Escort (A Standalone Romance Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (37 page)

“I’m
not saying you’re either too young or too old,” I tell her. “I think that
you’re too stressed out, and it really shows in the way you deal with your
employees and your customers.”

“How
does it show to my customers?” she asks. “I have a spectacular game face.”

“You
really don’t,” I tell her. “Remember last week when that woman came in looking
for a new handbag? She made some stupid pun and you terrified pretty much
everyone within range of your too-long, too-loud, wide-eyed laughter. You kind
of looked like that kid in school
who’s
extra nice to
everyone because she doesn’t know how to relate to people.”

“You
know,” she says, “if you just brought me here to insult me, I really don’t see
the point in continuing.”

“Before
you use what I’m saying as a pretext to go lord over your staff and make
everyone, especially customers, nervous, why don’t you just take a minute to
have a bit of the onion rings?” I ask. “They’re pretty tasty and you haven’t so
much as looked at your food because you’ve been too worried about what may or
may not be going on at the store.”

She
closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens them again, she hails a
passing waiter and orders a double shot of whiskey.

As
the waiter’s walking away, Jessica leans forward and says, “Look, I know I come
off as overbearing, but I guess I just don’t trust that things would get done
if I’m not there to oversee it.”

Oh
shit.

Is
there any way the woman I’ve been texting could be Jessica? I can’t imagine
that would be possible.

That
response, as I recall, is almost verbatim to what that woman told me last night
during a similar discussion though. I decide to test the theory.

“Your
staff seems like they’re all perfectly capable women doing a great job for you.
You’re acting like they don’t know Prada from Donna Karan and would just as
soon kill and eat your customers as give them good service,” I tell her.

“Do
you
know Prada from Donna Karan?” she
asks.

“Not
even remotely. Really, I’m just proud of myself for remembering the names,” I
answer.

She
tries to hide it, but I can see that brief flicker of a smile come over her
lips.

“They’re
a good staff—great, really. Without them, I don’t know if I’d even have a
store. They just don’t have that—oh, what’s the word?” she asks.

“Inside
experience?” I ask.

She
cocks her head a little and eyes me.

“That’s
what most control freaks use as their justification for their control
freakery
,” I cover.

It’s
her. It’s got to be her.

The
wording’s different, but the idea is exactly the same. Add to that the knowing
look she gave when I used the phrase “inside experience,” and I’m almost
certain that I’m talking to the woman who’s been giving me something to look
forward to after work for the last while.

“That’s
a good way to put it,” she says.

“Then
why don’t you train them so they’re less dependent on your being there to solve
every problem? You’re not superwoman.”

“It’s
not that easy,” she says, but doesn’t have anything to back up the statement.

“It’s
precisely that easy,” I tell her. “When I saw how fast José learned what I
taught him, I kept teaching him more. Now, if I were to die today—knock on
wood—he could take over the business without even the slightest bit of
difficulty. Not everyone has that ambition, but you’ve got a whole staff full
of people who want to know the things you won’t let them learn.”

“Yeah,
but what happens when I give away that information and they go open a competing
shop across the street?” she asks.

“I’m
sorry,” our waiter, coming seemingly from nowhere, asks, “is there something
wrong with the onion rings?”

“Not
at all,” I tell him. “We just got caught up talking.”

“Okay,”
he says, “here’s your drink, ma’am.”

“Thank
you,” Jessica says and downs it, immediately handing the shot glass back to the
waiter.

The
expression on his face is hilarious.

“Would
you like another?” he asks nervously.

“No,”
she says. “That one should do it, thank you.”

“All
right,” he says. “Your entrees should be out momentarily.”

He
walks away.

“Do
you really think that your employees are going to open a store just to drive
you out of business if you give them the super-secret handshake?” I ask.

“You
never know,” she says.

“Do
you have—well, of course you must know how much money it takes to open up a
shop, even a small one, in New York. Do you pay any of your employees that
well?” I continue.

“I
pay my employees very well,” she says. “And I don’t think it’s really any of
your business anyway.”

“Maybe
not,” I tell her. “I just hate seeing someone run themselves into the ground
when they don’t have to, but if you’re dead set on losing your store—”

“I’m
not going to lose my store. What are you talking about?” she asks.

“Well,
most employees are loyal to bosses who treat them with enough respect to let
them move up in the world,” I tell her. “It’s the ones who think their bosses
are trying to stifle their growth that end up putting a knife in your back.”

She
laughs. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Okay,
let’s say it doesn’t,” I start. “Let’s say that all of your employees are just
thrilled to pieces that you don’t give them any more responsibility than you think
they can handle which, from the look of things, isn’t that much. Now, you’ve
killed whatever ambition they do have and you’ll end up with a situation where
they actually
can’t
take care of
things when you’re not there, so sick or healthy, injured or able, no matter
what, you’re going to have to be there all day every day for the rest of your
life,” I tell her. “Or, at very least, until you decide that it’s just not
worth the stress and you end up having to sell the company, but I really see
you as being the type that would hang onto this sort of thing until your dying
breath. Maybe afterward if you catch a break with rigor mortis.”

“Here
are your entrees!” our waiter, who must be the sneakiest tray jockey in the
business, announces.

We
both say thanks and he goes on his way.

“All
right,” she says, finally picking up a utensil, “let’s say that I would like to
have more free time, and that I do realize that means I’m either going to have
to give my people the keys to the store—”

“Seriously,
what
is
that?” I ask. “I’ve been
around a lot of controlling people—worked for a lot of them, too—but I have
never known someone who was so insecure about their business that they wouldn’t
let at least one manager have the keys to the store.”

“Yeah,
whatever,” she says. “What am I supposed to do, though? This is the only way I
know how to do it.”

“It’ll
take a bit of time to work that out of your system, and you’re such a—let’s
call it a ‘special case’ that your need to control will likely just take form
in some other area of your life, but what I would suggest is that you start out
by taking your most talented employee aside and make them assistant store
manager,” I tell her.

“That’s
quite a promotion,” she scoffs. “I don’t even have…” she starts, but stops
talking and nervously forks her food.

“You
don’t even have what?” I ask.

“Nothing,”
she says. “Don’t worry about it. So, where are you from?”

“Here,”
I tell her. “I think you were about to tell me that you don’t have
any
managers. That can’t be true, can
it?”

“Well,
I’m always there when the place is open, so—”

“Good
lord!” I exclaim. “Jessica, you’ve got to let your employees move up and take
some more responsibility, or are you really so conceited that you don’t think
anyone might know one thing a little better than you do?”

“What
about you?” she asks. “I don’t see you with any—well, I guess you wouldn’t call
them managers, but you know what I mean.”

“José’s
my number two,” I tell her. “It’s reflected in his responsibility and his pay.
Under him, I’ve got Alec, though I think I might have pulled the trigger on
that one a little early. Yeah, I like the guy, but he’s pretty damn lazy a lot
of the time. I can’t be everywhere, and the guys on my team each have different
strengths, different areas of expertise. When I come across a situation that
I’m not quite sure how to tackle, I’m comfortable asking the advice of one of
my employees who has more experience with that given thing, or may have some
insight that I’m lacking.”

“Well,
it sounds like you lucked out,” she says. “I wish I had people in my store that
would be willing to—”

“Ivanna
knows shoes a lot better than you do. She’d be perfect as manager of that
section,” I tell her. “Linda is probably half the reason you’ve got as many
customers as you
do
have, because she
has a way about her that people really respond to. Cheryl seems like she knows
everything there is to know about dresses, skirts, pants and blouses. She might
be a great choice for assistant manager, or at least a floor manager. The rest
of your staff, I haven’t really gotten to know so well, but they’ve all got
their strengths, but the wine is dying on the vine. You’ve got to trust your
people or they’ll never trust you.”

“You
don’t think they trust me?” she asks.

“I
don’t know,” I tell her. “I think most of them like you because you’re a pretty
likeable person, you know, when you’re not being all neurotic and controlling.”

She’s
still forking her food, but I have yet to see her eat anything.

“How
do you know so much about my staff?” she asks.

“I’ve
spent almost two months around them,” I answer. “I don’t have as much face time
with them as I’m sure you do, but when you’re even casually around people, you
can come to know their strengths pretty quickly.”

A
smirk crosses her face. “I think you just don’t like the idea of an ambitious
woman,” she says. “I think you’re so used to your world of testosterone and
power tools that the thought of a woman who not only owns her own business, but
runs it, is a threat to you.”

“That’s
because you don’t know me,” I tell her, shoveling a forkful of food in my
mouth. “I actually find your ambition to be one of your most attractive
qualities.”

It’s
super fucking attractive. I somehow always end up with chicks that don’t have
much ambition at all though.

“You
find me attractive?” she asks. “Just like a man: the only compliment you people
can give is when it has something to do with the idea of screwing the woman
you’re giving it to.”

Duh.
She must know she’s a goddamned bombshell.

“Now,
there’s an unfortunate assortment of words,” I laugh. “No, what I’m saying is
that I love people who are driven. It doesn’t matter, man or woman, I think the
quality itself is attractive. Trust me, if I was hitting on you, you’d know
it.”

“Oh
would I?” she asks. “You’re that smooth, are you?”

“Quite
the opposite,” I tell her. “I have a particular clumsy charm, but it’s hardly
something that I’d call smooth. It’s more like how that kid with the thick
glasses and the lisp endears himself to you when he gets his tongue stuck on
the flagpole in winter.”

She
smiles and, as she realizes that I not only explained, but demonstrated my
point, her face goes a little red.

“Well,
you do seem like the clumsy type to me,” she says.

“Not
with everything,” I tell her and look her in the eyes until her face reddens even
more and she looks away.

“Now
you’re hitting on me,” she says.

“Yep,”
I answer quickly and sit back in my chair. “I told you that you’d know it when
it happened.” I take another bite of my
omelette
and
add, “I think it’s great that you’re so driven, so focused. I just think it’s a
shame that you don’t trust yourself or your staff enough to have a life outside
of work. You should take up a hobby,” I tell her.

“Yeah?”
she chortles. “Like what?”

“I
don’t know,” I start, then, just to see how far I can push this without letting
her know that I’m the guy in her inbox, I add, “
maybe
you should take up painting.”

Her
eyes narrow a bit and I know what she’s thinking, but I know that I’m safe. The
reason I know that is because, based on our interactions, she can’t begin to
conceive of me as the guy writing those texts to her. She sees me as the
aggravating contractor who screwed one of her biggest contracts.

She’s
not wrong, but that’s not the whole story, either.

“Why
painting?” she asks.

“I
don’t know,” I shrug. “If painting’s not your thing, why not try music or
antiquing? I hear philately’s pretty fun, though I can’t imagine why. Hell,
start smoking pot. From what I hear, homemade bong crafting is quite the art.”