Page 67 of Seducing the Billionaire

He lets out a tired grunt. “I’ve tried. But they say that’s not—”

He cuts himself off, both of us aware of how he was going to finish that sentence.

“You don’t have to do everything the way he did,” I remind him softly. “You’re your own person. And you already do some things differently.”

His brows narrow. “What? I haven’t changed anything. Trust me, I’ve wanted to.”

“It’s how you respond to people. From what I can gather, your dad led the company using fear as a motivator. The employees were afraid of him berating them, of losing their job if they messed up. But you’re not like that. You listen to them. You respect that they know what they’re doing and if something goes wrong, you work with them to come to a solution.”

“Dad always said I was too trusting,” he murmurs, barely audible.

“No, I don’t think that at all. It’s a different form of leadership but just as valid. Like you told Angelina, you’d rather have a conversation with someone than yell at them.”

“And she said people weren’t expecting that.”

“So make them expect it. Change the norms. Don’t stay miserable doing something in a way that doesn’t work for you.”

He sets down the pen he was holding, wiping his palms on his jeans. “Okay, so say I do that. There are still all these issues that need to go through me.”

“So give your chiefs more autonomy. They can deal with the problems of their own department and then meet with you every, I don’t know, two weeks to update you. There’s, what? Seven chiefs? Do two meetings a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, then you’ve knocked them all out in less than a week and can focus on other stuff.”

He blinks at me. “Have you thought about this before or did you come up with that just now?”

“I’ve thought about it,” I admit. “I hate seeing you so stressed.”

He blows out a long breath, lacing his fingers behind his neck. “Maybe I need to pay you the going rate of a consultant. Or a therapist.”

I can’t hold back the laugh that escapes me. Me? A therapist? Yeah, right. “Well, it’s always easy to play armchair psychologist with other people’s problems.” It’s your own issues that are harder to solve. “So what’s something else you’d like to change here?”

He grins. “How about casual Fridays?”

“Done. A company-wide email will be sent out first thing Monday morning.”

His lips twist. “You think HR wouldn’t have an issue?”

I shrug. “It’s not like it’s hurting anything. And it’ll boost morale.”

He nods, running a hand over his jaw. “I’d be pushing my luck asking them to change their stance on supervisor-employee relationships, though.”

I glance down at my lap, unable to hide the burst of pleasure that runs through me. “Probably,” I agree. It’s not like I can pretend it isn’t an issue.

“But, you know, after Vivian comes back, and you’re not here anymore…”

I peek up at him, his face set in a serious expression. “Yeah?”

My phone dings, his gaze shifting to my purse. “Is that the decorator?”

I pull it out, looking at the display. “She just walked in the building.”

“Cool. I’ll, uh, let you get to it.”

He shifts his attention to his computer, but I don’t leave yet. Once I’m no longer employed by him, would he want more with me? But when that time comes, I’ll either have successfully deceived him… or be homeless. The former means any kind of relationship between us would be based on a lie, and the latter means I’ll have much bigger problems on my plate than deciding to date someone.

What the hell am I going to do?

I stand, making my way to the door, pausing for a second. “I’ll let you know when I’m finished upstairs.” I don’t wait for his reply, closing the door behind me as I meet Hannah at the elevators.

We take the back stairwell to the sixty-first floor, and I lose myself for the next hour and a half going through her picks for everything from the rugs on the ground to the lighting on the ceiling with her. Thankfully, she understands exactly the vision I had in mind when I described what I thought Connor would like, and by the time we’re done, I’m confident he’ll love this place.

---