“He’d better be,” Duncan said.
I groaned. “Brother, please don’t warn me off.”
Chase set his jaw. “Maybe you should take us more seriously. We did tell you that your womanizing reputation might get inyour way when doing business. This could bite you in the ass too. Pretty badly.”
“I haven’t even said two words.”
“No, but you look like you don’t hate the idea,” Wyatt said. “No offense, but I don’t think you could pull it off. I certainly could, and so could these two.” He pointed at Knox and Finn. “Butyouare like these two.” He jerked his thumb at Chase and Duncan. “You couldn’t keep up a farce to save your life.”
Chase cleared his throat. “I’ll remind you that I did manage, sort of.”
A while ago, he’d set up a shell company to be an investor because his then-girlfriend and now-fiancée, Hannah, needed funds for her inn, but she didn’t want to take money from him.
“As I recall, it backfired spectacularly,” I said. “Luckily, Hannah was quick to forgive you.”
“Yeah, if anything, that’s a cautionary tale,” Finn said. “So maybe don’t bring it up.”
“Anyone else have ideas? Something I can actually use?” I asked.
Duncan narrowed his eyes. “His concern is that you don’t have the same vision for the business. I’d focus on understanding his point of view… and that mission statement.”
Even though I’d ridiculed it, I knew Duncan was right.
“That’s a good starting point, brother. Thanks.” I looked around at the rest of them. “Anyone else want to add something?”
“Nah, I’m still stuck on you pretending to be someone’s date,” Wyatt said.
Knox and Finn just laughed. Chase shook his head, but he was smiling.
Yeah, these bozos weren’t going to be of any more help today.
The meeting ended a few minutes later, and I headed to my office. I’d rented floor space three blocks away. My team was small—only ten people—and they were in charge of keeping meup to date with the latest goings-on in my portfolio of companies. They also did the bulk of the research for any new investments.
My mind was on Jude Carson, however.
My instincts told me that this would be a great venture, and I never ignored my gut. Some of the most profitable deals in my career were because I’d followed my instincts when others pulled back because the numbers weren’t spectacular. Sometimes, a business deal was more than just numbers and projections.
I liked to say that I invested in people, but that wasn’t the case here. Jude and I hadn’t clicked at all. For now, though, I had other business to tend to. I pushed the issue to the back of my mind and checked the agenda for today, then dove right in.
I spent the better part of the day in back-to-back meetings. I liked my job, but Mondays could be draining.
Toward the end of the day, my mind circled back to Jude. What had he heard or seen about me that made him so adamant that I wasn’t a good fit?
I rarely looked myself up online, although I did have an alert to notify me if my name ever popped up in articles.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen any of those notifications in a while, which could only mean one thing—they’d landed in spam. I opened my email and checked the spam folder. It was empty, but that didn’t mean much; spam emails were deleted after a set period of time.
Next, I opened the website for the notification tracker. Sure enough, there were plenty of entries with my name—most regarding business, but some from the places I frequented. I’d even been tagged the evening before on Instagram. It was a benign pic of me at the bar.
The caption saidThe Loft: a place where everything happens, from business meetings to pleasure and everything in between. What do you think this hunk was doing here? Let us know in the comments.
Whoever was running their social media was an amateur.
I was about to close the app when a comment caught my attention. The user was @PhoebePointT.
Maybe he was looking for a social media manager.
I burst out laughing.
