"I brought my laptop as well," Kate said as they sat in Scott's car and drove off.
Scott manoeuvred easily out of the parking lot and through the city. It seemed he knew the way quite intimately and Kate relaxed as they discussed the on-going project and what they needed to do.
"Already, the project plan seems to be almost complete. So what do you need
me
for?"
"Oh well, the plan is mostly cut and paste from other project plans so we need to polish it and include a test procedure. As well as the screenshots, of course."
"Wouldn't that be done by a designer?"
"At a later stage, yes. But we need to provide them with the basic outline so they have something to start with."
"You seem to know a lot about these things. How long have you been working with these kind of projects?"
"7 years, I think."
"What did you do before?"
The silence lasted as Kate waited for his response. She started wondering if perhaps he hadn't heard her question when he finally responded.
"I was a programmer."
"I knew it!" Kate exclaimed loudly. "You could have solved that try-catch statement yourself."
"Yes, I could," he reluctantly admitted.
"So why didn't you?"
"I wanted to get to know you better."
"By dumping a major task on me on a Friday afternoon and offering to strip?"
"Do you disapprove of my method?"
"It only proves that you need to get out more and meet more women."
"No, thanks. I'm fine."
"Says he that works in a company with 19 men and only 1 woman."
"That's the world of IT."
"No, it isn't. There are plenty of capable women out there that can do just the same job as the men do."
"I agree that we should hire a female secretary."
"Oh for god's sake. Let Stuart keep his job. What better way to promote equality between the sexes than to have a male secretary. No, I was thinking about the programmers and the designers. There are plenty of clever women out there. And the company should try to balance the inequality."
"All right. I agree. We need more women around."
"I'm sure it would work wonders for the work environment."
"I doubt that. Just see how little I've manage to do since you started."
"Flatterer! What I meant was that more women mean fewer strip clubs and more dinner conversations. Suddenly even the most reserved computer geeks will open their mouths and start washing their clothes."
"Sounds painful."
"It will be good for them."
"All right. I'll put it on our wish list for the next programmer: preferably female and clean."
"And sexy."
"Are you kidding? I want them to work, not drool. I'm not paying a bunch of pimpled youngsters to drool all over their female colleagues."
"I'm beginning to wonder how come
I
was employed," Kate said ironically.
"It was my decision."
"Yours?"
"Besides, you dressed more sombre then." He gave her a quick look and let his eyes rest on her cleavage.
"Are you planning on having me fired for showing off too much cleavage?"
"Not at all. I hired you, didn't I?"
Kate pondered his answer for a little while. There was something wrong here. How come he had the power to hire anyone? As far as she knew, he was only working as a project manager and that didn't include personnel administration.
"Before you started, I even warned the others to keep their hands to themselves," Scott revealed.
"No way!" Kate laughed heartily. "You're kidding me."
"Not at all. I warned them I would fire the first one that forgot my warning."
"
You
would fire? I thought you were a project manager, not the boss?"
"I had Carl bring them the message. But it's my decision since I own the firm."
"You
own
it? I thought Carl was the owner?"
"No, he has a few shares, but I'm the majority owner. Carl's just taking care of the day-to-day business while I keep working on what I enjoy best."
"But why didn't anyone tell me?"
"No one knows, except me, Carl and now you."
"So why tell me now?"
"It seemed like a good time to be honest," he said matter-of-factly as he gave her a quick glance before focusing on the road again.
Kate was bewildered and looked out to see if she could find something familiar to rest her eyes on. But the city was gone and been replaced by a part of the countryside she had never seen before.
"Where are we?"
"We're nearly there."
All she could see were large houses surrounded by extensive gardens. Most of them had tall hedges preventing anyone from viewing the garden inside. The entire area spoke of money and lots of spare time spent gardening, Kate thought. It was quite a difference from her small apartment in the city.
"Are we heading for a conference hotel or something?"
"Not quite, but you can stay overnight if you like. Here we are," Scott said as he pulled up in front of a large gate that opened automatically as they drove closer. They continued into a vast garden area that looked well-kept and followed the road up to a large house.