Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
For now, I couldn’t wait to get her alone in Vegas. The office was back in full swing after the holidays, and we were leaving tomorrow.
“I’ve finalized our travel arrangements,” Morgan said, standing in my office.
Unfortunately, her father was at her side, so there was zero chance of spreading her out on my desk and fucking her the way I’d been fantasizing about after not seeing her for the past week.
“This is exciting,” Samuel said, giving his daughter’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “With this being the first time GalvaTech has attended the Consumer Electronics Show, I can only imagine the level of exposure we will receive.”
I smiled at his enthusiasm. “It’s definitely the beginning of a new chapter for the company.” I checked the time on my phone before lifting my gaze back to Morgan. “I’m heading out for the day. Simon asked me to meet with him this afternoon, but I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow.”
Her smile and nod were nothing but professional, but her gaze simmered with the same eager anticipation I was feeling about having some quality time to ourselves in Vegas.
I left GalvaTech, and as I walked into our firm, Simon’s newest assistant glared at me from behind her desk, frazzled and visibly irritated. I greeted her, and she muttered something beneath her breath I didn’t quite catch, but I knew was not complimentary toward my brother. At this rate, Simon was going to burn through every qualified candidate in the city and would have to function without help entirely.
The door to Simon’s office was open, so I strolled in to find him frowning at his computer screen. He looked up when he heard my footsteps, and a muscle in his jaw ticked.
“Is another one about to bite the dust?” I asked, jerking my thumb toward the door behind me.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, completely oblivious to the very unhappy woman outside his office.
“Your latest assistant,” I said, dropping into one of the chairs in front of his desk. “She looks like she’s about to quit and key your car on the way out.”
“She’s fine,” he scoffed.
“She not fine,” I countered. “She looked at me like you were personally responsible for ruining her life. What did you do this time?”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said defensively. “She double booked me for two separate meetings this morning, then forwarded an internal email chain, with my notes, to the actual client. Every damn comment. Including the one where I said his proposal ‘needed divine intervention’.”
I had to swallow back my laughter, because I knew this was serious stuff for Simon. I also knew he’d probably driven the poor woman to the brink with all his demands and she hadn’t been thinking straight.
“She’s been here two weeks,” he went on, scrubbing a hand over his face like the weight of her incompetence physically pained him. “She should be able to handle basic tasks by now.”
I arched a brow. “It’s not easy when you’re barking orders without so much as a ‘please’ or ‘thank you’.”
“I don’t have time for pleasantries,” he said, his tone annoyed. “This is business, not a social club.”
I huffed out a quiet breath. I’d heard this argument from him enough times to know logic wasn’t going to get through to him. “It’s also not a revolving door, but you’ve gone through, what, three assistants already in the last six months?”
“Four,” he corrected without a hint of shame. “And the common denominator isn’t me. It’s their inability to keep up. But we have bigger problems right now. We need to talk.”
The abrupt change in his tone, from irritated to concern, caught my attention. “Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling about whatever this problem is?”
He turned his laptop around and pushed it forward so that I could see what was on the screen. I scanned the most recent profit and loss statement from GalvaTech. I’d already reviewed the report yesterday when it hit my own inbox, and everything seemed fine to me.
I glanced up at him, unsure what the issue was. “Okay, what am I missing?”
“Look closer,” Simon said, his tone insistent. “It’s subtle.”
This was Simon’s specialty. I was decent with numbers, but my strength was in business management and working directly with the companies we invested in. Simon, however, excelled at dissecting financials, and his keen eye had saved us from bad investments more than once.
So, I leaned in, scrutinizing the figures and finally saw the subtle decline in capital. He was right. Something was off.
I glanced back at him. “The money we invested is going out fast,” I said.
“Way too fast,” Simon agreed, reclaiming the laptop. “Based on the projected budget and allocation of funds to each department we’d forecasted, it doesn’t add up.”
I dragged a hand through my hair. “At this rate, our investment will be gone well before the launch even happens. But is this legitimate? Could it just be expenses in areas we hadn’t anticipated?”