Page 29 of Daddy's Dirty Little Secret

15

XANDER

The call rang through to voicemail at least four times, and I had all but given up trying to reach Mr. John Smith—the man I’d met for dinner that turned out to be a very awkward glass of wine shared over a tense table. After several days of client calls and meetings where I’d been shot down every time, I was following up on a few prospective clients I hadn’t gotten confirmation out of yet.

The phone lay on my desk facing up, screen alight with Mr. Smith’s number scrolling across it as it rang through. I wasn’t holding my breath. I knew when he gave me his name, it was most likely an alias, and I didn’t expect much from it. And after the strange way I saw him sneaking a look at my phone over the table, I didn’t know if we would even make a good fit. What I did know was that direct sales through our website for our project management software were our golden ticket item right now, and the days of handling clients’ individual builds seemed to be fading. I hated it.

“Hello?” I heard, but it wasn’t the voice of a man. From the sounds of it, it was an older woman.

“Hello, yes, my name is Xander Blackwell, calling from Next Gen Solutions. I’m calling to speak with Mr. John Smith. Is he available?” I paused long enough to click the phone over to normal mode and picked it up. When I pressed it to my ear she was already speaking.

“…Mr. Blackwell, but I’m not sure I know a John Smith. My name is Harriett Gershom. I live here alone.” The shake in her voice betrayed her age, probably some eighty-something widow whose husband had passed on years ago, and now she lived alone hoping her kids would come to visit.

“My apologies, Ms. Gershom, I was given this number by mistake.” My tone remained pleasant, but my inner calm was rankled. I scowled at nothing in particular and let my shoulders drop.

I’d had four rejections already this morning, and though I somewhat expected this, it felt like another blow to the gut.

John Smith had been a long shot anyway. The last follow-up call I had was to Gerard Millet, who may or may not have signed with one of my competitors by now. He was leaning that way anyway, and I didn’t have any wiggle room in the budget to undercut any of them. Laurence kept our profits tight in order to pay our team what they deserved. It was more than enough cushion for me, considering I had a cushy salary, but at times like this it punched me in the gut.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Blackwell. I do hope you find the person you’re looking for.” Harriett sounded like a sweet old lady, but she wasn’t the sort to be in the market for a website or app build.

“Good day, Ms. Gershom,” I told her before hanging up.

This crappy situation had started to wear me down mentally, on top of several other large stressors I’d been carrying around. Dad insisted I meet his latest fling, and dinner hadn’t gone well with them. Turned out Candy was years younger than I even thought and probably believed Dad was oozing money based onhis designer suits and flashy car with driver. A gold digger if I ever met one, but try to tell my father that.

Still, I wasn’t a quitter. And I wasn’t going to let these rejections get me down. Worst-case scenario, I would have to go to Laurence and have him coach me on how he roped clients in hordes. If that didn’t work, the entire focus of our business would have to change, which wasn’t something I looked forward to telling our team.

With renewed determination, I dialed Gerard Millet’s number and held the phone to my ear. The last time we talked, he had mentioned ProForge or Tacticon and their lower prices. I prayed at the time that Next Gen’s quality would shine over both of my lesser-known competitors, but Gerard hadn’t confirmed with me.

The phone rang through to his secretary, whose chipper voice annoyed me. “Millet and Sons, how may I direct your call?”

“Yes, Gerard please. Tell him Xander Blackwell is calling from Next Gen.” I sat straighter, leaned over my desk rubbing my forehead with my thumb and forefinger. Gerard took his good time getting to me, and when he answered he sounded rushed.

“Yes, Blackwell, how’s it going?” There were voices in the background, this call taken on the fly. He wasn’t expecting me, clearly.

“Mr. Millet, I’m doing fine. How are you today?” The tension in my body wouldn’t let me relax. I was starting to get a complex, feeling like a total failure at this job with as many contracts as I had lost in the past nine months.

“I’m doing alright, Xander. What can I do for you?” He was playing coy, nonchalant like he didn’t know what I wanted, when he knew darn well I needed him to commit to me.

“I’m calling to follow up with you after our meeting a few weeks ago. Did you decide on a final design for the app build?”I knew one of the tricks was to direct them toward a decision about the project, not to ask them directly if they were choosing to go with my company. It didn’t work though. He sighed hard, and I felt like I was the one annoying him now.

“Listen, Xander, I tried. I have the board breathing down my neck and investors chirping about every red cent. ProForge offered us almost a 40 percent discount over what you were able to give. I had to go with them. You understand, it’s just business.”

“Just business,” I repeated, careful not to take a tone with him. “I do hope your build goes well and that your app is successful. If you need a good UX team to demo their work, I’m your man.” My heart sank like the Titanic.

“Sure thing. Thanks for understanding.” He hung up before I did. I sat back in my seat and let the phone drop to my lap. Another call, another deathblow to my confidence. What was I doing wrong to let so many clients slip through my fingers? Laurence had no problems getting people to pay a bit more money for the professionalism and higher quality service we provided.

I was too on edge, too frustrated to sit here and think about work stuff anymore. If Amelia hadn’t already gone home for the day, I’d have had her bent over my desk with her butt in the air, but she mentioned taking her dad some dinner, and I didn’t want to intrude on a father-daughter moment. I knew how he’d been struggling, how concerned she’d been. I didn’t, however, want to sit here a second longer and stew over things. It would only make me more tense and my need for release grow.

I grabbed my wallet and house key, put on my suit jacket, stuffed my things in my pocket, and then started toward the elevators. I made a habit every day of passing by offices with doors open and shutting them. I heard once that it lessened therisk of fire spreading through a building quickly, and ever since then, it had been my normal thing.

When I saw Godwin’s office door cracked, I scowled at it and walked over there, reaching for the handle. Everything about the man irritated me and reminded me of how cozy he and Amelia got while working, like a bug crawled under my skin and into my ear whispering invasive thoughts meant to anger me. The intrusive thoughts didn’t help my focus at work or the way I felt about myself after my long day. And when I peeked through the door to make sure his lights were off, I saw a screensaver playing through a photo collage.

Most of the pictures that flashed on the screen were images of him and people I assumed were friends or relatives, but when one came on the screen of him and Amelia I froze. I shouldn’t have been there staring at his computer screen, shouldn’t have cared that he had a picture of her. They were friends, anyone could see it. But I couldn’t unsee it.

The image of her leaning in, smiling at him, pressing her hand on his arm over lunch was seared into my conscience. And the way I took her against that window, as if announcing to the whole world that she was mine had been my retaliation. Except, no one saw it. No one could. And I couldn’t stake a claim and tell the world anyway. What we had was no strings attached; our original agreement made sure of that.

Now grumbling, I slammed his door, pushed the button for the elevator a little too hard, and rode down to the parking garage below the building. I never thought I had an anger problem in my life, but the more frustrated I got with the work situation, the more I realized how capable I was of wanting to hurt people or scream like a lunatic. It wasn’t healthy at all, though it had only gotten this bad when I started sleeping with Amelia. Never pegged myself for the jealous type either, but here I was.

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