Sisters by Choice (Blackberry Island #4)(48)

“What?” he asked, holding out his hand to pull her to her feet.

“I was thinking that I want to eat more than I want to have sex. What does that say about me?”

“That you haven’t eaten in a long time. You’re working a hundred hours a week, barely sleeping, and one day you’re going to crash. Sex is great, but sometimes you need a sandwich, as well.”

She sat down at the kitchen table and thought maybe he was right. About the food part, not the impending crash.

“I’m very resilient,” she said as she took the sandwich he offered.

“Everyone has a breaking point.”

“Why are you so negative?”

“I’m factual. There’s a difference.”

She rolled her eyes and took a bite of the sandwich. As she chewed, she popped open the can of soda and took a long drink.

“You’re always giving me advice and butting into my business. Why is that?”

“I like you.” He gave her a lazy smile. “Besides, it’s kind of my thing. I can’t help myself.”

“You should let it go. Everything is fine.”

“Did you hire an office manager?”

“No. There aren’t any good candidates.”

“I find that hard to believe. Did you actually read their résumés and conduct interviews or did you go through the motions with your mind on something else?”

How did he know? It was like the man could see inside her head and she didn’t like it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, taking another bite of her sandwich.

“Liar.” His tone was gentle. “The employment agency would only have sent you qualified people. Go through the résumés again and hire one of them.”

“Someone bad isn’t better than no one.”

“Usually, I would agree with you, but in your case anyone is better than no one. An office manager will get the rest of the positions filled. While I applaud your success, building CK Industries from nothing to what it is today, you’re not exactly a poster child for good management practices.”

She wadded up her napkin and threw it at him. “You don’t get to say that.”

“All evidence to the contrary? Accept it, Sophie. You’re a hard worker and you’re smart, but running a business takes more than that. You don’t have magical powers. It would be better for everyone if you stopped acting like you did.”

She knew he was right. Maybe. “I liked you better when I thought you were just a pretty face.”

He grinned. “I’m sure you did.”

  Heather told herself there was no reason to be nervous. She’d done the work, she knew the material, she was fine. But even as she moved to the next slide in her PowerPoint presentation, she felt her throat closing just enough to make it hard to speak.

She’d worked the better part of the week to get everything right. Elliot had asked her to break down the digital marketing plan by type—static ads versus video ads—along with where they were placed. She knew he was trying to get Sophie to move the advertising in-house rather than outsourcing it and her report would be part of his pitch.

Heather had worked well into the night, collecting information and dissecting charts and graphs. She knew the click-through rate of every ad for the past six months and had started dreaming about cat toys and CK-branded pet food in her sleep. Impressing Elliot seemed unlikely but if she could show him she was at least a little helpful, she was hoping he would keep her on in her current position.

“As you can see, any video is more successful than any static ad,” she said, hoping the tremor in her voice wasn’t audible. “Ranking the videos by the amount of interaction, the ones with real cats as opposed to cartoon cats do much better.”

She moved to the next slide. “However, there is a higher cost associated with the live cat videos. They take a long time to produce.”

Sophie nodded. “Cats aren’t known to be cooperative. Is there information on the cat videos versus the kitten videos? I’m sure there was a kitten video that was just a bunch of cute kittens playing with a voice-over of whatever it was we were selling. What about something like that? We could get a camera crew in to film the kittens and then use the footage to sell whatever we want. Everyone loves kittens.”

Elliot made a note on a legal pad. “Let’s discuss that after we get through the deck.”

“But kittens, Elliot.”

“But information, Sophie.”

She sighed. “Fine.”

“We’re almost done,” Heather said quickly. “Just two more slides.”

She went through them faster than she would have liked, but she could tell Sophie was getting restless. The deck had been sixty slides long. Was that too much? Had she gone into more detail than necessary? She was just about to ask when Sophie bounced to her feet.

“That was great,” she said, smiling at Heather. “I’m super impressed with what you’re doing.”

“Thanks.” Heather glanced at Elliot but, as usual, his expression was unreadable. Her boss was never mean or curt, but he wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, either. She worried that she was always disappointing him.

Sophie waved cheerfully before ducking out of Elliot’s office. Heather watched her go, then looked at her boss.