Almost. At least she was well on her way.
EnterOperation: EMPOWER.
She loved that word. No one ever talked about being empowered in her day. Superheroes were just men. She loved that, in this day and age, a woman had the chance to become one as well.
Darned if she didn’t want her own cape.
Rachel sat in the chair next to hers, tucking her skirt under her. “Hello, Lottie,” she said very properly.
“Hello, Rachel,” Lottie replied just as properly, rolling her eyes. Her granddaughter was so funny about her relationships in the workplace. Rachel wanted to convey professionalism, insisting that people wouldn’t respect her if she didn’t. Having worked as a secretary for so many years, Lottie understood where she was coming from, but on the other hand, it hadn’t mattered how professional she’d been—some people were buttholes and treated women disrespectfully. It made no difference how hard you tried. And from this vantage point at her age, she knew showing affection was more important than maintaining some sort of false regard.
Jamie came over to her and leaned down to press a kiss to her cheek. “Ms. Lottie, you look prettier every day.”
“You must be losing your eyesight,” she said, laughing, but she blushed a little too. She felt prettier. She thought it might be because she’d thrown away all her old underwear a month ago and bought new, pretty things with her fancy new salary, which was delivered to her bank accountelectronically.
She especially loved that. No more checks or wasting time at the bank. This grandma was rolling in the new economy. Step one of Operation: EMPOWER was huge.
However, the next steps were proving to be harder.
Jamie took the seat next to her. He leaned back in his chair, rocking a little. “Alice said she had a call today with our tax people. Is Didier coming?”
“Of course Didier’s coming,” Rachel said, taking out her notepads and arranging them in front of her. “He never misses a meeting.”
Jamie frowned. “He’s been strange lately. I don’t know what to expect from him.”
Lottie knew Jamie was worried about his friend. They’d talked about it a couple weeks ago. Didier suddenly retiring from football and joining Winners Inc. when Jamie and Rachel had decided to start the business six months ago had come with mixed feelings. Jamie was happy to have his friend with him, but he’d confided to her that when he asked Didier why he’d retired, he hadn’t been satisfied with the answer, that he couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was really amiss with Didier.
If there was one thing she knew about Jamie, it was that his intuition was spot-on. He’d known they were going to do well—he practiced what he preached—and he had anticipated that they’d be as in demand as they were. So him being concerned about Didier meant something was there. Not something that would hurt their clients, but something more personal.
Lottie patted his arm. She was on it.
Jamie picked her hand up and kissed her knuckles, silently thanking her.
As if on cue, Didier Pascal walked into the meeting room. Lottie had known him for about seven months and she saw him every day now, and still every time she saw him she wanted to giggle like a schoolgirl; he wasthatattractive. He was of mixed heritage, French and Moroccan—a little exotic and a lot beautiful with his hazel eyes. If she’d been twenty years younger…
Okay, forty. But you couldn’t fault a woman for being optimistic.
“Mademoiselle,” he said in his ready-for-the-bedroom voice, leaning down to kiss her on her cheeks. Three times, because “two is never enough when a woman is so beautiful,” he always said.
“Monsieur,” she replied, tilting her head. “Ça va?”
He shrugged in the French way he had. “Et toi?”
“Je suis en forme,” she replied. She looked up to find Rachel gaping at her. “What?”
“Since when do you speak French?” her granddaughter asked.
She shrugged with one shoulder, the way Didier did. She’d been practicing it in the mirror. She thought it looked good on her. “Didier’s been teaching me.”
Rachel turned an accusing look to Jamie.
Jamie just smiled. “I’ve been teaching you French.”
Her granddaughter blushed dark. “Not the sort of things I can say in public,” she said in a low voice.
Jamie just smiled. “French is meant to be spoken in the bedroom, love. Didier would be the first one to tell you that.”
Lottie laughed, winking at her future grandson-in-law. “Good for you.”