They both looked at the elevator door as they felt the car settling.
“And the good Samaritan who gave us the right floor. Wasn’t he being nice? He deserved a thank-you, too, right?”
She felt ridiculous, like a kindergarten teacher.
“He was looking down your blouse.”
“He was not!”
“Yes, he was. He was about my height. You were below us. I could tell.”
So she guessed he noticed more things than he let on.
“Well, still.”
The door opened to the floor they wanted, and he put his hand on her back to usher her out of the elevator, a politesse she wouldn’t have expected along with a jolt at the physical contact, like when she put her hand on his arm before.
The elevator closed behind them to the massive glass doors of Bannum Strauss.
When they entered the spacious two-story lobby of the law firm, a sleek brunette behind the reception desk spread her raspberry red lips in a welcoming smile. “So nice to see you again, Mr. Talbot. I’ll let Greg know you’re here.”
While she was dialing, Talbot wandered off to the floor-to-ceiling windows, hands behind his back. She didn’t follow.
“Psst.”
The receptionist crooked a finger at her, and Camilla went closer.
“You work for him?” she asked.
“As of today I do.”
The brunette gave a furtive look his way. “I think he is so hot.”
Camilla laughed. “Uh, okay.”
“Come on, you have to admit it.”
“I just work for him.”
“Lucky you. One glance from those deep blue eyes and I was, like, whoa. The way he sort of looks right through you. I pray for Greg to schedule a meeting. Does he have a girlfriend?”
“Sorry. No idea. I just met him for the first time today. But, hey, give it a shot.”
“As if. I’ve flirted as outrageously as I can, but he ignores me.”
“Yeah, it seems like he’s got a lot on his mind.”
“I could really help him with his wardrobe sense.”
“Who couldn’t?” Camilla said, and they laughed, both looking over to where Talbot was shaking hands with a plump balding man who had descended on the circular central stairway in the lobby.
The two men met her at the desk, and Greg Porter introduced himself to Camilla, then led them to a conference room, saying he would let everyone else know Mr. Talbot was there.
Camilla looked around and took a seat at a walnut table that would not look out of place in the UN headquarters where they actually might need fifty places at a table.
Talbot paced around the room, ending up in front of the picture window, gazing down at the tiny building blocks of Manhattan through sheets of water and tapping his fingers against the glass in rhythm to the rain. He tackled the coffee on the sidebar next, pouring a cup with such a rattle he finally set it down, leaving it there, and resumed his stance at the window. She glanced at the half-filled cup, more liquid on the saucer than inside the rim. Had his hands been shaking? He had them in his pockets now, so she couldn’t tell.
She hadn’t noticed any of this restless energy in the limo, where he’d been all still and Spock-like. He almost looked nervous, though that would be ridiculous. As a CEO, he must be the veteran of dozens of these kinds of meetings.
“I wonder why we’re in such a huge room,” she mused. “I doubt there’ll be more than ten people here.”
“Not if I’m supposed to be here. It’ll be a huge crew.”
Jesus, he hated these dog and pony shows, as Marcia called them in the early days. He wished he could just send an email to the deal team, saying what he would pay and when he wanted to close and that would be the end of it from his perspective. But he’d been told time and time again that wasn’t how it was done. Instead, he had to sit in on the first meeting, feeling as claustrophobic as ever by all the glad-handing, and let his lawyers posture for him and his bankers pretend they were giving him the deal of the century on the financing. There was a march to it all, and he felt distinctly out of step.
Had, ever since the very first meeting, years ago, when the company was no more than an idea on paper and a line of credit he had a slim chance of paying off without additional backers. Then, he and Marcia had cobbled together some half-ass presentations, no graphics even, and showed up in a room about as big as this, with an audience who had only given him an hour because his old professor from Caltech consulted on Wall Street and had rounded them up as a favor. In exchange he promised the prof a quarter of one percent of the company, which had eventually enabled the guy to buy a sprawling ranch in Northern California, though he hadn’t known it would at the time. Nobody believed in the idea except him and maybe Marcia.