His first instinct, still, was defensive insecurity at sitting around a table full of people with advanced degrees and soft hands, but that gut reaction was getting weaker the longer he spent around his coworkers. Most of them weren’t so bad, even if he didn’t quite think of himself as one of them yet. At least it was getting easier to carry on the small-talk that everyone around him seemed to have mastered.
“Shall we take a quick break?” the attorney running the meeting asked. At the murmurs of assent, the silver-haired man glanced his chunky gold watch. “Back in fifteen, folks.”
The room filled with chatter and electronic dings as people checked their email and chatted with their neighbors—including the woman on his left.
“So how are you enjoying your first compliance meeting?” Savannah Goldbaum, the foundation’s grant manager and his direct report, grinned at him. He returned the woman’s question with a look of horror.
“Are we supposed to beenjoyingthis?”
“Oh no. Not at all.” But her round face was all smiles as she said it. “It gets less scary the longer you’re here.”
When he’d started at Digham, he’d found Savannah’s life-coach vibe overbearing. But he soon realized that she was subtly nudging him onto the corporate path, and the more she helped walk him through the ins and outs of life at Big Dig, the more he’d appreciated her unflappable good cheer.
“It’s a lot,” he said. “All these numbers…”
His throat threatened to close at the thought of being responsible for any kind of audit of his programs, but Savannah waved it off.
“That’s what I’m for, along with the Digham accounting department. They do our audits, Legal reviews our contracts, and Communications does our PR. If we need help, we just have to ask for it.”
“Good to know,” Leo said evenly while everything inside him unclenched. Intellectually he’d known somebody somewhere would be doing oversight, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he might get called on to talk numbers. Stated goals, he could meet and achieve. Program outcomes, he could assess. But budgets? Those he could turn over to the people with calculators without a backward glance.
“Oh! I need to catch Mark while he’s on the eighteenth floor.” Savannah waved at a middle-aged man sitting several seats down, checking his phone. “Mark! Can we talk about the Digham holiday gala for a second?”
The man glanced up and returned Savannah’s wave, tucking his phone into his suit pocket as he rose.
“One of the Big Dig lawyers?” Leo asked in an undertone as the man approached.
“Divorced, two kids, loves golf,” she said equally quietly. “Is absolutely going to ask you to play a round with him.”
“Fantastic,” he said with a groan as Mark made it to their side of the table.
“Hello to the foundation staff.” He gave a friendly little salute and adjusted his belted pants up over his belly. “Leo Morales, right? The man who stopped saving the world to join us in Beaucoeur.”
“I like to think I’m saving the world in a different way now,” Leo said. What an embarrassingly earnest answer. It was also mostly true, although days like today were tough.
Mark’s face split into a smile, revealing flawless white veneers. “Do you ever hit the links? It’s the perfect cure for a desk job.”
The tips of his ears got hot, and he answered more curtly than he intended. “Not my game.”
Golf was a sore spot. Not only had it been ridiculously out of reach when he was a kid in Beaucoeur, but golf courses were insanely bad for the environment. Its popularity with his new coworkers both appalled him and left him with that outsider feeling that he’d resented in high school.
His short response didn’t deter the ruddy-faced Mark though. The man clapped him on the back with a fleshy hand.
“We’ll teach you to love it.” He chortled. “Wait until you get your first set of clubs. It’ll change your life. How’re your new Callaways treating you, Savannah?”
Her reply kicked off a debate about the merits of the various local courses that Leo felt free to ignore. Everyone at Digham seemed to be equally comfortable in stifling boardrooms and well-manicured greens. Were none of them screaming to be out in the autumn sun using their bodies to work, along with their brains?
Apparently not; the compliance lawyer reentered the room and called the meeting back to order, and everyone settled in for another two hours that stuffed Leo’s head with rules and left him wanting to run laps around the building just to put his muscles to use. It was almost enough to make him consider giving golf a try despite all the pesticides and fertilizer and excessive water usage. It wouldn’t be the same as ending each workday covered in sweat and dirt, but at least he’d be able to stretch his legs.
As it was, he was coming home at night full of jittery, unspent energy. For that reason alone he’d be glad when William was in Beaucoeur; he’d have someone to go for a jog or hit the gym with. Then again, it would also mean William was working with Faith every day, side by side.
Fucking hell. He was jealous of his friend over things his friend hadn’t even done yet, in a job he’d recommended him for. And it was all because ofher.
Things had been easier when Faith had lived in his mind as a villain, his biggest regret and his shameful fantasy rolled into one. But the more time he spent with her, the more he realized that he’d been holding on to his decade-old anger out of habit. Letting go of it was like setting a burden down. It allowed him to see Faith for who she was today: stubborn and sarcastic, sure, but also funny and driven and interesting and caring.
Hot as hell too. Couldn’t forget that.
While he’d been obsessing over his ex-girlfriend, the meeting had finally dragged to an end, and Leo grabbed his binder and practically sprinted from the room. Back at his office, he stashed his notes and yanked off his jacket and tie. The jacket got tossed over his office chair, and the tie got shoved into his top desk drawer. He’d just popped his top button and was considering doing a set of pushups just to burn off some of his tension when Darla knocked on his door.
