“That might be true, but Jax—”
She cut me off. “He would probably try to kill you, I know. I’ll talk to him.”
I chuckled. “My brother fooled you into thinking he can one-up me? I’d still beat his ass if he came at me. That said, he has some leverage when it comes to that app of his. I know him. He’d threaten to tank that app if I helped you funnel money back into the family funds.”
She sighed. “Can you just think about it?”
“You want honesty?”
She nodded.
“No. You’re family.”
Her cheeks reddened, not in embarrassment but anger. There it was, the spitfire she tried to hide from everyone.
“It will never happen and every time you ask me, you waste more of my time and more of your time. And your time is my time when we have work to do.”
She glared at me, and I waited. I nudged my closed laptop so it sat perfectly straight on my desk.
“Right,” she sighed. She knew the conversation was over for me. She opened her laptop and pulled up a list of businesses. “We handled your two biggest clients. They accepted your offers. We’ll have a merger happening by the end of next week with the other, and you told the investment team to handle the rest of the businesses. It looks like all but two have accepted our team’s offers.”
“And the two are?”
She named a company I knew wouldn’t accept. I didn’t want them to, which was why they hadn’t.
It surprised me to hear that Samson and Sons had walked away from our offer though.
“Reason given?”
Aubrey squirmed. “Ah, this feels like something I shouldn’t be involved in, but you know Vick too. So, I guess she and Steven spoke. He wants what’s best for his employees and didn’t want to give up the firing and hiring ability along with retirement plans.”
“Hmm,” I said as I pulled up information about the company on my computer. As I did, I mumbled, “Tell me more about their request.”
“There wasn’t a request.”
“I’m sorry?”
She smoothed her hair. “I can send you the email, but there wasn’t a counter request. They just refused.”
“Send me the refusal letter.”
Aubrey’s eyes widened. “Jett, Vick and I are close friends and—”
“And what?”
“Well,” she cleared her throat. “Our communication is a bit informal because we all know each other. I can have her send an official letter today. I only got word from her earlier this morning.”
“Actually, I’d like to see the informal e-mail.”
She licked her lips and looked down at her laptop. Her poker face was slipping, which meant that e-mail wasn’t one they wanted me to see.
Aubrey was a decent intern, good actually. Her investment style jibed with mine. She took risks, did her research, and remained professional. She also never stepped outside of bounds and was exceptionally well-mannered. I liked her from a work perspective.
I also knew she wasn’t someone I could fire considering my brother had just married her. So sometimes, in these moments where I wanted to tell her to do as she was told and send the e-mail over immediately, I’d become frustrated with her.
“Brey?”
Her eyes snapped up.