Marco was as thick as mud when it came to taking subtle hints. He adjusted the cap on his bald head to ride low over his eyes, but didn’t take it off. He peered up at Alex with a look of confusion on his face. “I’m sorry, you want to borrow my seat?”
“If you don’t mind, Captain sir,” Alex said, snapping a salute and clicking his heels together. “There’s another seat over there across from the gentleman who appears to be dead or sleeping very soundly.”
Marco craned his head to look at Dennis, then looked up at Alex and forced a smile. “Sure, I mean, all the seats are the same. Right?”
“That they are,” Alex said, taking Marco’s hand and tugging him out of the seat. He patted Marco on the back and pointed at the seat across from Dennis. “So, since they’re all the same, you won’t mind taking that one.”
I watched as Alex made a show of escorting Marco to the other seat. He called over one of the flight attendants who stood like sentinels at the back of the plane and asked her to please take good care of his best pal, Marco.
The flight attendant, a gorgeous redhead that looked as if she’d just fallen out of a magazine, put a hand on Marco’s shoulder and promised to take good care of him. Marco gazed up at her like a pound puppy falling in love with its new owner.
I glanced around the cabin. All eyes were on me. Costas and Stan sported matching frowns. If Gianna’s eyes were lasers, they would have already burned through my head.
Fuck them, I thought.
I have not done anything wrong or inappropriate. I am not going to let these people diminish my worth.
I am not going to let them judge me.
I am not going to run into the bathroom and cry like a baby.
I am not going to cry.
I am not.
I am…
“Wow, I didn’t think he would ever leave,” Alex said with a broad grin as he slid into the seat across from me. He signaled the other flight attendant and she immediately appeared at our table.
“Well, hello, Patricia,” Alex said with a playful look. “How are you today?”
Patricia, who was the blond clone of the redhead, put her hands behind her back and gave him a picture-perfect smile. “I’m excellent today, Mr. Herron. How are you?”
“You certainly are,” he said, smiling up at her. “And I am fine, thank you for asking.”
“Can I bring you anything?” she asked.
“Yes. I would like a cup of black coffee and a honey bun.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She smiled down at me. “And for you, Miss?”
I stared up at her with my mouth hanging open. She was gorgeous, but there was no pretense or condescension in her eyes. She was there but to serve at the master’s whim. Lucky her.
I finally said, “Um, that sounds fine. I’ll have the same.”
“Don’t forget to warm those buns, honey,” Alex added with a wink. I saw her smile back at him and immediately suspected there was something more between them. I mean, he was a hot billionaire playboy and she looked like a Victoria’s Secret model moonlighting as a flight attendant. Who could blame either of them if they had mutually joined the mile-high club. I wondered how many times Alex’s membership card to the club had been stamped.
“So, Miss Jameson,” he said with a sigh. “How was your weekend?” He leaned back in the seat and dug into his pants pocket. His fingers emerged wrapped around the red rubber ball.
“Um, it was fine, Mr. Herron. Thanks for asking.”
“Look, if we’re going to be working together you have to stop calling me Mr. Herron,” he said, making a goofy face. “That sort of title puts a lot of pressure on a guy. Call me Alex.”
He made me smile, which made him smile.
“Okay, Alex. Please call me Carla.”
As if on cue, both of us glanced over to find the other passengers staring at us, as if we were performers on a stage and they were the dumbfounded audience witnessing a show they never expected to see. Alex gave them a hard look and their stares quickly went away.
The attendant delivered our coffee and honey buns. I closed the laptop and stowed it under the seat to make room.
The coffee was steaming hot. I had to let it cool before attempting a sip. How awful would that be, sitting across from a handsome billionaire full of himself and innuendo, then I burn my tongue on hot coffee.
No thank you, that’s one embarrassing moment I don’t need.
Alex, on the other hand, seemed to have no fear at all of scalding his tongue. He picked up the coffee and blew a cooling breath into the cup, then took a cautious slurp.
“Wow, hot,” he said, smacking his lips. He set down the cup and picked up the honey bun with his free hand and bit off a huge chunk. He closed his eyes and moaned at the taste.
“Have the hot honey buns, people,” he said loudly.
I watched him for a moment. He was almost like a kid; a big, rich, obnoxious kid. He was hot as hell and manly to the max, but there was an innocence there, as well. Maybe he was like me. Maybe the public Alex and the private Alex were two very different people. I’d probably never find out, but it certainly was an intriguing prospect.
“So, Carla, let’s talk business,” he said, his tone and expression turning formal again. He sucked the icing from his fingers, then wiped his hand and lips on a napkin.
He said, “Give me your thoughts on the Levington acquisition.”
“My thoughts?”
“Yes, your thoughts.” He leaned in and peered at me from under his eyebrows. “You’ve read the acquisition documents, I assume.”
I nodded. “I have.”
“And you’re read the company prospectus?”
“I have.”
“And you have our in-house research on Levington’s financials.”
“I do.” I had to smile at him or my face would crack.
He held up the rubber ball between us on the tips of his fingers and fixed his eyes on it, as if it were a crystal ball that foretold the future.
“So, what do you think? Are we getting a good deal? A fair deal? Are we raping and pillaging their village? Or are we being taken to the bank? What are your thoughts?”
I licked my lips nervously. I knew everyone was listening. Stan would have told me to tell Alex what he wanted to hear. Gianna would have told me to refer the question to Stan. But I wasn’t being paid to be a yes-woman or to dodge important questions.
I cleared my throat and told him what I really thought.
“Well… Alex, I think the price you’ve offered is fair, but I do have some concerns about Levington’s profit and loss statements for the last ten years. There were some discrepancies in the P&Ls that --”
Jeffrey Costas cut me off. “Those P&L’s have been fully vetted by our in-house accountants. There’s no need for you to waste time there, Miss Jameson.”
That was news to me. Reviewing the annual P&L’s since the company opened in 1974 was one of the tasks I’d been assigned, and I told him so.
“That must have been assigned to the task list before the work was done in-house,” Costas said. He looked at Stan. “Isn’t that correct, Stan?”
Stan fidgeted in his seat for a moment. He didn’t have a clue if that was right or not. He hemmed and hawed for a moment, then did what he always did. He said what the customer wanted to hear.
“Yes, I’m sorry, Carla, Mr. Costas is correct. You must not have the most recent task order list. I’ll get that to you as soon as we land.”
The latest task order list? What the heck was he talking about? I had the only task order list that had been assigned; the same task order list as the rest of the team.
I had spent most of the weekend (when I wasn’t sobbing like a baby and stuffing ice cream into my face) studying four decades’ worth of Levington P&L’s so I would have a jump on things in case I didn’t get booted from the team.
And unless the financials that I’d been sent were wrong, as well, then there were red flags that needed to be addressed.
Alex seemed to study Costas and Jeffrey for a moment before turning back to me. His forearm muscles flexed as he squeezed the rubber ball. He spoke to me with his eyes. His gaze told me we’d address the red flags on Levington’s P&L later.
“Other than that, give me your thoughts on the acquisition.”
Before I could answer he swept a hand at the others, who were watching and listening while trying to pretend that they weren’t.
“Listen up, people, because I’m going to ask each of you the same question later.”
I cleared my throat and folded my hands on the table and leaned on my elbows. “I believe the acquisition is smart, given the share price you’re paying, which is $31 a share. That’s $2 over market, but anything up to $40 a share would be a bargain given the value of the contracts and assets that Levington holds.”
“What about their infrastructure and expansion plans?” he asked. “According to your resume you are one of Silverman’s experts on digital networks and optical fiber.”
I tried to keep the smug look off my face. I wondered if anyone else on the team had even bothered to read my resume. “Their infrastructure is sound, but aging rapidly. They have contracts in place to install fiber optic networks for a number of small and medium municipalities, but the competition to move into major markets like New York, Chicago, and Atlanta, is fierce. Until those systems are in place, their customers are at the mercy of the older wired networks, which could be a concern down the road.”