Take Three (The Jilted Bride #2)(9)

Do I ever?

“No. Did you get the transcript from this morning’s board meeting like I asked?”

“Yes sir…” she toyed with a strand of her hair and looked down at the floor.

“Can you summarize the notes so I can figure out what’s going on?”

“Yes sir. There seem to be some problems with one of the Southern expansion sites. Revenues at this location are decent but they’re the lowest out of all our expansion sites.”

“And?”

“It’s the test store for the new Southern menu items,” she was speaking much slower than normal. “If we’re trying to have them solidified by the end of November, we’ll need to have at least fifty thousand customers’ votes by then. We don’t even have a tenth of that.”

“What’s your point?”

“The board thought we should send someone down there to really investigate what’s going on, kind of like an ‘Undercover Boss’ type thing so—”

“Sounds great,” I started checking my email. “Tell the board to pick one of the high level interns and set up the flight arrangements by the end of the day. Then get me a strategy meeting with whoever they choose.”

“The board chose you sir.”

“What?” I glared at her. “I’m the CEO.”

“They figured that since you keep a low profile and never put your face on any of the company’s documents or websites, you would easily fit in and—”

This is bullshit! This is clearly their way of letting me know that they haven’t forgotten about my exploits in 2010! I can’t believe them and their silly little idea. I refuse to do this.

“Get Barry in here. Now.”

She scuttled out of the room and within seconds Barry walked into my office.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it last night,” he shut the door. “Shouldn’t you be preparing for Hawaii?”

“Jade turned me down,” I opened a drawer and gave my stress ball a few squeezes. “She said she met someone else.”

“Ouch…She really said that? At your birthday party?”

I nodded and knocked her picture off my desk.

“Well, this ought to cheer you up,” he pulled out a sheet of paper and slammed it on my desk. “You’re going to be on the cover of Fortune! You’re officially the entrepreneur of the year! And you’re doing this photo-shoot, whether you like it or not. What did you want with me anyway?”

“I want to know why the board picked me to go down South to play undercover boss. I’m sure there were plenty of other alternatives.”

“Beats me,” he smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

“Barry…”

“Okay, okay. Well, I’m CFO and I had to go on an undercover assignment once, remember?”

I tried to sort through my memories, but I hardly ever paid attention in board meetings, and the only undercover assignments I recalled were completed by groups of interns. I remembered him being in the hospital for three weeks when he went to our test store near the Chesapeake Bay, but I couldn’t remember what happened.

“Umm,” I shrugged. “Vaguely.”

“Do you remember me falling off a rig and getting stung by jellyfish? Ten jellyfish! Do you remember them stinging me on my ass? I couldn’t sit down for two weeks!”

“You suggested this?” I leaned forward in my chair. “Is this your idea of revenge?”

“One of them stung my face! I couldn’t eat anything! You should’ve seen how swollen my lips were! I could barely—”

“You volunteered me didn’t you? Didn’t you!”

“Yes! It was me!”

I sighed. “Why are we still friends, Barry?”

“Because I meet every requirement on your checklist,” he rolled his eyes. “Do you need an intern to help you pack?”

“For a one-week trip? I think I’m more than capable of doing that myself. Thanks. North Carolina has nice stores, right? I’ll just buy whatever I forget.”

“North Carolina? One week?” he bent over laughing. “The newest expansion site is in Fayetteville, Arkansas… And it’s a six week assignment.”

Chapter 5

Selena

I was living in a nightmare.

#Selenaisaslore, #SelenaRosssucks, and #shedidn’tdeserveMatt were all trending on Twitter. I’d officially broken the record for the most mentions in seventy two hours.

The late night TV hosts were brutal. The tabloids, blogs, and former friendly presses were dissecting every moment of my affair with Phillip—comparing our body language on set, deciphering our past interviews, and creating storylines for each and every scandalous picture.

There were numerous paparazzi camped outside my condo, and every couple hours I could hear them shouting, begging for me to make an appearance.

I tried to keep my mind off things by drinking old wine and watching a slew of romantic comedies—Runaway Bride, Sleepless in Seattle, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days—but it was no use. Each time a new set of credits rolled, I remembered I was stuck in reality and almost everyone in America hated me.

What’s worse was that not a single person had called to see how I was doing, how I was coping. I’d wasted countless hours staring at my phone, wondering when someone, anyone, would think to check on me, but my phone never rang.