by Amy Brent
Stan was standing behind his desk neatly stacking papers into his briefcase when I tapped on his door. Juliette, Bob, and Irving were sitting on the couch in Stan’s office like the three monkeys that see, hear, and speak no evil. Bob and Irving stared into their coffee cups. Juliette had her eyes glued on Bob. There was a slight smirk of satisfaction on her face.
“Morning, Stan,” I said, forcing a smile to keep the tears at bay.
“Morning,” Stan said curtly, glancing up at me. He stared into my eyes for a moment, no doubt choosing the words that would let me down the quickest and easiest. I was dumbfounded when the corners of his lips curled into a smile.
“Just wanted to get everyone together to let you know what the itinerary is for the week,” he said. He came around the desk with four pieces of paper and handed them out to the group.
“Henry Costas emailed that to me earlier. I forwarded a copy of the email to each of you, but I wanted to give you a hard copy we can review in the car on the way to the airport.”
“That’s it?” Juliette asked. She cut her eyes at me. They all did. They all seemed a little surprised that I was still on the team. I certainly was.
“That’s it,” Stan said, moving back around the desk to finish packing his briefcase. He held up his wristwatch when nobody moved. “That’s it. Let’s go, people. The car leaves for the airport in twenty minutes. I’ll meet you all downstairs.”
The Wright Enterprises corporate jet was fueled and ready for takeoff when we arrived at the private hangar. We were met by Henry Costas on the tarmac, but I didn’t see Tanner anywhere.
That was probably a good thing. After the hot imaginary sex we’d had, I wasn’t sure if I could keep from blushing when we came face to face.
The Wright corporate jet was as over the top and impressive as its owner. Pristine white on the outside with the bright red Wright Enterprises logo on the tail; expensive leathers and exotic woods on the inside.
There were eight passenger seats, four on each side of the plane. The seats were configured in sets of two that faced inward to a small table between them.
I buckled in across from Bob for the three-hour trip to Tucson. Henry Costas sat across from Stan. Juliette took the seat directly behind Stan and spent most of the trip hovering over them like an over-eager stewardess. Irving put on a pair of dark sunglasses and would probably sleep the entire way.
After the fastest and smoothest take-off I’ve ever experienced (it was literally like being inside a bullet fired into the air), I opened my laptop to review the itinerary for the week. I looked around the cabin. Still no sign of Tanner. I wondered if he’d changed his mind about joining us in Tucson.
A few minutes into the flight, a man’s deep voice crackled over the speakers mounted in the ceiling above our heads. “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Wright Enterprises flight number 69 with nonstop service from Chicago, Illinois to Tucson, Arizona.”
I smiled. There was something vaguely familiar about the pilot’s voice.
“There are blue skies ahead and we should arrive in Tucson in approximately three hours, twelve minutes, and sixty-nine seconds.”
Bob frowned at me and pointed at the speaker above his head. “Is that Tanner Wright’s voice?”
“The aircraft we are flying today is a brand-spanking new Gulfstream G650 with a price tag of seventy-two-million dollars and sixty-nine cents. The Gulfstream G650 will comfortably accommodate eight passengers and four crew members, can travel up to 7,000 nautical miles nonstop at a max speed of 0.925 Mach, making it the fastest private jet money can buy. I mean, that’s really fucking fast, people.”
I rolled my eyes at Bob. “Yep. The great one himself.”
“So, ladies and gents, on behalf of the real captain and your flight crew, I hope you enjoy your flight and if there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.” The speaker was silent for a moment, then he added, “Oh, over and under, I mean over and over, I mean, ah fuck it, you know what I mean.”
I did my best to appear unimpressed, but I was grinning like the Cheshire Cat on the inside. Tanner may have been an obnoxious douchebag billionaire, but he was growing on me. Just a little.
A moment later, the cockpit door sprang open and Tanner appeared with a satisfied grin on his face. He was wearing his usual jeans and a t-shirt, but had added a black sports jacket and a pilot’s cap. He was still wearing the ratty tennis shoes and no socks.
He came through the cabin like a whirlwind, greeting everyone, asking if he could take our drink orders, asking is we needed our membership card to the mile-high club validated. When his little show was over, he set the pilot’s cap on Bob’s head and asked if he might borrow his seat.
Bob was as thick as mud when it came to taking subtle hints. He adjusted the cap on his bald head to ride low over his eyes, but didn’t take it off. He peered up at Tanner with a look of confusion on his face. “I’m sorry, you want to borrow my seat?”
“If you don’t mind, Captain sir,” Tanner said, snapping a salute and clicking his heels together. “There’s another seat over there across from the gentleman who appears to be dead or sleeping very soundly.”
Bob craned his head to look at Irving, then looked up at Tanner and forced a smile. “Sure, I mean, all the seats are the same. Right?”
“That they are,” Tanner said, taking Bob’s hand and tugging him out of the seat. He patted Bob on the back and pointed at the seat across from Irving. “So, since they’re all the same, you won’t mind taking that one.”
I watched as Tanner made a show of escorting Bob to the other seat. He called over one of the flight attendants who stood like sentinels at the back of the plane and asked her to please take good care of his best pal, Bob.
The flight attendant, a gorgeous redhead that looked as if she’d just fallen out of a magazine, put a hand on Bob’s shoulder and promised to take good care of him. Bob gazed up at her like a pound puppy falling in love with its new owner.
I glanced around the cabin. All eyes were on me. Costas and Stan sported matching frowns. If Juliette’s eyes were lasers, they would have already burned through my head.
Fuck them, I thought.
I have not done anything wrong or inappropriate. I am not going to let these people diminish my worth.
I am not going to let them judge me.
I am not going to run into the bathroom and cry like a baby.
I am not going to cry.
I am not.
I am…
“Wow, I didn’t think he would ever leave,” Tanner said with a broad grin as he slid into the seat across from me. He signaled the other flight attendant and she immediately appeared at our table.
“Well, hello, Patricia,” Tanner said with a playful look. “How are you today?”
Patricia, who was the blond clone of the redhead, put her hands behind her back and gave him a picture-perfect smile. “I’m excellent today, Mr. Wright. How are you?”
“You certainly are,” he said, smiling up at her. “And I am fine, thank you for asking.”
“Can I bring you anything?” she asked.
“Yes. I would like a cup of black coffee and a honey bun.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She smiled down at me. “And for you, Miss?”
I stared up at her with my mouth hanging open. She was gorgeous, but there was no pretense or condescension in her eyes. She was there but to serve at the master’s whim. Lucky her.
I finally said, “Um, that sounds fine. I’ll have the same.”
“Don’t forget to warm those buns, honey,” Tanner added with a wink. I saw her smile back at him and immediately suspected there was something more between them. I mean, he was a hot billionaire playboy and she looked like a Victoria’s Secret model moonlighting as a flight attendant. Who could blame either of them if they had mutually joined the mile-high club. I wondered how many times Tanner’s membership card to the club had been stamped.
“So, Miss Carlson,” he said with a
sigh. “How was your weekend?” He leaned back in the seat and dug into his pants pocket. His fingers emerged wrapped around the red rubber ball.
“Um, it was fine, Mr. Wright. Thanks for asking.”
“Look, if we’re going to be working together you have to stop calling me Mr. Wright,” he said, making a goofy face. “That sort of title puts a lot of pressure on a guy. Call me Tanner.”
He made me smile, which made him smile.
“Okay, Tanner. Please call me Candice.”
As if on cue, both of us glanced over to find the other passengers staring at us, as if we were performers on a stage and they were the dumbfounded audience witnessing a show they never expected to see. Tanner gave them a hard look and their stares quickly went away.
The attendant delivered our coffee and honey buns. I closed the laptop and stowed it under the seat to make room.
The coffee was steaming hot. I had to let it cool before attempting a sip. How awful would that be, sitting across from a handsome billionaire full of himself and innuendo, then I burn my tongue on hot coffee.
No thank you, that’s one embarrassing moment I don’t need.
Tanner, on the other hand, seemed to have no fear at all of scalding his tongue. He picked up the coffee and blew a cooling breath into the cup, then took a cautious slurp.
“Wow, hot,” he said, smacking his lips. He set down the cup and picked up the honey bun with his free hand and bit off a huge chunk. He closed his eyes and moaned at the taste.
“Have the hot honey buns, people,” he said loudly.
I watched him for a moment. He was almost like a kid; a big, rich, obnoxious kid. He was hot as hell and manly to the max, but there was an innocence there, as well. Maybe he was like me. Maybe the public Tanner and the private Tanner were two very different people. I’d probably never find out, but it certainly was an intriguing prospect.
“So, Candice, let’s talk business,” he said, his tone and expression turning formal again. He sucked the icing from his fingers, then wiped his hand and lips on a napkin.
He said, “Give me your thoughts on the Anderson acquisition.”
“My thoughts?”
“Yes, your thoughts.” He leaned in and peered at me from under his eyebrows. “You’ve read the acquisition documents, I assume.”
I nodded. “I have.”
“And you’re read the company prospectus?”
“I have.”
“And you have our in-house research on Anderson’s financials.”
“I do.” I had to smile at him or my face would crack.
He held up the rubber ball between us on the tips of his fingers and fixed his eyes on it, as if it were a crystal ball that foretold the future.
“So, what do you think? Are we getting a good deal? A fair deal? Are we raping and pillaging their village? Or are we being taken to the bank? What are your thoughts?”
I licked my lips nervously. I knew everyone was listening. Stan would have told me to tell Tanner what he wanted to hear. Juliette would have told me to refer the question to Stan. But I wasn’t being paid to be a yes-woman or to dodge important questions.
I cleared my throat and told him what I really thought.
“Well… Tanner, I think the price you’ve offered is fair, but I do have some concerns about Anderson’s profit and loss statements for the last ten years. There were some discrepancies in the P&Ls that --”
Henry Costas cut me off. “Those P&L’s have been fully vetted by our in-house accountants. There’s no need for you to waste time there, Miss Carlson.”
That was news to me. Reviewing the annual P&L’s since the company opened in 1974 was one of the tasks I’d been assigned, and I told him so.
“That must have been assigned to the task list before the work was done in-house,” Costas said. He looked at Stan. “Isn’t that correct, Stan?”
Stan fidgeted in his seat for a moment. He didn’t have a clue if that was right or not. He hemmed and hawed for a moment, then did what he always did. He said what the customer wanted to hear.
“Yes, I’m sorry, Candice, Mr. Costas is correct. You must not have the most recent task order list. I’ll get that to you as soon as we land.”
The latest task order list? What the heck was he talking about? I had the only task order list that had been assigned; the same task order list as the rest of the team.
I had spent most of the weekend (when I wasn’t sobbing like a baby and stuffing ice cream into my face) studying four decades’ worth of Anderson P&L’s so I would have a jump on things in case I didn’t get booted from the team.
And unless the financials that I’d been sent were wrong, as well, then there were red flags that needed to be addressed.
Tanner seemed to study Costas and Henry for a moment before turning back to me. His forearm muscles flexed as he squeezed the rubber ball. He spoke to me with his eyes. His gaze told me we’d address the red flags on Anderson’s P&L later.
“Other than that, give me your thoughts on the acquisition.”
Before I could answer he swept a hand at the others, who were watching and listening while trying to pretend that they weren’t.
“Listen up, people, because I’m going to ask each of you the same question later.”
I cleared my throat and folded my hands on the table and leaned on my elbows. “I believe the acquisition is smart, given the share price you’re paying, which is $31 a share. That’s $2 over market, but anything up to $40 a share would be a bargain given the value of the contracts and assets that Anderson holds.”
“What about their infrastructure and expansion plans?” he asked. “According to your resume you are one of Goldman’s experts on digital networks and optical fiber.”
I tried to keep the smug look off my face. I wondered if anyone else on the team had even bothered to read my resume. “Their infrastructure is sound, but aging rapidly. They have contracts in place to install fiber optic networks for a number of small and medium municipalities, but the competition to move into major markets like New York, Chicago, and Atlanta, is fierce. Until those systems are in place, their customers are at the mercy of the older wired networks, which could be a concern down the road.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. They all did. He knew exactly what I was talking about.
He said, “And if their old customers are at the mercy of their old technology, those customers might be attracted to a different carrier with new technology like fiber optics that offers greater connectivity and faster speeds.”
“Exactly,” I said, nodding. “It’s not a tremendous concern now, but if companies like Charter and Spectrum install fiber optic networks faster than Anderson, well…”
“They could lure away Anderson’s customers, making the company less valuable than it is today.” He gave me a smile that was not filled with tricks or treats. It was one of admiration.
“Very impressive, Miss Carlson,” he said.
“Candice,” I shot back.
“Right. Candice.”
He swiveled his chair to face the others and bounced the rubber ball on the floor between his feet. “All right then. Let’s hear what the rest of you have to say.”
I ate the entire honey bun and drank the coffee as I listened to the older, wiser, more-expert members of the team say basically the same things I just did.
Occasionally, Tanner would glance over and smile, as if saying, “You nailed it, girl.”
I found that I couldn’t keep my eyes from drifting over his body as he conducted the meeting.
Such boyish charm in a such a seriously hot and seriously brilliant package.
Maybe Tanner Wright wasn’t such a douchebag after all.
Tanner
By the time the corporate jet touched down in Tucson, I was certain of three things.
Thing Number One: Henry was wise to hire the Goldman & Stern team to do the final due diligence on the Anderson deal. They were all very sharp and knew the industry well. I was impressed,
even though I had to pull Stan’s sharp nose out of my ass a time or two.
Even the angry little woman who looked like she could chew nails, the goofy accountant enamored of the pilot’s cap, and the legal eagle who I think was asleep with his eyes open most of the time, all had good insight and input into the deal.
Thing Number Two: There were red flags in the Anderson P&L’s that clearly Henry didn’t want to discuss in front of the Goldman group. Fine, we’d address those red flags when we were alone.
Sometimes our deals required that we do things, say things, or ignore things in order to keep certain facts and figures out of the public eye. I got the feeling that Stan was caught with his pants down because he underestimated the abilities of their junior consultant.
And finally, Thing Number Three that I was certain of by the time the jet landed in Tucson was that I wanted to get to know Candice Carlson better. Much better. A lot better.
I wasn’t sure exactly what was drawing me to her, but I felt like a moth being lured to a flame. I just didn’t want to get my wings – or other body parts --singed.
Perhaps it was that she was beautiful in an unassuming way. You didn’t have to sandblast the makeup from her face or peel back the layers of her multiple personalities to find the real woman underneath.
She was genuine, sincere, and so unlike the other women I typically spent time with.
She was intelligent, funny, warm, and down to earth. I loved the way her nose crinkled when she laughed at my stupid jokes and how the corners of her lips curled into a smile.
There was no pretense in her eyes. What you saw was what you got. I immediately loved that about her.
Candice Carlson was the real deal.
The genuine article.
The only question was: how do I get someone like her to like someone like me? It was a question asked over the ages by teenage boys, star-crossed lovers, and love struck billionaires used to getting whatever they wanted.