Eventually, there was a lull in the conversation and Mr. White leaned over to me. He pulled up his phone and tapped in his code. “Let’s make sure you’re up to speed on my presentation. I need you to be on point.”
I was watching his phone when it unlocked. He’d been in his camera roll and had a picture pulled up of a young boy and an older man who looked almost exactly like Mr. White. I realized it was Adrian as a boy a man who must’ve been his father. They both looked adorably happy. “Is that your-”
Mr. White jerked his phone toward himself and tapped out of it. “Forget it,” he muttered.
Travis and Noah shared a look with raised eyebrows but didn’t comment.
“Before you get into details,” I said. “Can you explain what your goal is, exactly? Is this about selling more books, or is it something else?”
“I’m not just a publishing executive, Miss Adams.”
“Adrian, don’t you th-” Noah began to say.
Mr. White held up his palm. “Relax. All I’m saying is I have bigger plans than helping Coleton’s publishing branch expand. I want to work at Coleton Central. There are company-wide issues I know I could be instrumental in fixing. That’s what I’ve put a team together to do.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. People don’t usually… I don’t know, aspire to get promoted as a team?”
“I get the promotions and I bring my people with me as a contingency of accepting the terms. It’s pretty simple. I like to work with the people I trust.”
“Okay, but why do you care so much about moving up?”
“Adrian has always wanted a yacht,” Travis said, jumping in before Mr. White could respond.
Mr. White gave him a cold look, ignoring the comment. “All you need to understand is that I’m going to reach the top of Coleton, no matter the cost. This presentation is one step in that direction. A very important step, because Gerald Krause is in charge of acquisitions for Coleton Central. If we impress, he’s the one who might put in a word with Russ Coleton himself and get us fast tracked for a promotion. Understand?”
The mention of my father’s name made a chill run through me, but I nodded my head. I wondered how differently Mr. White would treat me if he knew I could make a phone call to my father and probably get him the promotion he wanted so badly by simply promising to come home and “end this foolishness” as my father had put it. Because wanting to do more with my life than get married and breed was the height of foolery, of course.
The other notable problem was that Gerald Krause was an old family friend who would recognize me in an instant. I wasn’t sure what sort of setting this was all going to take place in, but I was hoping it was a very large room with me at some nondescript tech booth in the back. That would be my only hope of not having my real identity broadcast to Mr. White.
We were deep into the drudgery of the presentation when Jordan, his sister approached our table. She looked alarmed. “Bad news,” she said.
“What is it?” Mr. White asked.
“Krause just let his team know he’s going to miss the conference. Something came up and he’s catching a flight back to New York this afternoon.”
Mr. White pounded the table. “Shit!” he said, clattering plates and drawing the eyes of nearby diners.
“Anyone else we can target?” Travis asked. “There’s got to be someone else from Coleton Central at the conference.”
“It had to be him,” Mr. White said. “Fuck. We need to think fast.”
“What if you catch him at the airport?” I suggested. I almost immediately kicked my own leg for my stupidity. If he still expected me to help with the presentation, I’d just suggested putting my face right in front of Krause.
Mr. White stroked his particularly well-formed chin in thought.
“I think she’s got the right idea,” Travis said. “We just catch the bastard, and we all get to skip the mind-numbing ordeal of this conference.”
Noah frowned. “I enjoy the conference.”
“Then you’re welcome to attend,” Mr. White said. “But me and Jules are going to catch Krause at the airport.”
My stomach sank. How the hell was I going to get out of this?
14
Adrian
The airport was buzzing with activity. Jules was struggling to keep up with me while I checked my phone for the tenth time since we’d arrived. Krause wasn’t messaging back to let me know he was okay to meet, but thankfully, I knew where he was headed and which gate he’d be waiting at. There was only one flight leaving for New York within the next four hours, which meant there was only one gate he could be at. But I also pulled a few strings and got my hands on the passenger list to confirm.