All of Cassie Storms’ dreams were about to come true. All the hard work for Storms Consolidated, the family multimedia company, the long hours, the fight for the right to do more than the home and gardens section, were about to reach fruition. Her father, Christopher, had called a meeting of the board of directors. The rumor mill said he would be stepping down as chairman and handing over the reins to the most qualified person. Not even Cassie knew for sure, but her gut told her the time had come for him to retire.
She sat in the boardroom, the first one to arrive, waiting for the rest of the members to take their seats and for her dad to make his announcement. She didn’t know for a fact that he’d give her control. After all, her father wasn’t one for personal pats on the back or to reveal his hand, but Cassie had worked harder and longer hours than anyone else.
She was the only family member on staff, her brother, Spencer, roaming Europe under the guise of getting himself together. In reality, he was carrying on with women and hanging out with other … degenerates was too harsh a word. But if there was a mess to be made, her brother tended to make it, and her parents, her father in particular, stepped in to clean things up and sweep them under the rug.
Cassie had always been interested in the media empire started by her paternal grandfather, Alexander, a man Cassie respected and emulated. A man she missed terribly. Ten years ago, he’d been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and had handed his company over to his only child. And Christopher hadn’t been as good a businessman as Alexander had hoped. Alexander passed away long before her father’s choices hurt the company, but Cassie saw. And it broke her heart.
Her grandfather had been more like a parent than her own father, caring about her goals and her choices. She’d promised him she’d work for the company he loved and do great things there, just as he would have. She was determined to keep that promise, no matter how hard her father often made it.
And he did make it tough. Christopher was old-school. He hadn’t understood technology or the impact e-reading and online subscriptions would have on the business. He had no idea how to manage the sheer volume of sources from which the American public now collected its news. He had been too slow to advance with the times, and as a result, Storms Consolidated was in deep trouble.
Maybe her father now understood this and that was why he’d decided to retire. No matter the reason, Cassie already had a plan in place to reposition her beloved grandfather’s company, starting with their technology magazine.
Over the last six months, she’d been creating a portfolio of interviews with high-profile men and women who had made a major impact in the tech world, slowly rebuilding the company’s online presence and streaming the information on social media sites. Something her father had neglected. She hadn’t gotten an interview with everyone she wanted though, because her contacts were limited, due in good part to the magazine’s lack of reach.
Then the idea had come to her. She’d called him and requested a meeting, speaking to his assistant. To her never-ending surprise, Derek West had agreed to see her.
Her stomach fluttered at the thought of seeing him again.
She hadn’t spoken to him since the kiss. Hadn’t seen him since the day he’d been working on the shrubs and had overheard her high school friends belittling his mother and mocking him.
“He’s totally fuckable,” Anna agreed with Trina. “But not the guy you bring home to meet your father. Isn’t that right, Cass?”
She internally agreed, if only because her parents were snobs. But she didn’t want to admit the fact out loud. Derek was listening and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
But her friends pushed.
And Cassie caved. “No, definitely not good enough to bring home to Daddy,” she said, dutifully and as expected.
As she uttered the words, she nearly lost her lunch.
She’d satisfied her bitchy friends … and hit a decent guy where it hurt.
Still, she’d gathered her courage to face him and had shown up that night as he’d asked. She’d planned to apologize. To explain, if she could, about the pressure that went along with being friends with such pushy, mean girls. To tell him more about how she couldn’t wait to go to college and get away from it all, and admit she wanted to make new friends. And if he accepted her apology, she’d hoped to kiss him again.
Years later, her lips still tingled at the gentleness with which he’d touched her that day. The roughness of his lips at odds with the soft kiss.
But Derek had been MIA. He’d left her sitting alone on the lounge chair by the pool, looking over at the guesthouse, wondering if he was watching her through one of the windows.
Laughing at her embarrassment.
She’d deserve it if he had been. Eventually she’d stood, and with one last look at where he lived, she’d walked back inside the house.
A few days later, she’d left for college. She made new friends, nicer girls she felt comfortable with and who made her feel like she fit in. Not people she was stuck with just because they were part of her family’s social circle. She lost touch with Trina and Anna and the others, barely sparing them a thought over the years. Good riddance, she’d believed, on the rare times when they’d crossed her mind.
And over the years, she’d watched Derek West’s sudden, meteoric rise in the tech world, along with his partners, Lucas Monroe and Kaden Barnes. All three were co-creators of Blink, the social media app that had taken the world by storm. She didn’t miss the irony that they’d ended up in the same arena, Cassie focusing on the online tech magazine of Storms Consolidated.
An interview with the most behind-the-scenes partner of Blink would help revitalize the magazine and put them back on the map. She intended to request one.
The sound of footsteps and voices startled Cassie out of her musings. She rose to her feet as the board members walked into the room.
She shook hands with the men and women she’d known most of her life and exchanged small talk as she waited for her father to arrive.
Even this boardroom held good memories for her as a child. Not with her father, he was hardly the doting parent, but with her grandfather. Alexander would often bring her to work with him and let her sit beside him at the head of the table. He’d used a gavel to call meetings to order, and he’d bought her a mini duplicate one so she could emulate him. Even then, she’d known what she wanted to do when she grew up.
Today she would finally have her chance.
Once everyone had filled the room, her father entered, and after he, too, said his hellos, they took their seats. As her dad began to talk about his love for the company, her heart began to race with hope and excitement.