Accidently approved

Eliza hurried through the crossing barely making the green light. Her brown wavy hair dangled in front of her blue eyes and stuck to her sweaty forehead. The half-eaten popsicle her five-year-old son had begged for was running down her hand unable to resist the sun’s merciless rays. They had been out in the park before her best friend, Sandra, picked him up to take care of the little guy while Eliza was working.

She just turned around a corner and ran straight into a wall of muscle. The momentum would have sent her to the ground but strong arms saved her from a nasty fall.

“Uh, I’m so sorry.” She said looking up into the darkest eyes she had ever seen. The stranger’s thin face, high cheekbones, and sharp, masculine jawline made him extremely handsome until those dark eyes flashed at her in anger. Looking down at his torso she quickly saw the reason. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mess up your suit.”

Just looking at that suit made her head spin for a second. It must have cost more money than she made in a year. Out of habit, she pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket totally intent on trying to clean the textile.

“Great. Just great. I’m already late for a meeting and now this.” Seeing her move he sidestepped the woman, an unfriendly frown marring his face. “Are you serious? That won’t help.” Examining the damage a resigned sigh escaped him. His eyes again flashed at Eliza without humor. “Next time watch where you go.”

Before she had the chance to offer to pay for the cleaning a limousine pulled up by the curb and the stranger jumped in without any further words. With rosy cheeks, she hid the handkerchief from the onlookers’ sight after she wiped her own hand.

“What a jerk.” She fumed the whole way to the huge skyscraper with the Lark Tech sign. “It’s probably for the best that I couldn’t offer to pay for its cleaning. I don’t think he would be satisfied with any affordable cleaners.”

A feeling of urgency surrounded her as she arrived at her level. The corridor that was usually crowded now seemed extinct, no conversation flowed from the offices.

“Oh, Eliza, it’s so good that you made it in time.” Her colleague, Susan’s face brightened at seeing her, the brackets around her mouth disappeared as she hurried toward Eliza and grabbed her arm. “We have a serious problem.”

“Great, more problems.” At Susan’s shocked look her face heated up. “Sorry, I just… I…” with a tired sigh her hands flew up. “It doesn’t matter. I just have a bad day.” As Susan bit her lower lip and avoided eye contact with her, Eliza knew it won’t get better any soon. “What’s the problem?”

“Linda is on sick leave since this morning.” This was surprising. Their boss worked more hours than a day had, and never ever fell ill. “She can’t even come in. She tried, believe me, but she didn’t even make it outside her door.”

“Okay, if she is sick, she shouldn’t come in.”

“You don’t understand.” Eliza was surprised to hear tears in Susan’s voice. The woman was a professional and knew her job well. She couldn’t imagine any problem that would disturb her this much. “Today is the day that multinational company, the Antary comes to finalize the contract. And we don’t have anyone to look it up with the CEO. He will need someone in there instead of Linda.”

“Oh, God. She was part of the whole process. And who’s going to go to the meeting?” As soon as she said the words, Eliza had a very bad feeling.”

“Well…”

“Have you told her?” They both spun on their heels. Tina their other colleague stood there tall and proud, her usual smug yet reserved expression in place.

“Told me what?” The two women shared a look.

“We decided you’d go to the meeting in Linda’s place.” Tina’s voice left no room for argument. She pushed a ton of paper into her hands. “Here are the notes from Linda and all of the documents. I suggest you go through them quickly.” She started to walk away but stopped and looked back at her. “Oh, and careful with the CEO. He arrived in a bad mood. Something about hasty women.” With that, she disappeared behind her office door.

The papers in Eliza’s hand felt heavier by the minute and her hands became sweaty.

“I’m sorry. We had to select someone. And no one wanted to deal with the CEO. He can be really arrogant and even though he is a genius when it comes to business, he’s not so good with people. But you’ll do great.” Susan forced a quick smile but the uncertainty in her voice undermined the encouragement.

“If I screw up he might even fire me. I can’t let myself be fired, I have to support my son.” Eliza’s voice rose high with panic, but she was already alone in the corridor.

In the next two hours, she chewed through every paper that belonged to the partner. She looked up statistics, their background, anything that could help her in the meeting. As she was heading to the highest floor she could see her own frantic heartbeat on her blouse.

At the end of the corridor, huge mahogany double doors greeted her. Golden name tag announced the CEO’s and owner’s name: Roy Larkman. Gulping before heading toward the door Eliza was about to knock when a woman’s voice stopped her.

“Can I help you with anything, Madam?” She hadn’t even noticed the secretary behind her desk.

“Yes. I’m Eliza Camburn. I’m here for the meeting with the Antary group.”

Before the secretary could answer the huge double doors opened and a familiar commanding voice boomed.

“It took you long enough. Come in, we still need to run through some points.”

With growing dread, Eliza walked into the overwhelming office. If she thought the floor was elegant and over the top, here everything was intimidating from floor to ceiling. Especially the black-suited man standing with his back to her looking out at the city through the glass wall.

“The Antary commission will be here in less than an hour. We have finalized most of the points in question. Have you found any solutions for the remaining ones?”

Eliza fidgeted in her seat. It was clear no one informed the CEO about Linda’s illness or the change. Shaking herself and her nervousness she dived for her professional side.

“I looked up Linda’s notes on all of the meetings. There are some suggestions that we would have to finalize with Antary, but I think all in all the contract looks good for both parties.”

At her words, Roy stiffened by the window. In slow motion, he turned around. His face was blank only a nerve kept ticking at his jaw.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” his words were quiet but his penetrative gaze made her uncomfortable.

“I’m Eliza Camburn, the one the Law department sent. They provided me with all of the materials to prepare.”

“Where’s Linda?”

“She came down with some illness. She’s at home.”

Without another word, Roy sat and lifted the phone while maintaining eye contact with her.

“Good afternoon, Rebeca. It’s Roy Larkman. I was just informed of Linda’s illness. Yes, very unfortunate. Please send up someone who can participate in the meeting.” After a short pause, he gave a snort. “Oh, yes, she is here. I want someone else. This is an important meeting I don’t need a clumsy newbie to make it even more difficult. I need someone I can count on who knows what to do.”

Blood rushed to Eliza’s cheeks. Humiliation tackled through her veins and made her stiffen. Anger came next at this arrogant and uppish man that could not see further than his nose. She rose swiftly and stepped up to his desk with her chin high in the air.

“I’m sorry, Sir. I am a qualified professional and have the most knowledge in this contract as I spent the last hours reading everything through and finalizing the last points that were in question. I’m really sorry for what happened in the morning, but do not judge me based on that unfortunate meeting. If we go through everything together I can show you my suggestions and you can decide if you need someone else on the job.”

Roy slowly lowered the phone from his ear. With a calculated glance, he ran his gaze up and down Eliza.

“I see. So you think you are the right person for this meeting… with how much experience, exactly?”

“Six months.” Eliza forced through her closing throat. “And two years at another company if you don’t count my practice.”

“So with two and a half years of experience, you want to participate in a meeting that is essential for this company. A meeting that could mean a huge jump for us.”

Eliza knew her experience was nowhere enough for this job. With a resigned sigh, she already regretted standing up from that chair. The CEO’s next words brought her up short though.

“Okay. Let’s see what you’re made of.” He held up his index finger. “One chance. I hope we won’t end up in a disaster again.” He put the phone back to his ear. “Yeah, Rebeca, don’t send anyone just yet.” After finishing the call he turned back to Eliza. “Show me your suggestions. We’re almost out of time.”

Eliza handed over her own notes. As she tried to stop her hands shaking all she could think of was how she would find another job quickly if things went wrong. Even though her parents always tried to encourage her to take risks, she was not in a position to jeopardize her well paid place here.

As Roy put down the paper Eliza tried to find out his thoughts but his expression didn’t reveal much.

“Good ideas. We just have to include them in the contract. And that won’t be easy.” He was out of the chair before she could process his approval. “Come on, they’ll be here shortly.”

“Mr. Larkman, the delegation is at the reception right now.” his secretary jumped up from her desk at their approach.

“Great, lead them up here, Patricia.”

“Of course, Sir.”

The silence stretched between them as they waited. Eliza ran over the contract’s main points again but her thoughts were on Roy Larkman. After their first encounter, she was surprised he still gave her a chance. Maybe he wasn’t as arrogant as he had seemed.

“Eliza!” she snapped out of her daydreaming at her boss’ sharp voice. The pen she had been playing with fell on the table with a loud clink. With mortification, she looked up at all the people in the room. “John, Derek, Lindsay, let me introduce you to Eliza Camburn. Eliza, this is John Cusson, Derek Burke, and Lindsay Garner from Antary.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet a new face.” John shook her hands.

“I hope I’ll meet your expectations.” she said with a welcoming smile.

“I’m sure there won’t be any problems. Hopefully, this is the last meeting before we can be longtime partners.”

“We’ll get there, that’s why we’re here.” Roy clapped John on the shoulder good-naturedly. “Ladies, gentlemen, please take a seat.”

“We’ve gone through your suggestions and accepted most of those changes. They are already included in the contract.” Eliza handed over the copies. “We still have some issues with points 143 and 144.”

“Yeah, Linda was also concerned about these points.” John said after looking them up in his copy. “But I still don’t see how that can be managed. We could cut a big slice of the pie with your technology, but you want too much control over it. Once we buy it, it’s ours. That’s how I see it.”

“You’re right, Mr. Cusson. Once bought you have control over that technology, but that is where this contract comes in. We can determine how you use it to a certain level. We take extra care of the technology we develop and make.”

“And why would we agree to this condition? This greatly limits our possibilities and the usage of your developments. I don’t like limitations on a product I bought.” John leaned on the table, his previously pleasant expression gone. Eliza locked her legs to stop their shaking. This is where it became tricky.

“If we will miss out on any developmental opportunities because of your restrictions, that would be worse than not having it at all. Others who are not limited by Lark Tech later could develop it into something that we couldn’t.” Lindsay said, her cold eyes staring the younger woman down.

“Yeah. If this happens we’d rather partner up with another technological company.” Derek’s dark voice was ominous.

Eliza’s heart thundered in her chest. She knew there would be resistance, but she never imagined the meeting to deteriorate so quickly. Gulping down her nervousness she stiffened her spine and met all of their gazes.

“That would be really unfortunate. Your company would suffer a severe set back if you now tried to find another company like ours, find a technology that is at least partly compatible with your ideas and then try to finalize a contract which might not come into effect after months of talks.” Eliza lazily sorted her papers like her nerves weren’t all over the place. “As I heard, your biggest competitor comes out with his newest technological development soon.” All innocence, she looked at John. “I guess with that they would get the upper hand on the market.”

“Come on, Roy!” John threw his pen on the table in exasperation. Until that moment Eliza was afraid to look at her boss. She was surprised at the slight smile playing on his lips. “We’ve been in this for months and now a new chick comes in and tries to undermine our whole work. What’s the meaning of this? Don’t you want us as your partners? Then we could have saved the energy and time we invested in this project.” Roy’s face blanked at the intentional insult. Slowly he got up and towered over them.

“This partnership would mean a lot to Lark Tech and you know it.” At his words, a smug smile appeared on John’s face, while Eliza’s lost all color. “But you also knew our strict policy about using our technology. Lark Tech has and will always strive to help people live a better yet more environmentally friendly life. That’s how we are the leading group on the market. We check all of our partners and don’t let them use our tech for just any devices. If you want the best, you have to make concessions. If you can’t do that, I’m really sorry but we can’t be partners. That would be really unfortunate, but we both know that in business you sometimes have to make difficult decisions. This is ours because we don’t relent on our policy.”

From the look on their faces, none of them really liked where this conversation was going. Finally, with a resigned sigh, John stood.

“We will go through your suggestions and give you an answer within the week. I’ll have to check with my team about this.”

As soon as they left Eliza sank into the chair as her legs gave out. All her nerves were bubbling up. She felt eyes on her. Too afraid to look up and see the judgemental gaze, she pretended to rearrange her papers.

“You were tough.”

Finally looking up she couldn’t be more surprised to see acknowledgment in the dark eyes. Shrugging her shoulder she tried nonchalantly.

“I thought we should not let them compromise on our policy. It’s a good one.” At her words, her boss nodded. Eliza could not let her insecurities go though, she had to know. “What if they back out of the partnership?”

“It’s their loss. I meant what I said, our policy comes first.” He studied the woman closely. “How did you know about their competitor?”

“I said I did some quick research before coming up. I wanted to know as much as possible about their situation on the market. They lost to Wentbury once and have to come up with something extraordinary to come back to the game.”

“Good job, Eliza.” At the CEO’s approval, a slight blush pinked her cheeks. “You get this job. I think you can handle them just fine.” Eliza’s head snapped back.

“But Linda…”

“When Linda comes back, she’ll have another assignment.” He again eyed her with a calculated look before something flashed in his eyes. “I still have some partners I would like you to take a look at. Any suggestion you have, any approach might be useful. We could discuss the details during dinner.” Eliza was totally speechless her mouth hung open in wonderment. Roy suddenly looked sheepish. “Also, I would like this to be an apology for how I reacted this morning.”

“Yeah, of course, no problem.”

“Okay, then I’ll pick you up tomorrow evening so you’ll have time to go over the files. We’ll discuss everything then.”

With a final nod he turned from the room. Eliza left much slower wondering at the turn of events. Then reality set in and her heart kicked into gear.

“Oh my god, dinner with my boss.” As everyone at the company she also heard the horror stories of the relentless and ambitious CEO. She hadn’t even remembered the last time someone took her to lunch, not to mention, dinner. “It’s a business dinner, don’t think too much of it.” She chastised herself then pressed a hand to her middle as butterflies kept fluttering in her stomach.