“Oh, my God! You are! You are on drugs.”
Matthew entered the office then.
“Matthew, your friend needs help. We need to book him into rehab immediately, but before then you need to get Timothy Coldwell on the phone and cancel this meeting right now.”
“Why is she freaking out?” Matthew asked Tyler as he sat down on the opposite side of the desk.
“I just told her she’s making the pitch.”
“Wow! Genius! She’s the secret weapon?”
“She’s the secret weapon,” Tyler conceded.
“Brilliant. Why didn’t we ever think of it before?”
“I know, right? They’re not gonna know what hit ’em.”
“Missile launched.”
Annoying little things like that is what stopped him from being crush material. The two men high-fived as Jordan stormed towards the table. “Can the two of you stop talking like you’re secret agents for five seconds and tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Jordan,” Matthew explained, “for a high-profile deal such as this, one needs a secret weapon. They ask for two-hundred and fifty million, we try to talk them down. Now they will try to argue every counter-offer we put on the table, but they will not be expecting the likes of you. Tyler and I have been in the industry so long, we’re predictable. They probably already know what we could throw at them. They gave us those projections late on purpose. They tried to drown us in numbers and paperwork, but they didn’t know we had you. You’re our curve ball.”
“There is no curve ball!” she bellowed and immediately took a deep breath to calm herself down. “Need I remind you that neither of you…neither of you…have read through my presentation. The missile you think you’ve launched is a dud. You can’t rely on a secret weapon when you don’t know what it is!”
“We know you,” Tyler said.
Matthew nodded in agreement. “And that’s all we need to know.”
Breathing suddenly became a laborious exercise and she was exhaling quick puffs. “I can’t do this,” she said, feeling sick to her stomach.
“Sure, you can,” Tyler said.
“Besides,” Matthew added, “Tyler and I will look like fools if we go in there without you and then there goes our reputation we’ve spentyearstrying to build.”
“Oh, great, Matt. Pull the guilt trip, why don’t you?”
“Jordan, we trust you.” Tyler took her by the elbow and turned her to face him. “I trust you.”
The sincerity in his voice almost knocked her off her feet, but she was too angry and too anxious to be distracted by those soft brown eyes right now. He tightened his grip on her elbow and he began ushering her to the boardroom.
Tyler sat down at the head of the table and Jordan sat down on the chair to his left, Matthew taking a seat on the chair beside her. She was trying to breathe normally, however, being panic-stricken prevented that from happening. So instead she hunched over on the chair, blowing out air like she was in Lamaze class. Short. Short. Loooong. Short. Short. Loooong.
“Good morning,” Timothy Coldwell greeted as he entered the boardroom and she immediately sat up straighter, probably looking very much like a deer in headlights.
Short. Short. Long. But somehow it was faster now. Short. Short. Long.
His right-hand man, Alex Partridge, entered behind him.
“Gentlemen,” Tyler greeted, “I don’t believe you’ve met our group financial manager, Jordan Shepard.”
Her handshake with Alex was brief, but when she moved to Timothy, it was more of a caress than a handshake. He claspedher hand with both of his. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jordan Shepard.”
She noticed the slightest, most unreadable twitch on Tyler’s face before she awkwardly pulled her hand out of his grasp.
They sat down on the opposite side of the table and Timothy did not waste any time getting straight down to business.
“So you’ve reviewed the contract?” he asked easily and Jordan became very aware of how alluring his confidence was. His jet-black hair was sleek and brushed back. His light blue eyes were probing, his jawbone defined and strong. Everything about him was raw, unconcealed arrogance. Power suit. Power tie. Power-hungry. He was appealing and intimidating at the same time.
