Craving The CEO: An Office Romance Page 12

  Grady sits up then, his eyes a bit brighter now with understanding. “Congratulations, man.”

  “Thank you,” he says. “But you know what this means. Last time we were in the midst of that dreadful quarter because of Softcat, so I couldn’t be with her as much as she needed me. This time around, things are a bit more stable here, so I’m going to have to take some time off. This will mean early evenings and sometimes late mornings for a little while till things settle for her.”

  “I understand,” Grady says. “I wouldn’t keep you from that. And there’s no need to worry about me, I have a thousand employees available if I have too much on my plate. You seem to forget this fact a lot these days.”

  Allen laughs at the jibe. “I know but I can’t help noting the potential in Blair, so I want to do my best to show off her talents before I'm no longer round.”

  My laugh is nervous and awkward. “There’s no need for that Mr. Allen, I’ll be just fine.”

  He doesn’t even acknowledge me. “So, what do you say?” He stares at Grady.

  “Well it’s your account,” Grady says. “And I don’t have jurisdiction over it. All I demand is good results, so you can assign it to whomever you please.”

  Allen turns to me. “You heard him. So, are you ready to take on the challenge?”

  My lips part but the only word that can sound from it is a dumb and contemplative, “Uh.”

  “Wow,” Allen mouths. “I can’t believe that I just boasted to my boss that you could potentially be my Trojan horse.”

  My mouth immediately snaps shut in embarrassment but I'm surprised however to see that when I turn towards Grady, his lips are slightly curved in amusement.

  I eventually manage to work up a response, “I uh…I’ll take a look at it to see if I’ll be able to handle it.”

  “Good enough.” Allen says and picks up the folder to hand it over to me.

  I walk over to pick it up and immediately turn on my heels to exit the cramped office.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Grady

  I know that I shouldn’t be too concerned about this but she has her first meeting with the ABAX clients in twenty minutes and I’m worried that she might not be able to handle it. Since Allen’s departure, the lead position on the account handed over to her along with a limited time of three hours to get ready for the initial pitch meeting, I have watched her through the surveillance utility on my computer as she has tried to make the needed preparations.

  Soon, 2 PM arrives and she rises to her feet. A brief knock later and she comes into my office to inform me of her departure. “I’m on my way to the meeting with ABAX, sir,” she says. “So if you need me, please send a message and I will find a way to promptly respond.”

  I watch her, hoping she will be bold enough to request my assistance but she doesn’t. Instead, she turns around and walks away. She is ordinarily not meant to handle a first sale alone and it’s not very impressive that she has chosen to most probably blow it rather than admit her incapability. Or perhaps, she is overestimating herself?

  I try to push it out of my mind but then a few minutes later, I can’t help but tune in. A short call to the security department and in no time, I’m able to listen in on the dynamics of their meeting down in the eighth floor’s conference room. She starts strong with a healthy knowledge of the company.

  Then it doesn’t take long before the thorough clients begin to reveal the chinks in her armor. “We receive forty thousand emails a day and at any time an employee could misclick on something and cause a devastating breach to the entire system. 1,300 employees and 13,000 customers spread across three countries… this threat is real and it eats away at my peace of mind on a daily basis.”

  His companion is the next to speak up, “We can even to an extent, relax on the threat from outside sources but what concerns us the most is the threat from our third party contacts. They could suffer a phishing attack which will automatically give the bastards access to us and then an unsuspecting employee could fall victim to that. We heard about the recent breach at Telkcom and we’re no longer able to take this lightly.”

  “Um,” she says. “I understand these concerns and this is what we’re especially able to—”

  He cuts her off, “What personalized service can you give to our sales staff?”

  “Uh…” There’s a ruffling of papers. “We will ensure that they, along with all the other employees will get the in-depth training that—”

  “No that’s not what I mean. The sales staff works within a restricted environment, so their administrative access is not as expansive. I’m fucking worried that they’ll be overburdened with the exhaustive training.”

  “T-then we can speak to them in order to figure out what depth of training will be most appropriate for them.”

  “It doesn’t need to be conventional right? It just needs to be relative to their sphere of access.”

  Silence.

  Blair releases a shaky sigh.

  At this, I rise to my feet. In minutes, I'm riding the elevator down to the eighth floor and I soon arrive at the conference room. I go in and see her shuffling through the stack of papers on her lap.

  The moment I introduce myself both men’s eyes widen with delight. “Grady Abbott? We’ve heard so much about you from Allen.”

  “Same here,” I say and take my seat by Blair’s side.

  She hasn’t turned to me.

  I can see that she is becoming increasingly nervous, so when yet another sheet of her papers floats to the floor, I bend along with her to retrieve it. My hand closes around hers as I try my best to whisper as rapidly and discreetly as I can, “Calm down,” I tell her. “I’ll support you. You’re doing great.”

  Her gaze is on me as she straightens, and it doesn’t feel like she believes me, but I do notice the rise and fall of her chest becomes comparatively easier.

  She begins to speak again and her tone is also more stable, “I understand that what you are pushing for is a seamless implementation that will become more of a culture than a hassle to the employees, so we will ensure to customize the service to meet all your employee’s needs.”

  They don’t seem convinced of her statement and so both men turn to share a look at each other.

  They are both bulky with one in a tan suit and a slightly protruding belly, while the other is in a simple black shirt, jeans, boots and a shaved head.

  “What are the departments you currently operate through?” I ask.

  The bald one turns to give me his response, “We have finance and IT.”

  “And they face greater risks than for instance sales right?”

  “Yes,” he concurs. “And that is why we don’t want a one size fits all service.”

  “I understand that,” I say. “For instance, shorter training videos that have the key messages should be fashioned for sales while others with more administrative involvement should have a more in depth training, but at the same time none of this should be a burden that everyone is constantly more than willing to skip?”

  The room goes silent for a few seconds.

  Then his partner in the suit responds, “Exactly.”

  I turn to Blair and wave a hand, giving her the signal to go ahead.

  “Our training content comes with customizable features,” she says. “For one, frequent reminders can be sent for the employees to go through these brief spurts of training, and that will be followed with constant phishing campaigns that will be able to monitor their progress and reduced susceptibility to these attacks. For example, we have our popcorn training which takes about three minutes to complete, and regular surveys for your employees so that they can give the necessary feedback on the efficiency of the service. The only thing set in stone is our quality but as to the approach we will continue to tweak things until your employees’ engagement is earned. We even have a gamified tutorial that can teach them essential cyber security awareness in ten minutes and our phish alert buttons that can tune the
m into actual threats. Basically we won’t stop until they become human firewalls.”

  The men burst into laughter and I cannot help but crack a smile either. I watch as she straightens her back, and confidently brushes her hair over her shoulders.

  Both men turn to each other and it is then when I notice the tattooed legs of a frog peeking out from the edge of the bald man’s short sleeve shirt. “You were a Navy Seal?” I ask.

  His attention turns to me. “Yes I was. Retired about seven years ago. You?”

  “No, my father. At some point, I was to go down that path but I sat down to watch a BUDS documentary one evening and almost shit my pants.”

  His laugh resounds across the room. “I went through it,” he says, “and I shit my pants. That fucking training. You know I had to go through it twice.”

  “Twice? Why?”

  “I almost died the first time. I was negative buoyant as hell and during one of the drown proofing classes, I don’t know if you know what those are about.”

  “Of course. They tie your hands and feet and tell you to find a way to survive in the water, right?”

  “Basically,” he says. “Well, I drowned. They sent me to the hospital afterwards. I would have returned to the training and I wanted to. I kept arguing with them that I didn’t strike that fucking courtyard bell, so they couldn’t kick me out but turns out they could, since I had missed several weeks already. What a hell of an experience.”

  “Sure sounds like it. My father always told me his stories from that time, especially during his hell week. He never stopped talking about one of his instructors especially-Morty? Do you know him?”

  “Fuck me,” he almost jumps out of his chair. “That bastard. He passed away last summer. I attended his funeral and although I hated his damn guts, I have to admit that he was one of the best goddamn instructors we had. Tough as a nail, but he was good people.”

  “My dad said the same things.”

  “What class did your father graduate from? I was in 235.”

  “Oh, much earlier than yours,” I reply. “I think 198?”

  “Ah. Wait a minute isn’t that Marcus’s and Tyler’s class? What team was he assigned to?”

  I already know where he is going with this. “Seal Team 5.”

  “Fuck,” the man curses.

  The reminder of the attack that killed off the members in that team and about a dozen more pilots and rangers except my father, darkens the mood of the room.

  “Your father is Gary Abbott?”

  “He is.”

  “Wow,” he says. “I should have made the connection. You do look like him. What a pleasure it is to meet you man.” He holds out his hand again.

  I accept the firm handshake. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

  “How’s the old frogman doing?” he asks. “I haven’t laid eyes on him in at least a dozen years.”

  “He is doing all right,” I reply. “Saw him yesterday.”

  “Well, next time you see him, let him know that the entire brotherhood misses him. He’s still a living legend amongst the rest of us but after that incident, he sort of checked out.”

  I smile at the compliment, but it makes my heart ache at how different this testimony is to the broken, rampant man I just saw the previous day. “I will,” I reply.

  Both men got ready to take their leave.

  “After that trip down memory lane, I guess our collaboration is established.” His partner laughs and the meeting is concluded.

  Both clients go their way.

  Blair and I on the other hand, ride silently back to my top floor office.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Blair

  “Did you know he was a Navy Seal before you came over?” I ask. We are on the elevator together and although, I would normally avoid speaking to him in such a confined space, I can’t help it since I’m aware that once we arrive back at the office, we will both be distanced again.

  He turns eyes to me that seem quite troubled, so I’m not surprised when it takes him a few more seconds to respond.

  “No,” he says. “I did not. But I did know though that he was in the army. It’s on his bio page on their company’s website.”

  “Yeah,” I say, feeling slightly inadequate. “I found that interesting when I saw it and thought that perhaps I could bring it up but I don’t know enough about the army to hold a decent conversation. I didn’t want to say anything foolish or insensitive.”

  “Why would you want to bring up the military?” he asks.

  The elevator dings its arrival on our floor. “My father. He was ex-military too, a Navy Seal too I believe.”

  “Was?”

  “Yeah,” I respond as we begin to exit the elevator. “He passed away a long time ago while on active duty.”

  “My condolences,” he says softly

  I shake my head in response and we continue walking side by side in silence.

  Soon, we arrive back at our office and I head over to my desk. I want to thank him for his help and for not completely taking over during the meeting, but my mind and mouth refuse to cooperate, so I just watch as he returns to his office without a word.

  We still have a conversation to tackle which had been interrupted by Allen, and I don’t know if and when we will get to it. A few hours ago, the possibility had been huge that I would no longer be working here, but now and after successfully signing my first clients and with him supporting me with the process, I don’t think that things will be that cut throat. But then again, this is Grady Abbott‒and correctly predicting his actions or trying to decipher his intentions‒is as pointless as trying to make a cat bark. So I remain at my desk and soak in the elation of signing my first clients. Then I get to work on collaborating with the available account managers.

  About half an hour past closing time however, the door to his office swings open and it’s so unexpected that I don’t even acknowledge it until I feel the prompt tension in the pit of my stomach at his presence.

  I lift my head from my screen to see him watching me.

  “Are you going to stay longer?” he asks.

  “Yes, I will.”

  “What about dinner?” he asks. “You don’t want to celebrate signing your first clients?”

  I go still at his question. “Yeah I do... I mean I will.”

  “Let’s go for dinner then,” he says. “Or do you have plans to celebrate with someone else?”

  Again, I stare dumbfounded at him and then it clicks as to what he is asking. I rise to my feet. “I don’t. I’ll be right out.”

  He continues on his way.

  I’m left alone to scramble for my things. When I later arrive at the front of the office building, I see his car running and automatically start to head to the back seat. But then the light comes on and I stop to see that he is the one in the driver’s seat instead of Andrew.

  “Sit up front,” he says and I nod in response.

  I head over to the passenger door and slide in as gracefully as is possible.

  Immediately after, we are on our way.

  I have become quite familiar with his scent and it welcomes me like a returning addict. It’s intoxicating to inhale but does absolutely nothing in calming my nerves. I truly wonder when I will start to fully relax around him. Perhaps my anxiousness is due to the professional authority he has over me or for the fact that we still haven’t clearly established what we are.

  Anyway, we continue to drive silently until we come to a stop at the first traffic light. He then sends a glance my way. “How do you want to celebrate?”

  The question is too open ended. A couple of things come to mind but the one at the forefront is the both of us alone in the stall of whatever restaurant we are about to head to.

  Instead, I respond, “Some nice food will be a good start. And wine. Definitely wine.”

  At my comment, he chuckles.

  The soft sound in the small space fills me with a feverish yearning for him. I am burning all over with a
sweet warmth and it makes it a little hard to breathe.

  “Do you have any specific cravings?” he asks.

  I can’t help but watch the fluid movement of his hands against the steering wheel as he navigates the vehicle. His sleeves are now rolled up to just below his elbows, and the slightly bulging muscles in his forearms are delectable to say the least. Before I can catch myself, I hit my hand against my forehead at my roguish thoughts.

  It seems to startle him. “Are you all right?”

  I’m startled too, but immediately work up a smile. As naturally as is possible, I slide the hand away from my burning forehead to flip my hair over my shoulder. “I’m fine. I just uh... forgot something at the office.”

  “At the office? Do you need us to go back?”

  “No, no, no,” I reply. “It’s fine. I’ll just get it tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” he says. “And again, where do you want to eat? I’m already en route to an Italian restaurant downtown but I can always reroute if you have a place in mind.”

  “I’m not familiar with the city yet,” I reply. “So it’s up to you.”

  “Alright,” he says, and we continue on our way.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Grady

  The clink of our glasses pierces through the somewhat quiet ambience of the restaurant.

  Spuntino, although a high-end restaurant, is small and intimate, with weathered wood and glowing copper furnishing and a selection of the best Italian dishes that I have had in the city.

  I discovered it upon one of my dinner meetings with a client about two years ago, and is the first place that came to mind when I was pondering earlier on in the car on where to bring Blair to.

  There is a lit candle before us, softly illuminating our space and the captivating glint in her eyes.