“This one time,” he said, “I got held over in Paris, and they gave me a Ralph Lauren bag... Or maybe it was Chanel, I don’t remember, but I smelledgreat. Every time I go to Paris, I stay at that hotel.”
“Just for the toiletries?”
“No, I bring my own. I go there because they got itright. And I know if anything does go wrong, they’ll fix it. It’s a great feeling.” He put the bag back in the box. “I know the head of sales at Ralph Lauren?—”
“Not Chanel?”
Caleb laughed. “No, definitely Lauren. He’s in Europe, not North America, although I’m sure he could hook you up over here. It’d depend on volumes, but you might be surprised how close they could get to those other guys.”
Katie wrinkled her nose. “We’d definitely have volume. The contract is done for the whole chain, but that means it’s not my call. I’d have to kick it up to head office.”
“It’s your game,” Caleb said, “so your call. If you need any help shaking the tree at the head office, you know where to find me.” He turned back to Nyah. “We’d better keep moving if you want to get me shining shoes before five o’clock. Where to next?”
“I think the lunch rush should be over in the restaurant,” I said. “I’m sure there are a few people down there who’ll be keen to get re-acquainted.”
Caleb winced. “Angelo? Was that his name?” He turned to Katie. “That one didn’t make it to Twitter, did it?”
“You went skinny dipping in the restaurant?”
“Worse. I yelled at a waiter and tried to get frisky with your boss,” he said, nodding sheepishly in my direction.
Katie laughed. “I bet that didn’t end well.”
Caleb shrugged. “Well, it didn’t make it to Twitter. That’s a plus.”
“Nice to meet you,” Katie said, shaking hands again and walking them to her door. “And Nyah, I wanted to talk to you about sending a few people down to Seattle for the Women in Management conference.”
“Drop me an email?”
“Will do.”
We left Katie’s office and walked back out to the elevator lobby.
My phone beeped, reminding me to take my pills. “I think we’ve both missed lunch,” I said to Caleb. “Why don’t you go out? I’ll goback upstairs and grab something at my desk while I clear my inbox. We can meet at the restaurant at, say, three?”
“Sure thing.” Caleb stepped into the elevator while I pressed the Up button. He turned and stood there, hands clasped in front of him, white teeth gleaming. “See you after lunch.”
Then the doors closed.
Right. That went better than I expected.I entered the next elevator and returned to my floor.
I stopped at Amy’s desk on my way through. “Amy. Set up Caleb Evans with full access to the file share and management email list, will you? He’s acting for Mr. Evans until they have a role for him at HQ, so you’ll be the PA for both of us while he’s here.”
Amy tilted her head to one side, her red hair resting on her ear. “Full access? Do you really think that’s a good idea? You left the door open earlier, and I heard you three talking.”
“I guess maybe I was wrong about him.” I pursed my lips. “Hey, he’s a rich guy. He’ll probably spend the whole day organizing his night out. How much damage could he possibly do?”
We both laughed, and I walked back to my office to take my pills.
I metCaleb outside the restaurant just before three o’clock. It was Angelo’s day off, and nobody else seemed to remember him, so the visit was uneventful. Afterward, when we returned upstairs, I got Caleb logged in to the corporate systems, then left him to work through the onboarding pack while I caught up on the morning’s missed work.
Nearing five o’clock, I was checking my emails when I saw a reply had come through to Gary Daly, the Banquet Manager, about Saturday’s Keller-Petrowski wedding. The couple wanted to change the entire wedding’s theme and menu, which was impossible.
Yeah, sure, no problem!Caleb had written, forwarding his response, which included the happy couple.
I saw red.
Without thinking, I stormed out of my office and barged into his, catching him with his feet up on the desk, scrolling absently on his phone. “You have no authority to approve wedding changes without consulting Gary.”
