A Mess of a Man (Cruel & Beautiful #2)(70)

“Thanks for understanding.”

“There’s nothing to understand.”

After he ends the call, I sit and worry. Since when did I become so freaked over a guy? I never was like this before. Is this telling me that I care for him more than I realize? And then I become aware of the fact that I didn’t mention dinner at my parents to him. Great. I don’t want to call him back, because he doesn’t need this added demand on his plate. But if I don’t ask him, my mom and sister will hound me to death and I’ll end up telling them I didn’t ask. So I make the hasty decision and call him back.

“Sam? Everything okay?”

“Not exactly.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s my mom and my sister. They’ve done some finagling and want us to come to dinner tomorrow night.”

Dead silence greets me.

“You don’t have to come. I know it’s …”

“I want to. I was just trying to figure out in my head if it would work. The timing and all.”

“Ben, I know things at work are rough.”

“That’s why it took me so long to answer. And then I have that thing with Karen that I need to figure out.”

“Oh, right.”

“I hate to ask this, but can I tell you tomorrow?”

“Sure. I told my mom it may not work. That’s not a problem.”

“But I would love to meet your family. If not this time then some other time.”

“Okay. G’night, Ben.”

And I notice he’s managed to put a smile back on my face. But it disappears when I think about why he can’t come to my parents and I want to unleash my Kraken and bitch slap the everlovin’ hell out of that whack job Karen.





I’ve barely hung up with Sam when Mark breezes in my office. “Tell me, what’s the damage.”

“It’s not that bad.” He hands me a paper.

“So what’s this mean?” I see the numbers and figures, but I want him to tell me what’s not on the paper.

“Less than ten percent of our clients have that particular mutual fund in their portfolio mix. Most of our clients have a mutual fund from that company, but not that particular one.”

“That’s good.”

He grins which catches me by surprise. Mark has been in the dumps for weeks and seeing him smile when he’s not blitzed off his rocker is new.

“It’s even better.”

“Okay.”

“During the last few days, that company has made money for our clients. Not huge amounts, but they didn’t lose any. That hedge fund was such a small segment of their investment mix, the other performing investments absorbed the blow.”

My mood lightens. “Fucking great news.” I can already envision the words I can say to Karen to watch her smug smile disappear off her face.

“All right, have someone prepare an analysis for each of the other clients involved. Then have them work on a narrative for each in layman’s terms.”

Mark nods and leaves my office without preamble.

“Ben.” I glance up and see Trudy, my father’s admin at my door. “Your father has a meeting in fifteen minutes I wasn’t able to reschedule. I left messages that weren’t returned and the potential client has shown up for their meeting time.”

“Okay, send me Dad’s notes. In fact, can you print them out? Sit the client in the small conference room and have Dad’s presentation cued up on the computer. Tell them I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

She nods. Dad is always prepared, so I have no doubt that he has everything laid out ready to go. I start to get up from my desk when the human resources manager breezes into my office.

“Have no fear, you’re the boss now.”

I chuckle at her joke.

“What’s up?” I sit back in my chair, knowing I don’t have a lot of time. However, Janice won’t leave before she has her say.

“I’ve been dealing with an issue with your father.”

“And?”

“There have been some complaints from a few people about the number of breaks smokers get versus non-smokers.”

I groan, letting my head fall back while pushing hair off my forehead.

“People issues are the number one problem in a company.”

“I get that, but this sounds petty, even to me.”

“On the surface I can see that. But I’ve clocked the people being accused and they are taking excessive breaks.”

I’m dumbstruck for a second. “So we’re resorting to spying on people now.”

“Mr. Rhoades, these issues can lead to lawsuits.”

There’s that word again. No wonder people think this country is sue happy.

“Fine, what do we do?”

“I just need you to approve me sending out this communication to all employees about the Federal and State guidelines in regards to breaks.”

“Can you send it to me via e-mail and I’ll get back to you?” I ask, getting up from my desk.

“Fine, but I’d like to have this out today.”

I nod. After she leaves, I scrub a hand over my face. When I look again, Lisa is there.

“You’re messing with your hair again. Maybe you should get it cut.”