stood and craned my neck so I could see down the hall to our nicest conference room. Sure enough, four or five dudes in trendy-looking shirts and sneakers were standing there looking at their phones. “That’s crazy. I have a long string of emails confirming our 9:00 a.m. meeting on Monday. Can’t you just explain and tell them to come back then?”

Ron’s laugh was desperate. “Yeah, I tried that, and they got super pissed. They’re not available on Monday, and they’re blaming the whole thing on us. Said if we were really as good as advertised, we’d be able to do the meeting now.” He paused. “So we’re going to try.”

“That’s absurd,” I said firmly. “Paul’s gone for the day—”

“Yeah,” he interrupted. “My counterpart is out as well. But their little punk of a CEO said it’s today or no day. I’m going to do it on my own. Can you fly solo too?”

Jack Sorenson had told me that I had to land Away-Ho or forget about the VP promotion. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d order me to handle this meeting ASAP. I sighed, all thoughts of an early day vanishing. “As long as you explain the situation to Paul and Jack in an email immediately after we’re finished.”

“Done,” he said, relief evident in his whoosh of an exhalation. “Come on down.”

Fighting against nerves, I glanced at my reflection in the small mirror on the back of my door and smoothed some wild hairs back against my braid. I threw on a black cardigan over my sleeveless black sheath and belted it. I pulled my lucky silver ring out of my purse and slid it on the third finger of my right hand. A coat of lipstick went on like armor, and I was ready.

No need to freak out. Paul and I had prepared more for this meeting than any other I could remember. I’d memorized all the relevant data and run through it so many times I’d been having very boring dreams about it. No worries.

But twenty minutes later, I was very worried. Ron and I were going to lose the account, and it wouldn’t even be close to our fault. Sorenson had described Zack Morris as a hyper-aggressive little shit—and wow, was that an accurate description.

He wouldn’t let me finish a goddamn sentence.

My gorgeous presentation—one that I’d created after weeks of research about Away-Ho and actual input from their own IT team—was stalled on slide three. The meeting agenda had clearly stated our intention to deliver a presentation that would outline high-level possible solutions. Zack Morris had approved the agenda via email just yesterday, but he clearly had no interest in it.

From what I could see, the only thing he did have an interest in was interrupting. I tried again to move on to the next slide. “We’ve partnered with dozens of companies that have similar infrastructures to yours, so we—”

He held up his hand while shaking his head violently back and forth. “Let me stop you right there. Don’t presume for one second you know anything about our business, Miss Greene.” He’d called me Miss Greene no fewer than three times, even though I’d asked him to call me Tess.

He leaned back in his chair, glowering at me. With his beefy build, ruddy skin, and generically good-looking features, he looked like a grown-up frat boy—one with a cocaine habit. He didn’t sit still, and he liked to make jabbing motions at me when he spoke. It made me feel like I was being physically stabbed with his obnoxiousness.

“We’re a technology company,” he said, his tone of voice implying that he was speaking to a three-year-old. He jabbed at me again. “We probably understand what you do better than you do.”

I bit down hard on my lip and fought the urge to turn to Ron and roll my eyes. Really?

Zack Morris didn’t have any issues with giving me a disgusted eye roll. Jab! “We’re only outsourcing this project at all because our IT staff needs to focus on revenue opportunities and can’t waste their time on this donkey work.”

I wished that I could run him out the building. And then I wished for Mother Nature’s most horrible disaster to wipe out their entire company. I mean, donkey work? Was he kidding me?

Satisfied that he’d slammed me into silence, Zack Morris made a fake-bewildered expression and gestured up at the large screen at the front of the conference room. “Is there something wrong with the presentation?”

Swallowing, I took a deep breath and clicked forward. “Not at all. If you look at these sample architecture diagrams, you’ll see that we recommend one of these approaches—”

He cut me off again without even looking at the screen. A double air jab, aimed at my throat. “Uh, Miss Greene. What is your role here? If we were to work with you—” he snorted, looking around at his cronies until they snorted too, as if the idea of working with us was a huge joke “—what is it you’d be doing?”

I paused here, which was a bad idea. Blood in the water for sharks and all that. But I wasn’t sure how to answer, because if I got the VP promotion, my role with Away-Ho would be different from my current position. No, it was best not to presume. Hands under the table, I twisted my silver ring, willing it to help me turn this meeting around.

“I’d be your project manager,” I said calmly. “I’d be the liaison between your team and our technical people. Internally, I’d work with our developers to design your solution and lead all testing efforts. I’d also—”

He held up that imperious hand again. “Right there, that’s going to be a problem for me.”

“How do you mean?” I asked politely.

He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down his nose. “I don’t speak to project managers on technical issues. You guys always speak in bullshit acronyms and nonsense rather than giving concrete information.” He laughed a little to himself, flicking his eyes briefly in my direction. “I’ve always thought that project manager is kind of a fluffy, bullshit role. Not real work. No offense.”

Don’t let him provoke you, I lectured myself over the dull roar in my ears. Just figure out what he wants and give it to him. If I couldn’t handle little shits like this, I wasn’t cut out for the VP role. “I work with many technology clients, but I apologize if I’m not providing you with the level of technical detail you were expecting.” Not that he’d looked at any of the slides anyway. “Perhaps I could document a list of your questions and work with our programmers to get you some answers?”

“Waste of my time.” He sniffed. He made a big show of looking at his Tag Hauer watch before air-jabbing at the door. “Why don’t you run and get one of them in here now? Then I can decide if it’s worth moving forward.”

Shit. No. That would be highly unusual and a terrible idea. The programmers didn’t come to potential client introductory meetings; that wasn’t their role, and no one would be prepped for this kind of conversation. It was my responsibility to bridge the gap between the tech team and clients—and I was really damn good at it.

I tried again, sweetly. “Why don’t you ask me your questions?” I was positive that I could answer anything this douche bag would throw at me.

He pulled out his phone and started tapping away. “No, not interested.” Of course not. He probably didn’t even have questions. He just wanted me to jump through hoops to prove he was a big, important man.

I looked at Ron with wide eyes, willing him to shut down this situation like the VP he was. “Could you grab one of your team, Tess?” he said instead, selling me down the river. For Christ’s sake. I narrowed my eyes at him, sending a clear message that I was going to fucking flay him later.

“Let me go check.” I stood and left the conference room. As soon as they couldn’t see me from the glass doors anymore, I sprinted to Developer’s Corner. Who could I get? This was not a job for Abigail. She’d mumble and stammer under Morris’s brand of questioning. Possibly Bryant, our longest-standing developer, would work. He wasn’t witty or clever, but he was good under pressure.

But when I ran up to the developers’ cubes, practically panting, the only person sitting there was Max. “Where is everyone?” I demanded.

“Quiet Friday,” he agreed. “Abigail and Anand are off today, Steve and Nick are down in the server room, and Jose left early.”

“Bryant. Where’s Bryant?”

Max frowned in concentration. “Oh! He had a doctor’s appointment.”

“Shit!” I kicked the side of a cubicle with my boot.

He half stood from his chair. “What’s wrong?”

I quickly summarized the Away-Ho situation, concluding with, “He’s just an asshole throwing his weight around.”

Max stood fully and tucked in the back of his shirt. “I can do it.”

I put my hands up in a full stop position. “No way. You’ve been here less than two weeks, buddy.”

He winked at me behind his glasses. “We’re not going to tell them that, Boots. I know enough about the technology here to answer the appropriate level of questions—and I know just the type of asshole you’re describing too. Just pretend I’m already a senior programmer and together we’ll send Zack Morris happily back to Bayside High.”

That surprised a laugh out of me. And the fact that he included the word together…well. I’d have to dissect the warm feeling in my chest later. I hesitated, but what choice did I really have? If I couldn’t produce a developer, who knew what kind of story Morris would spin up? If he complained to Jack Sorenson, the situation could reflect horribly on our whole team.

“OK, OK, let’s do it.”

Ron’s eyes widened when Max and I came into the conference room, and I gave him a small shrug. He knew Max was a temp, but I dared him to say anything after putting me in this situation.

“Mr. Morris?” Max shook hands with the little prick. “I understand you have questions of a more technical nature you’d like us to address.”

“I do,” Morris said, a glint in his eye. He put his phone back in his pocket, then put his hands flat on the conference table and leaned forward. His lips twisted in an evil little grin, as though he was about to battle an enemy in which his opponent had a pen knife and he had an Uzi. In his patented rapid-fire approach, he began to pepper Max with questions about our code, platforms, frameworks, and APIs.

I could have answered all of the questions. But I had to admit, Max did better than I would have. He used an absolute shit-ton of technical jargon and spoke even quicker than Morris. When Morris attempted to sneer or put down a response, Max would immediately state three or four reasons for the decision, often citing well-respected coding resources. The harder Morris interrogated him—with those nasty air jabs—the more relaxed he became.

After ten minutes of back and forth, a light sheen of sweat formed on Morris’s forehead. I bet he spent his days trying to humiliate people wherever he went—and it probably worked a lot of the time, since most people don’t expect to be attacked for no reason. But here was Max, as comfortable as could be, conceding nothing—and Morris was literally perspiring. It was… It was… It was beautiful.

It was also a real wake-up call. Morris was speaking angrily at Max—but he was engaging with him and treating him as an equal. I’d gone wrong with Morris from the first instant, I saw now. Everyone had prepped me for how difficult Morris was, so I’d incorrectly assumed that the best approach to take was to be endlessly accommodating. Which, in his brutish little mind, immediately made me seem weak and worthy of contempt. I’d been so focused on the fact that winning the Away-Ho business would propel me to my promotion that I’d left my usual swagger in my office.

Well, that ended now.

Morris took a deep breath and fired another shot at Max. “What about your own disaster recovery plan? If this is what your company does for other companies, I’d sure like to know what your plan is.”

Max opened his mouth, but I shook my head, and he snapped it closed. Under the table, I twisted my lucky ring so hard it popped right off my finger and landed somewhere on the carpet. Shit. I’d have to pick it up later.

“No,” I said loudly. So loudly that Morris’s eyes widened, and he made eye contact with me for the first time all afternoon. “That’s proprietary information. It’s not something we share with external clients. Just as your disaster recovery plan will be completely private to your company.”

Mimicking his aggressive posture, I put my hands on the table and leaned forward. I considered doing an air jab back in his face, but decided that was a little too on the nose. “To be honest, I think we’ve gone above and beyond on honoring your data requests today, particularly as none of this was on the agenda that you agreed upon in writing earlier this week. Not to mention the fact that this meeting wasn’t even scheduled for today.”

Morris glared at me, and Ron visibly flinched, no doubt fearing Morris was about to storm out. But I just held his gaze and raised my eyebrows. “Unless you want to cover the topics on the original agenda, we’re done here.”

He couldn’t quite let it go. Without responding to me, he looked back at Max. “One more question—”

“Nope,” Max said, standing to leave. “She’s the boss.” He gave a cursory glance around the table. “Nice meeting you all.” He left the conference room with a respectful nod to me and without a backward glance at them, and I could practically feel my pupils dilating with pleasure.

I threw some business cards on the table. “You’re welcome to follow up with us next week. But even if you don’t, I have plenty of ‘real work’ to do for the forty-six other companies I personally handle.” I laughed, long and loud, as though I’d found Morris’s earlier comments on my role to be amusing and clever instead of insulting. “You know, in my fluffy bullshit role.”

The Away-Ho bros filed out quickly, no doubt to harass some poor cocktail waitress at the newest happy hour hot spot. But Zack Morris paused in front of me and Ron, eyes on his phone. “My assistant will set up some time next week,” he muttered.

Jackpot. I wasn’t exactly sure what had improved his opinion of us. Maybe it was the fact that I’d finally stood up to him, or maybe it was that Max, a person who’d obviously known his shit, had deferred to me so respectfully. I didn’t really care. There was no reason to meet again except to get closer to a signed contract—and that’s what Jack Sorenson wanted.

“Wonderful. Have a great weekend!” I chirped.

Ron looked like he might faint with relief. A look that quickly turned to fear once we were alone in the conference room again. “Sorry, Tess,” he piped, no doubt dreading my legendary temper. “I should have handled that much better. You and Max were terrific.”

The tantrum I’d been about to throw at him disappeared.

You and Max were terrific.