Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love) (11 page)

She’d barely
rolled it back to her desk and sat down when Trent arrived. “Good, you’re here.
Come into my office.”

Unwilling to
leave her chair unprotected so the old witch could steal it again, she brought
it with her.

His furrowed
brow left no doubt of his displeasure. “I have chairs.”

“Yes, you do.
And if I bring this with me, I will too.”

He stared at
her a long moment before responding. “Did you get enough sleep?”

Now that he
mentioned it, her behavior did seem a bit snippy for so early in the morning. No
doubt due to the ugly truth she'd faced during her ride in his limo— she and
Trent were different species and would always be so.

Her lack of an
immediate reply evidently made her boss snippy. “If you want to drag chairs in
with you, then for god sakes choose a black one so it doesn’t give me a
headache.”

“I chose
purple so it would stand out when someone stole it.”

His eyes
rounded in outrage. “And yet, you bring it into my office so no one can.”

“I had no
chair when I came into work. Miss Schell had taken it. So when she waddled off
in search of donuts, I retrieved it. But mark my word, she’ll try again.”

He paused.
“Schnell. The hideous old witch?”

“Of payroll,
yes.”

He grimaced
and massaged his temple. “I may have told her she could use it during your
absence. She went on and on about her back and I just wanted her out of my
sight.”

Carrie planned
to yell at him, but he added, “She threatened to sue me.”

That old bat
would too. Still, Carrie needed to take a stand on this.

“Since this is
the third chair she’s taken from me, I’m keeping this one.”

He ceased his
head massage and stared at her. “Third? What’s she doing with them?”

“I have no
idea, but this chair has both my name etched into it for identification and a
GPS chip for locating it if it should leave the building.”

He rapped his
Montblanc pen like an angry woodpecker. “When did you do this and why didn’t
you tell me?”

“I did it when
my last chair went missing a month before I went off to Taiwan. I’ve suspected
the old troll of stealing our supplies for some time, but an expensive office
chair is a higher degree of theft, so for this, I want incontrovertible proof.

The pen flew
into the air and then clattered to the floor. Trent storm across the room,
snatched it up, and threw it in the trash. “Well then, you’ve wasted
my
money because no one stole your chair.”

“Yet,” she
declared defiantly, outraged that he’d yell at her over the cost of a chair,
which she bought with her own money, when he just threw a $13,500 limited
edition fountain pen in the garbage.

“Nor can they,
if you protect it.” Trent moved around his desk, ripped the chair from her
hands and shoved it out the door. He turned and pointed to the couch. “Sit!”

She took a
seat. While she didn’t appreciate being commanded like a poorly trained puppy,
when Trent channeled his father, all she could do was wait him out. He would
eventually calm and return to sanity. Her chair might disappear by then, but
thankfully, it had a GPS chip.

He grabbed
some papers and sat beside her. “Max Stein called me this morning. He wants to discuss
the chairs we sold him and he didn’t sound happy.”

Now she
understood his surly mood. Max Stein was one of their best customers. “Did he
give you a hint as to why?”

“No, but I’m
taking you with me.” He frowned at her brown slacks and knit top. “Are we
starting the week off ‘casual Friday’?”

God, could she
never get a break? “I thought we’d work on our staffing problem today.”

“Well,
customers come first.” He gathered up all the files and dropped them into his
mega briefcase. “You can run into Macy’s and grab something to impress on our
way.”

As he rushed
out the door, Carrie followed so she could voice her protest. “No, I can’t. Not
until I’m reimbursed for my month’s expenses in Taiwan. My credit cards are
maxed out.”

Trent frowned
as he pushed the button for the elevator repeatedly. “Credit cards don’t have
maxes.”

She covered
the button so he didn’t break the elevator… again. “Normal people’s credit
cards have a limit which they aren’t allowed to exceed.”

“Really? And
what happens if you ignore their stupid rule?” The elevator opened and he held
the door and let her in first.

“They hit you
with a huge fine and disable your card until you rectify the situation.”

“That’s
inconvenient.”

“And worrisome
when you're in a foreign country. I would've been in serious trouble if I got
caught in the cyclone since I couldn’t afford an extension on my hotel room.”

He reached
into his vest and pulled out his slender wallet. He handed her one of his
credit cards. “You may use this in case of emergencies.”

She smiled at
his thoughtfulness but gave it back to him. “It’s against the law to use
someone else’s credit card.”

“It is?”

She nodded.

“Why?” “

“Because when
you use your credit card, you engage in a contract between you and the
provider, in which you agree to pay for the credit you received.”

He glared at
her. “I did mention last night I graduated from Harvard, right? Because you are
presently talking to me like I’m an idiot.”

“I didn’t mean
it that way. It’s just…” She had been talking down to him, not like he was an
idiot, but more like an alien from outer space. “Clearly credit card companies
treat people like you very differently than normal people like me.”

He sighed and
stared up at the ceiling. “So I’m no longer considered ‘normal’?”

She pinched
the bridge of her nose, trying to ward off a headache. “I seem to have foot-in-the-mouth
disease today. Perhaps you should see the client alone. God only knows what I
might say.”

When the
elevator doors opened, he chuckled and pulled her along with him. “I’ll risk
it.”

* * * *

Trent waited
in the car studying the past contracts with the customer while Carrie ran into
Macy’s.

Upon reviewing
the paperwork, he understood Max’s unhappiness. He’d recently bought their
cheapest line of chairs. Trent’s anger at his sales force bloomed into
murderous rage. They couldn’t sell water to a man dying in the desert!

The moment Sam
popped from the car, Trent looked up.

Carrie had
left the limo wearing hideous brown pants that made her look twenty pounds
overweight and a baggy knit shirt that hid her lovely breasts. She limped out
of Macy’s wearing a professional and flattering blue suit with a white silk
blouse.

Sam opened the
door and caught her arm when she almost tumbled into the limo. Trent assisted
her onto her seat and watched her glare at her high heel shoes. “I should never
have let the shoe guy convince me to buy these death traps.”

Of all the
women Trent had dated, not one had ever tripped in heels. Stiletto were a
natural and beautiful extension of their perfect legs and, as far as he could
tell, what they loved most of all in life.

Not so with
Carrie. They proved repeatedly
not
to be a natural extension of her legs
and she left no doubt she hated them as much as they appeared to hate her.

“You can’t
trip while we’re with the customer,” he warned.

“Tell them!”
she snapped and gestured to her lovely shoes.

Hoping to put
her in a better mood, he reached down and pulled her left foot onto his lap.
“Lovely shoe, if you trip my dear EA while she dazzles the client, I will drown
you in the Hudson River, and no one will ever see your spiky heel again.”

Her foot began
to spasm.

She laughed
and extracted it from his lap. “You’ve terrified it into submission. Leave it
alone now.”

“Should I talk
to the other?”

“No. The left
foot has shared your threat and they are both cowed. Thank you for your ever so
helpful intervention.”

He leaned back
and crossed his arms, pleased with a job well done. Carrie’s good mood had
returned. Most of the women he knew would stay angry for days, but not Carrie.
Her natural state seemed to be a happy one.

Life would be
so much nicer if his entire staff preferred a state of happiness to eternal
surliness. “When we interview potential employees, I’m going to tell jokes. If
they don’t genuinely laugh, we won’t hire them.”

She grimaced.
“Test your jokes out on me first. I’d hate to lose a good candidate because you
aren’t funny.”

He was funny
for a non-comedian. “Maybe I should ask Tiny to interview them,” he grumbled.

She burst into
howls of laughter, so contagious, he soon laughed with her. The potential for outrageous
behaviors became endless if Tiny conducted the interviews.

His driver
pulled the car to the side, popped out, and opened the back door, handing
Carrie a clean white handkerchief to dry her eyes.

Sam’s
impersonation of a proper driver baffled Trent. He might have thought the guy
had finally decided to do his job properly, but the call last night assured
him, deep down, Sam hadn't changed. No, his devious driver had something up his
sleeve.

While the
fellow would never give him the deference due his position, at least last night
indicated they had reached some level of détente. However, if he pulled
something involving Carrie, Trent would fire him no matter what promises he’d
made to his father.

Stupid request
anyway. Why would his father care if he fired a driver or not? Why did that
require a deathbed promise? The old man had some compelling reason, which
naturally, he didn’t share with Trent.

He studied the
dark-haired driver as he assisted Carrie from the car. Sam had to know why he
received a lifetime job, but Trent doubted he’d share the information.

Sam’s hand gripped
Carrie’s arm. Not unreasonable given the ongoing war with her shoes. But he
still didn’t like it.

He climbed out
without assistance, not that Sam offered. His driver continued to hold on to
Carrie’s arm. Was he hitting on her?

He wouldn’t
dare.

Trent pressed
his hand to Carrie’s back and moved her away from his disturbing, contentious, fire-resistant
driver.

He should’ve
asked his father
why
Sam required a job for life. Had he, the old man
would've responded with a lecture that a Lancaster never explains his actions.

As a possible
answer came to mind, Trent stumbled across the lobby and Carrie had to grab his
arm.

“Shall I
threaten your shoes for you?” she asked.

He forced a
smile to his face, as acid burned his stomach lining. Sam must have something
on his father that would embarrass the family name.

***

When Max
rolled out a two-legged chair for inspection, Carrie took charge, first asking
if anyone had been hurt.

Her sincere
concern distracted Max from his anger. He chuckled and told of an incident that
left a vocal Director of the Board tipped over and rattled. “Fred wasn’t hurt,
but it did shut him up so we could vote and end the meeting. Still, I’m worried
one of my employees could get hurt.”

She nodded in
agreement then went into a technical discussion of why the chair failed. Once
she explained that the low cost chair he’d bought didn’t work in conference
rooms, Carrie followed with how they could solve his problem.

Trent watched
in amazement as she up-sold the man to proper director chairs made to endure
the strain of heavy men leaning back for hours. She offered to credit the full
cost he’d paid for the other chairs off a discounted price for their best
director chairs.

He quickly did
the math in his head and realized the price she offered still left them with a
profit, only a bit lower than normal.

Max seemed
delighted with solution. “I’d like to buy the same upscale chairs for all my
employees.”

Carrie touched
his arm. “Your employees would be happier with a lesser-cost chair made
specifically for them. I have one myself and it’s the best chair I’ve ever
worked in.”

When they left
the customer, they not only had a new contract worth $280,000, but they had
turned a dissatisfied customer into a happy one, now more loyal to Lancaster
Chairs than ever.

The moment she
followed Trent into the limo, he ruffled her hair.

“Hey!” She
ducked away and swatted at his hand.

He leaned
back, feeling life had turned itself right again. “I should make you head of
sales. You kicked ass in there.”

She smiled as
she retrieved a brush from her purse and detangled her hair. “He had a real
issue. Hal, or whichever sales guy Hal stole the contract from, sold them the
wrong chairs.”

“I agree and
thought your solution pure brilliance. When we get our new staff, I want you to
teach the sales people how to sell.”

“Does that
mean we can focus on getting our HR person now?”

“Absolutely.”

She turned to
Sam and gave him an address.

Instead of
waiting for Trent to approve it, Sam headed off to his new destination.

So much for
pretending to be the perfect driver. Sam did whatever he damn well pleased. What
did the guy have on his father to warrant a guaranteed job? Honestly, he would
have expected his father to hire an assassin if anyone dared try to blackmail
him.

Maybe he let
Sam live because the cretin had only asked for a job. He received the same pay
as the driver before him, and he could handle a car better than anyone. So said
the Driving Academy, at least.

Maybe Sam
hadn’t blackmailed his father. Maybe Sam’s father had saved his old man from
certain death during battle. Yeah, it had to be something like that. Otherwise,
his father wouldn’t have extracted a promise to continue Sam’s employment for
life. He would’ve just died and let Trent suffer whatever embarrassment landed
at his door.