Wow. Straight to business. I’d definitely been right with my initial thoughts about her.Consummate professional.
I, however, was having a slightly tougher time keeping my mind on work. Her hand was small and warm in mine before she withdrew it, but her grip was strong and sure. Part of me kept wondering about her even as I waved her into a seat opposite mine.
“Before we get started, can I offer you something to drink?” I asked, not surprised when she shook her head. She extracted a notebook and a fancy pen from her laptop bag, poising her hand over the paper to show she was ready to get going.
Okay. So we’re really not going to make nicey-nice at all. Works for me.As much as I was curious about her, I still had a lot of hope pinned on what she could do for my company. I was happy to dive in to find out if I was fucked or not.
Rounding my desk, I sat down and met her gaze directly. I vaguely noticed the lighter blue crystals in her irises but forced myself to stay on track. “You’re going to have to steer me in the right direction in terms of what you need to know, but should we start with the basics?”
“Sure.” She nodded, brow furrowed in concentration as she looked back at me. “Obviously, I know fitness is your industry and I’ve done a bit of homework. I know you recently relaunched your gym and you’ve sold a few franchises since. I also know that you call your system revolutionary and I’ve read up on it, but what I don’t know is what you need from me and what you have in mind for the brand from here on out.”
“Simply put, I want the brand to keep growing, keep thriving, and mostly importantly, to survive.” I folded my arms on the desk and leaned forward, exhaling deeply as I prepared myself to admit my biggest fear to a complete stranger. A gorgeous stranger, at that. “If I don’t sell soon, I’m going to risk losing everything. I’ve put my entire life into this place, but I’ve reached the boiling point. I don’t have any more money to put in and I just don’t have the infrastructure in place for the growth that needs to happen in order to keep the brand expanding.”
She stared at me but not blankly. Analyzing. Thinking. When she finally spoke, it was only once she was ready. “So what you’re saying is that we’re on the clock?”
“It’s been ticking for a while.”
Nodding slowly, she cocked her head. “What about where you got the initial investment from? It’s clear that you had some money to work with. All this is brand new and your franchises only started popping up about a year ago. Is there any chance of going back to your first investor?”
“I could, but I don’t want to,” I said. “Besides, I can’t ask him for what I think this is all worth. My brother put up the money, but he’s not in the business of investing. He works with investors of his own.”
I expected her to cringe over finding out that I’d taken money from my brother, but she didn’t. Instead, she just made a note and lifted her gaze back to mine when she was done. “Alright. Let me guess. You’ve tried to put together a sale by yourself and you were met with lower than fair offers because you’re new to the scene and people don’t trust the longevity of the brand?”
Impressed by how quickly she’d hit the nail on the head, I nodded. Without skipping a beat, she started rattling off things she could do for my brand. For how fast she’d come up with it all, most of them were brilliant.
As I listened to her, though, I found my mind straying off the path of professionalism she was so steadily marching down. I noticed more things about her that I found attractive, and I struggled to concentrate because of how much I wanted to feel her skin against mine. Even if it was for something as fast and simple as a handshake.
Among the things I noticed were the curve of her neck to her shoulders and how creamy her skin was. The slight, natural flush on her cheeks and the simple, small, silver, infinity-sign pendant at the hollow of her neck.
My tongue was burning to ask her about it, but I refrained. I knew it had been the right thing to do when she started laying out the guidelines we’d have to follow. All of them involved working diligently and responding promptly to one another, but more than a few involved our personal interactions.
No informal forms of communicating. No meetings outside of our offices. No joking around. No drinking together. On and on and on.
“If we stick to these, we’ll accomplish our goal,” she said once she was finally done laying down the law. “I believe in strict adherence to them to assure professionalism and success.”
“I have no problem with any of that,” I said, but her guidelines had made me realize that she was a bit uptight.
It made me want to tease her a little, but since joking around was forbidden, I guessed I was just going to have to suck it up. And then I was going to have to figure out a way to work with her without breaking any of her rules.
Clearly, she didn’t mix business with pleasure. Me? I was different. I didn’t mind injecting a healthy dose of pleasure into everything I did. But one thing was for sure, and that was that I wouldn’t be doingher.
It was too bad that having any fun whatsoever would be off the table, considering how closely we’d be working together for what sounded like the next couple of months—at least—but that was okay. I got it. She wasn’t here to be my friend or anything else.
Unlike me, she had her priorities straight in this meeting. It would take me some time, but I would get there. I was sure of it. Eventually. One small step at a time, though.Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day.