“Well, he can. Don’t worry about anything other than being yourself and the contract. Fuck the rest.”
It had been two weeks since our trip to the Hamptons. We were at a dinner meeting with Glen Waters, President and CEO of FlowersFirst, to button up an exclusive contract with them that I hadn’t been crazy about—until Georgia had outlined all of the guaranteed cross-advertising they were contracted to do.
Full disclosure, I still wasn’t one hundred percent sold. But Georgia Cummings was a smart, efficient employee, and that wasn’t even my dick talking. He got a vote, I supposed—not worth denying it—but that wasn’t the basis of my decision. My confidence in her ability was what had brought us to this meeting.
But the flower market share on TapNext alone was gargantuan, and I didn’t like giving any one entity the entire pie. Contracts were airtight for a reason, but swearing yourself to one person professionally was just ripe for a fucking.
Glen better have some real unicorn and rainbow type bullshit planned for ad content or I am going to derail this train before it even gets out of the station.
“Sorry about that,” Glen apologized as he approached the table. He’d left to take an “important” phone call. It happened from time to time, so I understood, but he rubbed me as one of those people who thinks he’s hot shit and irreplaceable. Everyone is replaceable in business.
Some people like me, or Georgia, or maybe even Glen, could be an asset, but we sure as fuck weren’t necessities. Businesses needed competence, patience, and drive, and plenty of people had those qualities.
“No problem,” Georgia appeased easily, obviously feeling like telling him to go fuck himself a little less than I did.
“Now, we were just starting to dive into the specifics when you got pulled away,” she began, steering Glen back to the prize. I sat back to watch.
“We’d be looking at a twelve-month exclusivity in exchange for majority placement in each of your ads: television, radio, and print. In general, our website makes up twenty percent of the online daily flower market alone. Brooks Media would contractually reserve the right to approve any and all ad content that references or deals with us.”
God, she was something.
Every word she spoke made it clear—business didn’t need specific people, but love and relationships sure did. I was starting to realize my specific person was her.
I checked back into reality just in time to find Georgia looking to me in question. Of course, I’d missed the question.
Glen, the helpful bastard, filled me in, though. “Don’t you think she’d look sexy in one of the ads, Brooks?”
“No,” I answered simply, hoping he’d drop it. We’d just gotten started, and I wanted to believe he was just trying to get into her good graces by complimenting her—inappropriate in both context and manner, but a compliment all the same.
He laughed and gestured at my girlfriend.
“Sex sells. You know this.”
I did. Sex was a huge share of marketing in the U.S. specifically. But there was a whole slew of creative ways to use it, and they didn’t include Georgia.
“Your whole market is sex, and this girl would sell.”
I clenched my hand into a fist under the table but worked to keep my voice and demeanor steady. I even managed a completely unfriendly smile. “No, Glen. Georgia is an executive and an asset within the company. What she isn’t, is sex to sell.”
“Kline,” Georgia whispered. My anger was building and she wasn’t oblivious to it.
“Oh, I see,” Glen said with a nod. “Her sex isn’t for sale because she’s already sexing the boss.” He reached out to brush the loose hair off of her shoulder. “Good move, sweetheart.”
My mind raced with a thousand scenarios of how I could strangle this motherfucker from across the table. Shit. I shoved back my chair and fished in my pocket for money at the same time. Rage bubbled and boiled under the surface, singeing the lining of my veins, but I didn’t give in to the scene. He wanted that. He’d pushed the last straw to try to get a rise out of me and draw attention to himself because he knew the contract was already swirling the drain.
Guys like Glen were snakes, slithering around until they found the perfect opportunity to pounce. He wanted a physical reaction, one that would land me in handcuffs and balls deep in lawyer’s fees. But I wouldn’t be a party to it.
He was the coward, not me. Instead of facing his poor, pathetic, unintelligible business decisions head-on, like a man, he’d sexually harassed my girlfriend.
“The deal’s dead, Glen,” I declared, throwing the money down on the white linen tablecloth. “Contract’s destroyed. Any future opportunity to do business with Brooks Media and any of its subsidiaries extinguished. And you’ve lost a powerful business ally, and instead, gained an enemy.”
I pulled out Georgia’s chair and forced her to stand.
“Kline—”
“Georgia, let’s go.”
She nodded, grabbed her clutch, and followed, but I could tell she wasn’t happy.