“Good, and push the negotiations to two. The other side, Gadd, didn’t want to meet up that early anyway, so let them know first.” I got up and moved to sit behind my desk.
“And Morrison? What am I supposed to tell him?” she asked.
I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. “Did you read his email? The one he sent this morning?”
She nodded.
“Well, tell him we need to do more research on the new company he wants to invest twenty million in. I want to get both the negotiations and the new investment deal taken care of today. He won’t mind the delay if we have everything ready.”
“Okay. What about the rest of your schedule? We’ll need to push everything back. You have a five PM call with Gilbert—you can’t miss that today.”
“Fine. I’ll leave the office at eleven. I can get through my ten-thirty call by then, and I’ll come back around one-thirty for the meeting so push it to then instead. That way I’ll be done with Morrison and Gadd by the time I need to be on the phone with Gilbert. If everything goes as planned, we’ll have Gadd sign the final papers at the end of the meeting and I’ll be ready for the call with Gilbert. I’ll stay late and catch up, don’t worry.”
“Okay, I can work with that. Where did you say you were going again?”
“I didn’t say. Close the door, please, and don’t forget to bring me those documents.”
When I lifted my head up from my laptop, Cynthia was already gone.
An hour later, when I was going through the documents, making sure everything was ready for the meeting, Samantha appeared at my door. I glanced at Cynthia’s desk, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Wanting to get it over with, I was the one who engaged her. “What do you want, Samantha? I need to go over these before I leave.”
She shrugged and took my question as an invitation to walk in and sit across from me. “Something is not right with you—or maybe I should say something has changed.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ve been leaving early.”
“And that’s your business because…?”
“You’re the last one to leave here, every day.”
“And now I’m not.” I put down the papers in my hands. “What do you want?”
She lifted her hands in surrender, her red lips curving up. “Nothing. I’m just making conversation and sharing my observations.”
“What gave you the impression that I would be interested in your observations? I’m not going to explain myself to you. Do you need something from me?”
“Not really. I had a little free time so I’m just chatting with you. How is your lovely wife?”
If it had been someone else sitting across from me, they would’ve tucked their tail between their legs and left already, but Samantha wasn’t like other people. She had never been scared of me, and I thought maybe it was time to change that.
“If you pull the same shit you pulled at dinner again, we’ll have problems.”
“Excuse me?”
“What you did at dinner—I’m letting you know if it happens again, we’ll have problems.”
“It’s going to be like that, huh?”
“Cut the crap and don’t act like you care about my life or my wife. We know each other pretty well by now, I’d think. You know I don’t like having people in my business, so stay out of it.”
Cynthia stuck her head in, interrupting before Samantha could give a response. “Did you call me, Jack?”
I hadn’t, but Cynthia knew the trick. If there was someone in my office she was sure I wouldn’t want there, she always ran interference. “Yes, I need you to get me the—”
Samantha rose to her high-heeled feet and I paused midsentence. “I’ll leave you to your work. I didn’t mean any harm, Jack, truly—not that night, and not just now. I’m simply pointing out that you’ve changed, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. Plus, I was curious, obviously.”
When she realized I wasn’t going to answer, she released a long sigh, turned around, and gave Cynthia a smile before walking out of my office.
“You need anything?” Cynthia asked, and I shook my head. She left without another word. She was the best assistant in the entire firm.
Done with the papers, I got on with my ten-thirty call, and we wrapped up at a quarter past eleven. Rising, I put on my suit jacket and called Raymond so he could bring the car around front.