“Why are you so anxious to get rid of my secretary anyway?”
“Other than this latest fiasco?”
“Yeah, other than that.”
“How about that she can’t remember to give you a phone message to save her soul?”
Liv liked that Cecily didn’t give her phone messages most of the time. There was nobody she really wanted to talk to anyway. Except maybe Jen. But she just showed up in Liv’s office eventually anyway.
As for everybody else, even if the old gal did manage to give her the messages, Liv could always pretend she hadn’t. An absent-minded secretary provided plausible deniability.
“Really, Liv, if we’re both going to move up the Lincoln ladder like we planned, then you’re going to have to start letting me help you on a few of these things. I know what I’m doing.”
She had to admit that the pull Jen had exhibited by getting Liv one of the rare offices at headquarters with a shower in an adjoining bathroom did impress her.
“The only point of a secretary these days is to show you’re important enough to have one. Stature. And Cecily does not say stature. Oh, why can’t I get these things through to you? God knows I’ve tried with your wardrobe!”
“Fine. I give up. Yes to whatever you have in mind.” Once Jen got going on Liv’s wardrobe, or lack thereof, it would waste an hour at least. Best to fight her battles where she could. “But what about poor Cecily? I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“I’ve already taken the liberty of transferring her to Peterson with your highest recommendation. She’s four floors above your office as we speak, and if she manages to find her way to the elevator tonight it’ll be a miracle.”
“Jen!”
“Don’t worry. She’ll have plenty to do. I sent that moldering old Rolodex with her too.”
“All right then.” Liv sighed, pushing Jen’s hip off her desk to get at a paper she’d been sitting on. “I’m fine with whoever you hired to replace her. I assume that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Not exactly. But it’s a wonderful coincidence because I have fantastic news for you.”
She smiled at her friend. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“You know how interested I am in management dynamics and new approaches to corporate interflow?”
“Well, kind of in one ear and out the other.”
“Precisely when I was thinking about this problem with Cecily and what to do about it, I got a proposal from a management consultant who has some ground-breaking ideas on the subject.”
“Miss Sealy?”
At the sound of the deep voice, Liv looked around her friend’s shoulder to the door of the office suite. Jen studiously did not.
There was a really cute guy standing there. Nice eyes, friendly smile.
Liv usually didn’t care for Jen’s boy toys, but if this was her latest, Liv had to admit she was jealous. Of course, the guy had called Jen “Miss Sealy.” Maybe he wasn’t her love interest, but one of the countless junior analysts who followed Jen around from time to time, supposedly to learn the HR ropes. Come to think of it, other than his dimensions—he was tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips—and the fact he was attractive, the guy standing in the doorway didn’t strike her as Jen’s usual romantic type. Not enough of the bad boy in him. But he didn’t look like one of Jen’s trainees either. Not well dressed enough.
“Am I at the wrong place?” the guy asked, taking a tentative step into the office suite.
“Now don’t blow your top,” Jen whispered, “but while your secretary’s desk is empty, we’re going to have a corporate consultant ‘shadow’ you.”
“What?” Liv asked, too shocked to keep her voice down. “Me? What’s the idea there? I hate consultants!”
“Don’t be rude,” Jen admonished in an undertone before she turned to the guy in the door. “Come on in and meet Liv, Jon.”
“I’m not rude, I’m just…” Her voice trailed off by the time the consultant was right in front of them, all tall, dark, and handsome.
“Hey.” He held out a hand to shake hers. “I’m Jon Foster.”
Liv looked at his outstretched hand, then took it and stood up. Twenty-seven years old, a couple of fancy degrees to her name, and Liv still couldn’t get used to sitting in a real office and shaking hands and everything. Just like a grown-up. Who in their right mind was going to invest millions of dollars in something she developed?
She squelched the thought. Fake it until you make it. That was what guys did, right?