Page 38 of Off Limits (Alpha Billionaire)

“Don’t. Let the dinosaurs spin themselves into retirement. He had a question I don’t even think you have a direct answer for. You’ll need to reach out to your contact. If he didn’t email you the details of his question, that’s on him. But what I got from everything yesterday is that he had concerns over the numbers on page ten.”

As we talked, I opened the presentation document. Page ten was a spreadsheet of cost analysis. I had read it multiple times. I couldn’t even begin to second-guess what Thompson could have questions on.

“Thanks, I’ll handle it from here.” I ended the call. It would have been good to have a firmer idea of what the situation was before I called Thompson. It would have been easier to keep him on track.

By the time I got him on the phone, whatever had been bothering him seemed to be forgotten. He was perfectly pleasant with me. And then he started to insult ‘the girl in your office’. I decided dealing with Thompson over how he treated Sarah would serve as a warm-up session for when I spoke with Ryan.

“Look, I get it, you’re from an older generation. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to be an ass to my assistant. Just because I am also a man, it doesn’t mean I’m going to sit by while you are sexist and demeaning to a very capable business woman.”

“If you continue to speak to me in this manner, I will see that we pull funding,” he rumbled.

“No,” I said. “You won’t. Because if you were to do that, I’d have to bring up your behavior with your board. Katherine Newton is the current president over there, isn’t she?”

Thompson made more grumbling sounds.

“The Old Boys’ network isn’t how I get things done around here, and I’d appreciate it if you kept that in mind when dealing with my assistant. Yelling at her doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t in the office, and had you emailed me your question, I could have given Carmichael a call, and instead of getting the details of your concern, I could have been providing clarification.”

The call ended with him complaining about my slack work ethic.

My ‘slack work ethic’ was going to make that man and his colleagues a lot of money. I was beginning to think Robertson was right. The dinosaurs of the business world needed to retire.

I stared at the phone on my desk for a good long while before I picked it up and dialed Ryan Carmichael’s number.

“Anderson! Tell me you are calling to find out where to FedEx the signed paperwork.”

I let out a bitter chuckle. “I would presume to your office.”

“I am living the life of a digital nomad these days. My office is my laptop and my phone.”

“What happened to your headquarters in San Francisco?” I asked. It was better to grease the wheels of this conversation with friendly chatter before I got into the weeds with a confrontation.

“Oh, it’s still there. I’m not. I’ll be back next week. In the meantime, I’m out in the world collecting ideas and enjoying getting the same work done without the limits of office walls.”

“Sounds like the life. Look, I have a question about…” I proceeded to get into the details that had wound Thompson into a snit.

We spent a good hour number crunching. I asked every side question I could possibly think that Thompson would bring up. I made Ryan run through those numbers forward and backward until I felt that there was no possible way to be any clearer.

“I think this will set the ball rolling,” I said. “Look, before I let you go, I should let you know that I spoke with Jessica. She told me about your history.”

“That’s not going to be a problem, is it?” he asked.

“Are you going to make it a problem?” I countered.

“She told you everything?” Ryan started. “She mentioned that she worked for me?”

“Yes, and that you had an affair. And that working for you was why she no longer works in corporate spaces.”

“Did she now? So I guess that means she also told you all about working for the competition and passing their secrets to me?”

I swallowed hard. No, she had not, but she had told me he'd coerced her into doing things she wasn’t proud of. I was going to take this as what she was talking about.

“She told me everything. That doesn’t change things between us. Me and her, and your dealings with my company. I just thought you should know there are no tricks to be had.”

I spent the rest of the day focusing on getting the deal pushed through. Jessica hadn’t given me all the details, but she was scared. I promised I would back her up, that she could trust me. I needed to follow through on that.

“Don’t stay too late, boss,” Sarah called out with obvious sarcasm as I passed her desk closer to the end of the day, my bag already over my shoulder.

“Seeing how the boss wasn’t here at all yesterday, I figure he can let thirty minutes slide,” I joked.

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