Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
“This…this is all amazing, but I’m not sure why you believe I am a fit here, other than the fact that I’m a gay man.”
Danielle made a dismissive noise. “Being a gay man only helps you about this much.” She lifted her hand to show her thumb and index finger held about an inch apart. “It gives you real-world insight that a straight man wouldn’t likely have. No, the main reason I’m interested in you is your college education combined with your experience at Courtland Enterprises.” She leaned forward and picked up a piece of paper that looked like it was a copy of my résumé, but I couldn’t imagine how she’d gotten her hands on it. “You got your bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati with a double major in business management and marketing. Then got your master’s from Xavier University. Both times, you finished with a GPA of 3.8. You had a couple of other jobs for smaller firms working in their marketing department before getting hired on at Courtland Enterprises, where you worked for just over three years. Why don’t you tell me about this proposal that Courtland is implementing to save its ass?”
I had to bite the inside of my cheek at her snarky tone, but I got myself under control and launched into a lengthy description of my process for developing my idea and how I’d worked with the other departments to gather the financial proof I’d needed to show that it was a viable idea.
From there, Danielle ran me through a variety of initiatives that I’d worked on. After a short time, I no longer needed her to prompt me. The interview gremlin in my brain finally fucking woke up and remembered how to sell me and my skills. She’d slipped us straight into an interview without making it feel like I was being interviewed.
Two hours flashed by in the blink of an eye. I stopped only to take a sip of my now-lukewarm tea to wet my painfully dry mouth after so much talking.
“So, what you’re telling me is that you have experience working with multiple departments to organize and spearhead long-term initiatives to meet goals by a set deadline. You can design and stick to a strict budget. And you have no problem dealing with people from all levels of a business.”
“Yes.”
“And since you worked for my son, I know you are an expert at handling frantic, impulsive, idea-driven people who just might have a tendency to flit from one shiny thing to the next.”
“Um…yes.” That was a frighteningly accurate description of her son. However, Sebastian could focus and worked very hard at getting tasks done even when he was haunted by shiny new things.
“Good. I need a COO. We’ve never had one. I’ve overseen everything and I have presidents who oversee the workings of the individual charities, but I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy the managing part as much. I am a big ideas and big plans person. What we need is someone to manage the general operations of everything. To direct this giant ship to keep my crazy ideas from steering us toward an iceberg. Someone who will tell me no.” She paused, a smirk growing on her lips. “I know for a fact that you told Sebastian no plenty of times, stopping him from running off with new and crazy ideas.”
Heat burned my cheeks. I had told Sebastian no many times as his assistant, but not nearly enough times as the man he was dating. But I pushed through my embarrassment to tackle something a little uglier.
“Mrs. Courtland—”
“Danielle.”
I nodded. “Danielle, I don’t know what Sebastian has told you about my situation, but I will freely admit that I need a job. Badly. This would help me out tremendously and I think I would enjoy working here, but I don’t want a job offer that has been made out of guilt or pity.”
“Oh, no, not at all. I asked you here because I think you’re best suited for this position. My charity is important to me, but I’m not about to hand it over to someone to run into the ground because I feel bad for that person.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your honesty.”
Danielle rose and walked to her desk to pick up a thick packet of papers. She brought them to the sitting area and handed them to me. “This contains all the details of the job position. The list of expectations is long, but I am confident that you can handle it. There is also a detailed list of the pay and benefits for the position. I’ve also included an overview of the charities, what we’ve done during the past several years, how they’ve performed, and some rough ideas of how I’d like to expand in the future. My direct phone number and email are in there. Take a couple of days to review everything. Give me a call or shoot me an email if there’s anything you have questions about. We’ll discuss it. If possible, I would love to get an answer from you by Friday about whether you’ll accept my offer.”