After they left, Nate’s chief technology officer ran off to arrange for various engineers to attend a one o’clock meeting where they discussed the technical aspects of the relationship, while Lauren asked one of her minions to order sushi for her and Nate so they wouldn’t starve to death while they scrambled to assemble all the specialists required to analyze the offer.
“It’s a lot of money,” Nate said when they were alone in the conference room. He kicked his sneakers onto the polished table and leaned back in his chair.
“True,” Lauren hedged. “But I can think of a dozen problems already.”
He looked up in surprise, because she didn’t usually volunteer that sort of opinion on a business matter. “Me, too! Let’s hear yours. Sit.”
There was a certain giddiness she felt when some new development at work made them all scramble around, trying to make the most of it. It fizzed in her veins as she sat on one of Nate’s couches. She’d been wondering how it might be possible to transition from office manager to something more. That’s why she’d worked so hard to get a degree, right?
As she leaned forward to tell Nate what she thought of the iBits offer, moving up in his organization suddenly seemed possible. “The ongoing contract they need will prevent you from working with any of their competitors in certain lines of business.”
“Right?” he said, tucking his hands behind his head. “That bothers me. A lot. What else?”
They exchanged notes right through lunch, until Nate had to depart for another meeting.
“I hope you didn’t have plans tonight, because we’re going to be sorting through this for hours,” he said.
“No problem,” she said quickly.
“And I’m going to send Becca to Detroit with the team. I need you here on the iBits deal.”
“Oh,” she said, startled. This was finally it—a return to normal. She’d been waiting for this moment for five weeks. “So Becca is feeling better?” Lauren should be jumping up and down right now. So why wasn’t she?
Because the team would start the third round tomorrow night, and she wouldn’t be there to see it.
“She’s . . . okay,” Nate said slowly. “She wants to get back to work. So I asked Hugh to send an intern with her, because she still tires easily.”
“Good idea,” Lauren said, having no idea if it really was. She was too busy scrutinizing Nate’s face for more clues about the Becca situation. As usual, he revealed nothing. Working for the world’s most stoic human wasn’t easy.
Then she forgot all about Becca because Nate said, “There’s a job I need from you—something a little different. I need a dossier on iBits.”
“Sure,” she said immediately. “Although . . . you have a team of I-bankers who can give you chapter and verse on that company. Do you really want me to duplicate their efforts?”
“Yeah, I do. They’ll give me all the numbers. But I want you to figure out how things really are at iBits. I don’t know this company at all. Are their employees happy? What do people say about them? Do your special Lauren thing and tell me all the dirt you can find. They want a ten-year contract, so I need to know if these are people I’d look forward to working with, or people I’d rather strangle. Nobody knows me as well as you do, right?”
“Okay. I get it,” she said. A dozen ideas bloomed in her mind at once. What did iBits sound like on social media? When people left the firm, where did they go? What was their maternity leave policy?
That last question was a little gift from her subconscious. She pushed the thought away. “I’m on it,” she told her boss.
? ? ?
The next night Lauren was still in the office at ten P.M.
Earlier she’d turned in her full report on iBits to Nate. Then she’d taken a break to go to the gym and pick up some dinner for herself and her boss. The two of them had tuned in to watch the Bruisers defeat Detroit in the first game of the Conference Finals series.
Now they were sitting on opposite sofas in his office, empty Diet Coke cans strewn about. They’d spent two very long days getting their heads around iBits and its offer. This morning, Nate’s friend Alex had called with her own offer, too.
“Alex won’t pay as much,” he grunted now, his hands behind his head. “But her offer doesn’t require a ten-year contract.”
“. . . Which you wouldn’t mind giving Alex anyway because you already know her company,” Lauren pointed out.
“Right.” Nate laughed. “I don’t know which offer I’m going to end up taking. Thanks for all your help this week.”
“My pleasure.”
He turned to look at her. “We need to talk about the future.”
Lauren felt herself fading. “It’s ten o’clock, Nate. It’s already the future.”
He grinned. “You know what I mean. Your graduation is next month. You’re going to get job offers. If you haven’t already.”
She made a noncommittal noise. She’d been approached by recruiters for several companies. But leaving Kattenberger Technologies wasn’t on Lauren’s to-do list. If she was going to become a new mother, she wanted to do that while employed by someone who would make certain accommodations to keep her. A girl couldn’t tell her brand-new employer that she was completely unwilling to travel.
It wasn’t time yet to explain this to Nate, though.
“This company paid a big chunk of my college tuition,” she said instead. “I have a huge incentive to stay here unless I want to pay it back.”
He shrugged as if thirty-thousand dollars was of little consequence. “That’s what signing bonuses are for. I don’t know what they’re offering you, but don’t say yes to anything until you let me counter, okay?”
“Okay.” No problem.
“I know you’ll need a new position,” he went on. “You didn’t just put yourself through college to manage my office forever. I have a few ideas for you.”
“You do?” It hadn’t occurred to her that Nate would brainstorm her career path for her.
“Sure. This whole scramble with iBits makes me realize how badly I need an ear to the ground in Silicon Valley. New York has its benefits, but I need someone who can gather intel in California.”
Lauren sat up straighter on the sofa. “How would that work, exactly?”
“I have an office there already, but it’s only techies.” He took off his reading glasses and stowed them in a shirt pocket. “I’d just expand it a little. You’d be my California manager, and you’d meet with whoever we were thinking of doing business with. I know the idea is a little . . . loose at the moment. But this is only going to become more important now that the venture capital market has picked up.”
“I see,” Lauren said slowly, her mind whirling. California? She really wasn’t looking to move out of state.
“You’d need a title. Maybe vice president of special projects.”
Vice president. She could be a VP in Nate’s company? Really?
Nate rubbed his eyes. “You’re right—it’s late. Can we pick up this discussion later this week?”
“Sure.” But she’d be picturing the words vice president on her business card until then.
“Just keep me in the loop. Don’t let any of those recruiters bat their eyelashes at you.”
Laughing, she gathered her papers together. “Good night, Nate.”
“Night.”
TWENTY-THREE
Mike: Hi there.
Lauren: Hi yourself.
Mike: I looked for you on the jet to Motor City.
Lauren: I wasn’t on the jet.