Romantic Acquisition (10 page)

With that, he gently closed the door and walked away to his own car that wasn’t parked far from hers. 

Kate drove home with shaking fingers.  She was only slightly more in control when she pulled up into her garage.  The night was long and she slept fitfully, images of her and Carlo making love together flitting through her dreams, keeping her from fully resting.

Monday morning, Kate was a mess.  She wanted to avoid the conference room altogether.  She walked to her office and sat down.  Carlo could rot for all she cared.  She was not going in there and that was that.

A half hour later, David called her into his office.  She groaned, knowing what he was going to say.  She walked into his office a few minutes later and saw Carlo sitting in one of the chairs in front of David’s desk.

“What’s up, David?” she asked, taking the only other seat. 

“Carlo wants to check out the other stores and I was hoping you could help him.”

Kate got a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean, take him up to the
Maryland
and
Virginia
stores first.  Show him around, help him understand the operation.  Then head out to the stores in the other states.  Give him the information he needs to finish up this process so we can all move on to the next step.”

Kate was in a panic and wasn’t sure how to get out of it.  Travel all over the country? Stay in hotels only a few feet away from him?  She was having enough trouble when they lived miles away.  How was she to control this situation when he was in the room right next to hers? 
“But what about my department here?”

David wasn’t going to relent on such a flimsy excuse. 
“Matthew needs to learn your job.  He can handle a few more weeks of filling in for you.”

Kate was defeated
for the moment simply because she couldn’t think of a way out of this situation immediately
.  She looked at Carlo with hostility but kept it out of her voice.  “When did you want to start these tours?”

“How far is the drive to the closest stores?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

He stood up and raised a challenging eye.  “Well, then let’s start there.”

Kate nodded.  “
Fine.  L
et me get a few more things organized and I’ll meet you downstairs in a half hour.  Is that soon enough for you?”

Carlo nodded, then turned back to David.  “I’ll let you know if there’s anything else I need.  Thanks for your support.”

David preened at Carlo’s good ole’ boy networking, happy to pull one of his employees in line. 
“No problem, Carlo
,” he said.  “
Just stop in anytime,” he said and slapped Carlo on the back as if they’d been friends for years.  “Kate, can I speak to you for a moment?”

Kate gritted her teeth.  Carlo wasn’t playing fair by going to David for these kinds of requests.  But now she was sure she was going to get a lecture on office protocol from her boss. 

She was right.  “What’s going on between you and Carlo?” David demanded as soon as Carlo had shut the door.

“Nothing,” Kate said, crossing her arms over her chest and sitting back down in her seat, wishing she could ignore the pompous man.  Unfortunately, he was still her boss and she didn’t see that changing, even after the sellout to
ATI
. 
She remembered all the reasons she stayed in this job and swallowed her antagonism. 

David took a seat on the edge of his desk, making sure he was able to look down on her from his position. 
“It doesn’t seem like nothing.  It seems like you have a huge chip on your shoulder where he’s concerned.  I don’t need to remind you that he’ll be my boss soon, in a manner of speaking
,
so you’d better deal with him more professionally.  This barely veiled antagonism isn’t in anyone’s best interests.”

Kate nodded her head.  “Anything else?” she asked sweetly.

David looked up and down her attire.  “Now that you mention it, why don’t you tone down your clothes a little?  You looked very presentable on Saturday night.
  I liked your simple black dress.  These outrageous clothes you tend to wear are fine for a purchasing director, but you’re leading the transition team now.  Surely you have more conservative clothes that define what we are trying to get across more than this…this…well,
”
he said awkwardly, wa
ving his hands up and down in front of her indicating her outfit, “you know what I mean.”

Kate glanced down at her
blue and white striped pants topped off with a neat, white sweater. 

“What’s wrong with my outfit?”

He sighed in frustration.  He hated confrontations and wished he had asked someone else to have this conversation with Kate. 
“It would be fine if we were in
Paris
or
New York
.  But you know that
Washington
,
D.C.
is a much more conservative town.  Can’t you tone it down a little?”

Kate bristled at his comment. 
“No.  This is who I am and I like it.”

His eyes turned angry at her blatant disobedience. 
“We’ll see what happens when this sale is through.  I’m not going to have anymore of that kind of talk when we’re part of
ATI
, and I can guarantee that they won’t allow it either,” he snarled.

Kate turned her back on David and his
threat.  “David, if you’re going to fire me, why don’t you do it now?”

“Why would I fire you?” he snapped at her retreating back.  “You’re one of the best buyers in the industry.  But there are better things to do to a recalcitrant employee than firing them,” he said as she put her hand on his door.  “You’d better remember that.”

Kate glanced back at him.  “David, if I didn’t like this store so much and respect the memory of your father, I’d quit on the spot right now.”

David sneered.  “Yes, but we both know that you’re not going to do that, are you?  So why don’t you be a good little girl and go touring with our potential owner.”  She was almost out the door when she heard him say, “And why don’t you bat your pretty little eyes a little.  Things might go a little more easily for you.”

Kate slammed his door, sickened by his suggestion. 

Back in her office, she stormed around, slamming file drawers in an effort to get rid of some of her frustration.  She was being trapped in by Carlo and she didn’t like it. 

She was biting her lip, trying to figure out a way around his latest maneuver when Samantha, her secretary walked in.  “Kate, you wanted these filed but I don’t have the key to the main storage area.”

Kate laughed in delight
as an idea formed in her mind
.  “Samantha, don’t worry about the files now.  Go grab your purse and your notebook.  I need you to help out on a project.  We’re touring the other stores for a few days.”  Kate thought for a moment before she called out again, “Order a car service, please.  We’ll need a car large enough for at least three people.”

“Great!” the older woman said and immediately turned around to get her notebook.
  Samantha was obviously delighted at the opportunity to get out of the store for a while.

Kate danced around
her office
for a moment, cheered that she was going to outdo Carlo. 
As t
he two women walked down to the conference room
, Kate was still smiling as she walked in. 

“We’re ready when you are,” she said gaily as she entered the room. 

“We?” Carlo asked, closing down his computer and looking up at the two women
standing in the doorway to the conference room
.

“I asked Samantha to help out and take notes on whatever issues you
might need more information on,” Kate explained. 

Carlo smiled and reached out his hand.  “That’s great,” he said, shaking Samantha’s hand.  “We’ll be able to get this done twice as fast.”  He turned to Jeff.  “Can you go with Samantha to the
Maryland
stores and I’ll take the
Virginia
sites?  We’ll meet back here tonight to discuss
any
issues
we find
.”

Kate wanted to argue but Carlo didn’t give her a chance. 
He ignored the shocked look on her face as h
e put a hand to the small of her back and led her quickly out of the room and into the elevators.

Kate fumed all the way down, not wi
lling to talk to Carlo at all.  Once they reached the parking lot, she headed
for her c
ar but Carlo chuckled
and turned her towards his own. 

She started to protest,
“I can drive myself.  We should just meet at the store instead of being….” 

He ignored her protests and opened
the
passenger side
door for her
.  He settled her
inside the passenger seat
without any acknowledgement of her statement
.

He walked around to the driver
’
s seat and got in, laughing at her mutinous expression. 

“Believe it or not, Kate, I always do thorough inspections of every aspect of the business I advise on
ATI
buying.  This isn’t out of the norm for my operation,” he explained, then started the powerful motor.  “Which way?” he asked.

Kate directed him to the nearest store besides the flagship store which he’d already gone through.  The next one was in
Arlington
,
Virginia
.  It was one of the larger stores and one of the more profitable ones.  It was surrounded by several large companies so the store drew a lot of lunch shoppers
during the weekdays
as well as the suburban crowd
on the weekend
that wanted to get to the larger department stores but not actually go downtown to
Washington
,
D.C.
where the traffic could be difficult at any time of the day.

Carlo and Kate walked through the aisles of clothes first.  He asked her questions about the different styles at this site versus those at the
Washington
,
D.C.
store. 
She was impressed that he’d noted the subtle differences and proceeded to explain
the different demographics of the shoppers
.  She also
filled him in on the shopping trends for suburbanites. 

The
y went through every department
and
spoke to as many of the employees as Carlo could, depending on the volume of shoppers.  
Kate hung back, listening to the answers and trying to give him as much freedom as possible. 
His questions were unique but pertinent to the sale.  He wanted to know how the management of the store treated the workers, what kinds of hours they worked, what times they’d prefer to work, what kinds of benefits they’d like to have to make their lives easier.  The questions were endless and Kate wondered how he could store so much data
in his mind because he didn’t take any notes.  Between interviews, he discussed their answers with Kate and was always able to reference the employee’s name and quote them, referring back to statistics he had to have garnered from the reports she’d given him earlier in the month
. 

His patience was also endless.  No
matter how many times he’d asked the same question
to various employees
, he genuinely listened to the comments of the workers.  Kat
e
was surprised by some of
their
answers.  She hadn’t realized that so many of their benefits had been dismantled in the past five years.  Apparently David had been a very busy boy
, she thought to herself
.  He’d cut costs, definitely
, by eliminating the benefits for the store employees
.  But he’d done it at the expense of morale which was always a dangerous thing to do.  If the employees weren’t happy, they didn’t treat the customers well.  If the customers weren’t treated better at Jamison’s, they tended to investigate Macy’s or
the other
May
department
stores.  Retail was an extremely competitive industry with customers that were fickle with their loyalty at the best of times.