Great.
It’s eight in the morning, I haven’t been properly caffeinated yet, and I’m already getting hard standing next to this woman. Please put me out of my misery.
“The weekend was fine,” she says. “I hear you had quite the garden party at your estate.”
The numbers tick away the floors as we pass them by. “Let me guess who told you that.”
“Not your mother. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
The idea of Kathryn and my mother conspiring about something makes me want to vomit. “The party was fine. You and your father’s absence was noticed.”
“We had a meeting earlier that day. Sorry.”
Why is she sorry? Not like I missed her this weekend.
We arrive at our floor. The doors open, and I see Valerie my assistant waiting to ride down to get that coffee I asked for. Good mornings are exchanged. Kathryn walks ahead and hails her mousy assistant who cowers at her boss’s feet. If Kathryn Alison swung that way, I would assume she was in a BDSM relationship with that poor girl. (Or would it be lucky girl?)
Reaching the office space is a mistake… because right there, mocking me, is Lana Andrews dressed in her tight red skirt and chiffon black blouse.
She’s stunning. She knows it. She smiles at me.
Fuck.
“Ian.” Her sweet voice chaffs my ear. “I’m glad you’re here. There’s someone I want you and Kathryn to meet.”
The woman of the moment is behind me, and even though we face the woman standing between us and our project, I still tense at Kathryn’s presence. Apparently, fucking her only made certain things worse. Who knew?
“And to what do we owe this pleasure, Lana?” I ask. “I thought that everything that needed to be said was exchanged yesterday?”
A woman I’ve never met turns around and stands in the office doorway. Tall. Self-assured. Older than my mother. She extends her hand with a fake smile. “Colleen Woodrow,” she introduces herself. “You must be Ian Mathers.”
The way she looks at me says she damn well knows me. Probably from tabloid trash.
We shake hands. Kathryn introduces herself next, and Colleen Woodrow is as inexplicably cool to her.
The same registers in my head. After what Lana said yesterday, I went home and did research on the council. I was going to have to do it anyway, but that was a perfect impetus.
Colleen Woodrow is the co-chair of the council. A big deal when you consider she had to be voted into the position. One of those positions you never think about because you’re too busy deciding on who you want to be mayor or governor. But no, at some point in my life I probably checked the box saying that I voted for Mrs. Woodrow. And now I’m probably going to regret it.
“Mrs. Woodrow had a few ideas about the presentation that I would like you to hear.” Lana gestures to the office, and Kathryn and I can’t help but give each other a look.
This is going to be hell.
Sure enough, our impromptu meeting at nine in the morning has everything to do with Friday’s proposal. As one of the council leaders, Mrs. Woodrow wants to make sure we know what to expect and what we should do to prepare. I can handle that. Kathryn’s twitching, her dominant personality at complete odds with this woman. So is mine, but I’m better at covering it up. Kathryn looks like she’s about to slap the woman.
I’m not sure I would stop her.
The rub comes about twenty minutes into this farce of a meeting. A farce because it’s keeping us from getting to our real work.
“As it is, Ms. Alison and Mr. Mathers…” Colleen primps as if we’re her mirror. “The double proposition is a good one, but I’m afraid both the community and the council will not be in the mood to approve both ventures at the same time.” When she’s met with our bemusement, she explains, “Either the museum or the functioning remodeled hotel will have to come first. I’m afraid that asking for both at the same time will put people… on edge. As it is, we think both are fantastic ideas if done tastefully, and we look forward to seeing both of your presentations.”
“But?”
“But only one will be selected, if either of them is to be at all.”
“So let me get this straight,” I interject, putting my hand in the middle of the table. “You want us to continue with our presentations… but only one of us will be ‘selected’ to continue forward as planned?”
“If either is selected at all.”
“Oh, well then.”
This is bullshit, and we all know it. I don’t know whose rad idea this is, but either Kathryn or I are going to be in big, big trouble with our fathers. Either my father is going to come down hard on me for not securing us the money-making hotel, or Kathryn is going to be further humiliated because her family doesn’t get their museum.
It’s not fair, and we all know it.
This business isn’t fair. We all make our peace with it, but sometimes you come up against something that is so stupid and arbitrary that even this hardened heart is amazed by it. This is one of those instances. Does she seriously expect me to believe that the community is too sensitive to having both a renovated hotel and a new museum at the same time?
“We know that neither of you want to hear something like this,” Lana says, patting Colleen’s shoulder. They look like bosom buddies, all right. “But I’m afraid it’s how it has to be. If the community decides to accept a renovation, it can only be one or the other for now. The other can come later once it’s been proven that the first is a success.”
Kathryn shakes her head as if she’s ridding her brain of an evil spirit. “So Ian and I are essentially competing against each other.”
“Don’t think of it that way,” Lana says with that ridiculous air of superiority. “Unless of course it makes you work harder!”
Her laugh is enough to make me curl my first and for Kathryn to sneer into the back of her hand.
Long after they leave, we’re left sitting here in the office, our spirits fucked. Not even our bubbly assistants can bring us back from the dead. There isn’t even time or energy to think about what happened Friday night. The only good to come out of this is that I no longer want to think about nothing but having sex with Kathryn.
Apparently she’s my rival now.
We’ve gone from being partners in this endeavor to vying for different things. Kathryn wants to prove herself, and I want to not fuck up my father’s investment. Before, that fueled our teamwork, or what there was of it. It probably fueled the whole sex thing too, but that’s neither here nor there.
Now we’re competing. I don’t care how they spin it. We’ve gone from either all in or all out, to only one can survive.
This is going to be great for our relationship.
Chapter 15
KATHRYN
Do you know what it’s like to be grounded? Because that’s how I feel right now. Trapped in a shitty situation where there is no real winner.
I am so fucked. My level of “fucked’ is that of a porn star’s. Minus a good dicking and getting paid for it.
You see, I cannot win in this farce of a situation. No matter what happens, I am boned.
Let’s look at the first possible outcome. Ian gets the initial deal for remodeling The Grand. Great. That shuts me out, and once again I look like a dumb girl who can’t keep her shit together. Sure, I may have held my own and was able to overcome my previous fuckup, but I still fucked up! Yay!
Now let’s look at the second possible outcome. I “win.” Except not really, because what good does it do everyone if we’re only building a museum? Will the Mathers even want to buy the hotel then? Sure, they can make some revenue off museum admission and a gift shop, but their bread and butter is going to come from the hotel itself. That is their main line of business.