“That can’t be right,” Ryan says with a shake of his head. “Have you talked to our hiring manager? Blair’s been doing an amazing job.”
“Blair’s very busy,” I say diplomatically, not wanting to get Blair in hot water, despite that fact that she’s been an uncooperative B-word all week.
Being unable to get one of the two women in management positions at S&H to answer my questions hasn’t made my job any easier, but I don’t want to make unnecessary waves.
“You should pin Blair down before you leave.” Ryan taps two fingers on his desk. “I haven’t heard a single complaint from the new people. We’re running like a well-oiled machine.”
I sigh. “People aren’t going to risk their already uncertain positions by complaining to the boss, Ryan, but I’ve definitely heard rumblings of discontent.”
“Like what?”
“Nothing I’m ready to share,” I hedge, “but enough that I can’t in good conscience write an article about my brother’s ground-breakingly-awesome-for-ladies workplace at this juncture. I need time to dig deeper.”
“Then take it,” Ryan says. “If we have parity issues, I want to know about it. That’s not the kind of company I want to run, El. I hope you know that.”
“Of course I do.” A rush of warmth fills my chest. With his good looks, razor-sharp mind, and Chosen One energy, Ryan could have become another entitled jerk like so many of his Harvard friends.
But that isn’t my brother. He’s a good man with a great heart, which is one of the major reasons I needed to have this conversation with him before my research goes any further.
“But if I’m going to keep digging, I need to have something to show for it,” I continue. “Eventually I have to deliver a piece to Barrington, positive or negative. Are you okay with that?”
To his credit, Ryan hesitates only a second before nodding. “But I think you’ll come to see this in a different light. Jack and I are pro-diversity and pro-equality.” His glance shifts to the door behind me. “Right, Jack?”
“Indeed.” Jack’s laid-back drawl rumbles through the room like a soothing roll of distant thunder as the door snicks shut behind him.
But, as always, the presence of Ryan’s partner and best friend is anything but soothing. I don’t know what it is about the man, but Jack Edward Holt brings out my awkward, twitchy introvert like no one else.
I spin on my heel with a nervous laugh and a jerky wave. “Hey, how’s it going, Jack? Didn’t hear you come in.”
His lips curve in his signature smirk, the one that assures you he’s always in on the joke. “Going good, Ellie. Get everything you needed for your article?”
“She needs more time,” Ryan says, answering for me in a big brotherly fashion that nevertheless rubs me the wrong way after spending a week with the patronizing and/or oblivious men on his staff.
They aren’t all bad guys, for sure, but most of them could use a course in not interrupting their female colleagues while they’re speaking and keeping jokes appropriate for the workplace. There’s also the matter of the exotic odor emanating from the men’s locker room in the company gym.
But hey, one battle at a time…
“And someone at the top to make sure she gets access,” Ryan continues. “Can you handle that for me, Jack? I’m in Portland for the rest of the month.”
“I don’t know, I have a lot going on,” Jack says at the same time I blurt out, “Jesus, Ryan, I don’t need a babysitter.”
Jack and I turn, gazes bumping as I try not to let my aversion to Ryan’s proposal show. For his part, Jack looks uncharacteristically surprised.
But then, having his company rebuffed is probably a rare event for Mr. Holt. With his artistically mussed sandy-brown hair, sleepy green eyes, and long, lean, I-hit-the-gym-like-most-New-Yorkers-hit-the-coffee-shop frame, Jack is even more stupidly handsome than my brother. If Ryan is the golden boy next door, Jack is the bad boy with a voice like whiskey and a “let’s break the rules” glint in his eye.
According to my brother—and the media who flock his way whenever the financial markets are making waves—Jack is a top-notch investor with the instincts of a man with twice the experience. But I’ll never forget the Jack who got me stoned for the first time when I was twenty and then teased me mercilessly for the next two hours as I vacillated between laughing at his moaning zombie impression and clutching his arm in skin-crawling paranoia, terrified that my father was going to come downstairs and catch me being less than perfect.
And we won’t even go into how mortifying it was to eat an entire bag of Cheetos in front of a person who has probably never had orange fingertips in his life. Even in his early twenties, Jack was too classy for Cheetos.
“I know you don’t need a babysitter,” Ryan says. “But you do need someone to make sure people answer your questions. And I know you’re busting your ass with broker interviews, Jack, but surely you can spare some time. If members of our team are unhappy, I’d rather know about it sooner than later.”
“Unhappy?” Jack’s brow furrows as his gaze shifts my way. “Who’s unhappy?”
“That’s not something I’m ready to discuss.” I stand up straighter, tugging the bottom of my slightly-too-large red blouse down over the top of my a-bit-too-small pin-striped skirt, acutely aware of how dumpy I look compared to the custom-made suits in the room.
“This is coming out of left field, isn’t it?” Jack’s tone isn’t unkind, but I’m losing patience, and I have two minutes left to convince Ryan to let me do this my way—sans babysitter.
“No, it’s not coming out of left field,” I say. “It’s coming from the pitcher’s mound, straight at your head. You know why Stephen calls me slugger? Because I asked why there are no women in the office fantasy baseball league and he told me none of them were interested. And I said, ‘have you asked them?’ And he just laughed and said, ‘easy there, slugger,’ and the name stuck.”