Lost and Found (Growing Pains #1)(43)

“I’ll bet. Did he meet the others?”

“Briefly. I didn’t want to scare him too badly.”

“Well, usually I call him Mr. Montgomery, but when he is being an ass, or stubborn or whatever, I call him Fatty. It’s what the girl who trained me always called him.”

“Ah.” He laughed and bowed his head. After a moment, his grin faded. “Right. Business.” Suddenly everything changed. His focus was razor-sharp, his mannerisms were fluid but honed, and his eyes probed her with intensity.

Chapter Nine

“You are disgruntled and you don’t trust me. First, let’s go over why you are disgruntled.”

“Uh …” Krista had to downshift. She leaned forward on the bar, collected her thoughts, and then paused. Yeah, she was disgruntled, but she didn’t really want to air her dirty laundry in a public forum.

Sean waited patiently. He wanted her to take the first step.

“It’s growing into kind of a long list,” she stalled.

He nodded once. No surprise in his countenance. Apparently he wasn’t daunted. “Just start at the beginning, then.”

Well, here goes…

“Okay, well, firstly the presentation was a shambles.”

“How so?”

“How so? You rudely didn’t introduce me. Then you and your lackey sat back and admired the view like a couple’a sleazeballs. You didn’t even hide the fact that you were looking at all the available skin rather than focusing on, oh I don’t know, the presentation I was doing? Then you made me answer a question you knew very well you should have been answering. Finally, adding insult to injury, or at least insult to grievance, you ushered me out halfway through the meeting. I looked like a useless stat rat to the clients, never mind the rest of the team that already hated me. You would have never done that to my boss!”

She marveled at how quickly she’d gotten riled up. Since she was on a roll, she was about to go on when Sean held up his hand to stop her.

“I didn’t realize your list was so well organized,” Sean said pensively. “Why didn’t you throw this at me yesterday?”

“I was really, really hung over yesterday.”

“Did you get in and decide to talk to me, or was it something you’d planned?”

“I’d decided I had to on Friday—not true. My friends decided I had to on Friday, and after I couldn’t find a reason to disagree, I had to jump on board. It was a long weekend.”

“Well, hopefully after today you’ll know that you shouldn’t be worried or nervous to speak with me. We are a team now. If you have any problems, any at all, I want you to feel comfortable coming to me. Or at the very least, Ray.”

“Hopefully after today you’ll know that there is a certain way, a professional way, that I expect to be treated, and I will not tolerate anything else.”

“Touché. Okay. Let me hit your first points before we move on.”

“Thinking I’ll forget the rest of my grievances?” Krista smiled.

“Yesterday I would have said yes. Now…I’ll make sure you’re hung over when I try to get one over on you.”

“Hmm.”

“Well, first, you’re right on all counts, and if you weren’t...ah, irritated by these issues, it would prove to me that you didn’t care all that much about your work. Your boss wouldn’t have minded my not introducing him, or being asked to leave early. Actually, he would have thanked me for the latter.

“I would apologize for playing you false, but I won’t, because I wouldn’t really mean it. I didn’t introduce you because I wanted to show you as your own sector. Your department is always set aside from the rest of the company, just like most of the financial sector and occasionally IT. The difference is finance and IT don’t interact with clients. They do their own thing, and we do our own thing. The presidents and VP’s bring it all together. Your department, though, is greatly needed, but also greatly feared ...” He paused to think how to go on.

“Feared?”

Sean nodded, “Greatly feared because the presentations are dry and usually miss the mark. The presenters themselves are terrible at communicating with anything but robots. It just doesn’t work for our clients. Which are human, by the way.”

She ignored that last dig. On the humor circuit, he could do better.

Krista’s Guinness showed up, along with another for Sean. She looked at him with raised eyebrows. He caught the look. “I can drink a lot of Guinness. My grandparents are Irish bar owners. I’ve spent a lot of time in the pub shooting the shit and drinking Guinness. Anyway--”

“Wait...” she held up a hand to stop the proceedings. “You are American. Your parents are Australian. But your grandparents are Irish?”

“Uh...yeah, so my dad was first generation Australian. His parents were born in Ireland, but met while they were each traveling in Australia, stayed until my dad was 18, then went back to Ireland. My dad stayed and met my mom. She is 100% Australian. My dad got a job offer in the U.S., my mom followed. I came later. We are still close to both sets of grandparents.”

“Ah. Colorful ethnic tree.”

“Anyway, where was I...ah yes, your unfortunate department. If it had been anyone else, I would have treated your presentation like I did all the others--which is to say, keep it flowing and keep the clients interested. They were men, though, and you a young, attractive, well-groomed woman. Interest wasn’t a problem.”