“Neutral ground?” I pointed at the two club chairs between my desk and the door. When John was here, the arrangement had included a coffee table, two end tables, a vase of fussy flowers, and a small sofa. But when I’d moved my desk in, all but the chairs and a side table had to go.
“All right.” It surprised me when she descended from the chair-and-footstool setup she thought was a secret. Up there, she seemed as big as me with her strident voice, confident ideas, and upright posture. But when she walked across the carpet, she appeared exactly as she was, five-foot-nothing, despite her towering heels and larger-than-life personality. I could’ve easily deadlifted two of her.
I met her in the seating area, waited for her to sit, and took the other chair. She wore pants today, and when she shifted to face me, she drew up one leg under her and left the other to dangle. She wore my second-favorite shoes, the black heels with the strap across the top that gave slutty teacher vibes. Breathing through my nose, I stared at the ceiling. Although she was older than me, Bridget wasn’t my teacher, and I had no business fantasizing about what her goddamn heels might feel like stabbing into my back. Bridget was one hundred percent business, and I needed to bring my A game.
I cleared my throat. “What are we meeting about?”
She leaned forward. “I have a proposal.”
I blinked up from the hint of cleavage her silky blue blouse revealed to meet her gaze. “Go on.”
“I’d like to schedule a tour of the other facilities to introduce ourselves, get to know the people there, and listen to their ideas and concerns.”
“A tour? You mean a roadshow, like in the 1900s?”
Pursing her lips, she nodded.
“No one wants that,” I said.Especially not me, since it’ll disrupt my custody schedule.I couldn’t afford that while I was trying to show I was fit for more time with Caitlyn. “We can accomplish the same goals through videoconferencing. In fact, we’ve got a global town hall meeting next week. Employees are submitting their questions as we speak, and corporate communications is preparing our responses.”
“A town hall or a videoconference isn’t the same as being physically in the same location, having a meal together, and seeing people where they live. We need to do this. I need to do this, anyway. You can do what you want.” She shrugged a careless shoulder.
Bridget had charm too, though since I’d decimated that first budget proposal, she hadn’t tried to use it on me. She’d use her trip to form a cabal against me. Some of those offices might have genuine power. No way was I letting her visit them without me.
“So you’re proposing travel to Houston and New York?” That wouldn’t be so bad. We could spend a couple days in each city, and I wouldn’t have to ask Zara to swap out my weekend or disappoint Caitlyn.
“And San José.”
I leaned back. “San Jose is barely an hour away. We can knock that one out next week.”
“Not San Jose, California. San José, Costa Rica.”
“We have an office in Costa Rica?”
Her eyes weren’t so pretty when she rolled them. “We’ve built a team of highly qualified tech workers there. They handle our data center operations.”
“Ah. About that.”
She raised her eyebrows, challenging me. “My specialty is operations, including our data centers.”
“Yes, but I have a contact at Brassbound IT Services.” One of my fraternity brothers had started Brassbound, and he’d partnered with some of his Indian relatives to build the international business. “They can do it much more cheaply with their teams in India.”
“They can.” Her voice was flat.
I leaned forward.“Myspecialty is finance.”
“But they don’t know our systems the way our San José team does. How much time and money would we waste training them?”
“It…” Fuck, I hadn’t thought of that. “Over the life of the contract, it would be negligible.”
“Negligible?” There was a challenging tilt to her chin. “Why don’t you leave the operations to me? I’ll let you know when I need an assist.”
I gritted my teeth. “This is clearly a financial decision. Which I’ve already made.”
“You…what?” There was an almost musical ascent and crescendo to her voice. She’d barreled straight through her phone-call loudness to a volume more suitable for jeering the opposing team at Levi’s Stadium.
“I inked the deal yesterday. It’s done.” It wasn’texactlydone. Legal had insisted on Bridget’s signature too. I had it on my desk to get her to sign at the right moment.
This wasn’t it.
