“I need to win that competition. The Holbrooks are insufferable,” he said.
“And to that end, I've spent all afternoon decorating your lobby. You're welcome. It looks awesome, by the way,” I told him. “I'll come take some pictures of you and Rudolph next to the holiday lights. Some nice casual pictures, just like, 'Oh, don't mind me, I'm just sitting here sexily under the tree with my Christmas package on full display with my supercute puppy. Vote for me! My company is awesome!' I'll make sure I fluff up your stocking first. You'll bring all the girls to your Christmas tree yard!”
20
Owen
Had Holly been flirting with me?
The question bounced around my head all night. It didn't help that Rudolph wanted to go out every two hours. I thought he would have been tired, but no. I hauled him downstairs. At night, the lobby did look magical, like a winter scene fromTheNutcrackeror one of those old holiday movies my sister used to watch.
Holly was fun. And clearly I needed to seem fun if my company was going to beat Holbrook Enterprises.
I didn't bother trying to sleep after Rudolph did his business. Instead, I surfed the internet while the puppy snoozed at my feet. I was trying to find that sugar cookie recipe. I was now officially obsessed. It was like trying to figure out a line of code; I couldn’t rest until I solved it.
There were thousands of cookie recipes on the internet. I wrote a script to analyze all of them and find commonalities. I let it run while I lifted weights.
The code was done when I went back into the home office. The summary said that the main similarities for sugar cookies were butter, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, and flour. Not in that order. There were hundreds of various combinations of the ingredients. Baking was clearly much more complex than I'd originally thought. This was going to take awhile. I put in a grocery delivery order for enough of each ingredient to make five hundred cookies. Then I went to work.
Normally I loved my office. I had a huge corner office with floor-to-ceiling glass. White marble accents made the space feel like winter when the sun reflected on freshly fallen snow. There was a balcony with French doors that I kept open all winter to keep the room freezing cold. It overlooked the little park in which I had surprised Holly the previous night.
I was looking forward to sitting alone in my office, taking a couple of conference calls, and working on some computer code.
Except when I arrived, Rudolph in tow, my office was packed with Svenssons. Almost identical with broad builds, blond hair, and grey eyes, the Svensson brothers numbered around a hundred, a byproduct of a polygamist cult and an insane father. They ranged from toddler age to adults. The small Svensson brothers were endearing. The big ones? Insufferable.
“Get your feet off of my desk,” I growled to Archer. He ignored me.
“I demand a cookie tax. Walker said you were thick inThe Great Christmas Bake-Off,” Archer declared. “I’m totally judging next year.”
“What do you know about baking?” Mace, his twin and CEO of Svensson PharmaTech, scoffed.
“I know that I like cookies!” Archer waggled his eyebrows at me. “I hear you've been tasting some Christmas cookies lately, if the pictures on Instagram are any indication.”
“What pictures?” I asked.
Archer whipped out his phone with a smirk. I swept his feet off my desk—it's marble; seriously, it stains—and peered at the phone.
The Instagram handle read @TasteMyMuffin. There was a picture of me, Holly wrapped in my arms, lifting her in front of the fountain in the park.
The caption read:
Just what I need on a cold night! Manhattan’s hottest CEOwinkto rescue me from a big bad wolf. #QuantumCyber #TechBizBestCompanyList
“You were busy last night,” Archer said with a laugh. “And to think, Walker was afraid you would stay a bachelor forever!”
I ignored him and grabbed the phone, swiping. The next image was a video clip of Rudolph attacking Holly's hat.
“While I'm glad to see you are actually trying to win this competition,” Greg said acerbically, “maybe you should be courting actual business writers and not half-baked Instagram influencers.”
Icy anger trickled through me. I turned on Greg. “Don't insult her. She's trying to help me unasked and unpaid.”
Greg glared flatly at me.
“Don't mind him,” Mace said. “He's mad about Crawford.”
“Don't say his name,” Greg spat.
“I don't care what—or who—you do,” Hunter said coldly. “You need to have a better standing for recruitment by any means necessary. Walker has told me that one of the judges, Sloane, is making advances on you. Stop rebuffing her. You need every edge.”
