The Phoenix and the Ice Queen

Authors Note: This romance between Brandon and Mel was a fairly requested one and admittedly it took a while, but it was a great challenge. It is a lot slower of a build than the main CR/CF story and Brandon's romance with Katy in 'What If?', but given Mel's nature that was to be expected. This will only be three parts, but they will be considerably longer than my other entries, for better or worse. Anyways, hope you enjoy it. PS

Chapter 1

"Brandon, I'm sorry, but I'm in a bind here." Brandon heard from the other side of the phone as he drove to his next assignment. Just minutes before he thought he had been having a good day, or as good of a day as he had these days, doing a job he tolerated because he was not allowed to do the one, he wanted to do, at least publicly.

Brandon was a programmer, or at least he had been until a few months before. Now, he was reduced to helping an old high school buddy out at his small technical support company to pay the bills, until he was allowed to program again. It was that same friend that was on the phone now reneging on a promise to keep Brandon out of his latest big contract providing support for some financial services start up. Brandon had warned his old friend that there was probably a reason the big companies in the area wanted nothing to do with the contract, and he was sure it had almost everything to do with the reason Brandon was being called in.

"Clay, I told you when you signed up for this that it would bite you in the ass. What has she done now?"

There was an audible sigh from the other end of the phone, "She just sent the new girl I hired just for this away in tears, which is a shame because I was really starting to like Elsa." Brandon smiled at the irony; Clay had literally hired a girl named Elsa to deal with a supposed ice queen. "Anyways, I have to reassign Elsa, no way I can send her back there, even if that's what the client wants. Brandon, she wants my best tech, she's said so, and she knows I'm holding back."

"Especially since you told her I'm not available under any circumstances, right?" Brandon replied.

"Well, not exactly."

"What does, 'not exactly' mean Clay?"

"I might have implied at the outset that you were on another assignment that would finish soon," after a pause he added, "as in today."

"Clay!" Brandon said exasperated, then more calmly, "So, you hosed me, is what you're saying. Very nice old friend."

"Look Brandon, I said I'd try my best to keep you out of this, but I need this too much. I gave it my best shot, but now I need my ace. Need I remind you that you owe me, I'm helping you when you've been majorly blacklisted, and I know what you do on that side time I so graciously let you have. I hate to pull rank Brandon, but I need this."

Brandon sighed, Clay was right, Brandon did owe him big. "Fine, I'll do it, but Clay?"

"Yeah?"

"After this were even."

"Depends on how you do Brandon. Save my contract, and then we're even. Seriously though, just do your best, if you can't solve her, no one can. I'll send you her information now. She'll be expecting you at 1."

"You already told her I was coming, didn't you? Confident I'd agree, eh Clay?"

"I told her someone was coming, but yes I was fairly sure I could convince you, now hurry up you do not want to make a bad impression with this one, you might not recover."

"Tell me about it," Brandon thought to himself, as his phone dinged showing he had received the promised email. Brandon hardly needed the information, but out of prudence he read it anyway. Rumor had told him most of it, but it was good to get the facts, at least the facts as Clay and Resin knew them. The client was a supremely pushy young executive named Miss Murphy, her reputation thus far was that she was extremely cold and calculating, hence her nickname. Before Elsa struck out Brandon might have been sure that it was not entirely earned or accurate. He had seen enough of the business world, a world he thoroughly despised, but tolerated only out of necessity, to know that aggressive women striving for positions were often described as power hungry or cold by their male counterparts. This was due to the simple fact that they were not flirtatious idiots who would bow to the ego driven males around them.

However, Elsa was almost specifically picked to counteract that, at least in the mind of Clay. Though honestly, Brandon had to agree with Clay's wife Amber, that sending a 20 something, ultra-smart, cute little blond into that office was a bit unwise, and almost certainly doomed for failure. Elsa was a people pleaser though, and Clay thought he would try the soft approach before deploying other options. That and his best tech, Brandon, had outright refused to participate despite pleas from both the owners. Now he had been cornered out of necessity, he liked the Garnets too much to let them lose this foolhardy venture because he did not really try to help them.

So, when he strolled into the office, he was not surprised at what he found. An average height woman with extremely short cut in a suit was practically ordering around everyone in sight, like some kind of drill sergeant on a power trip.

"You must be the new guy I asked for." She said barely looking at him.

Brandon tried to be polite, "Yes, I'm Brandon" he said extending his hand, "You must be Miss Murphy."

She ignored him and his hand except to say, "Yes, I am, and I hope you're better than the previous girl. She clearly was not what I requested, and I hate wasting my time. I have a meeting to get to, in my office you will find a list of stuff your predecessor didn't get to. See if you can't finish them without making too much of a mess."

Brandon then watched her leave the floor in a hurry, no sooner had she left, than the previous flurry of activity by the others in the room suddenly slowed. Brandon smiled, and looked around the room, he saw a few fellow contractors from Resin, and some others he did not recognize, but it was clear no one on the floor liked the management style of Miss Murphy one bit.

His analysis of the room was interrupted by a voice to his left. "Welcome to the Ice Palace Brandon, I see you've met her majesty the Ice Queen." Brandon looked over to see Larry, who was one of Clay's other go to techs for tough clients. "I can't believe Clay got you to agree to come, but I'm glad you're here, maybe you can solve the enigma. Elsa certainly couldn't, she just spent the better part of two weeks trying to please the hell out of that woman and got nowhere. Not sure what you can do, but with your skill set if you can't give her what she's asking for, no one at Resin can."

"Funny, Clay said something similar, I best not let all this praise go to my head." Brandon said with a chuckle, "What's our status? Apparently, I have a list of stuff to work on, but what's she got you guys working on."

Larry ran down the project, the long and the short of it was Resin had been hired to setup the technology nerve center for what was to be a new regional office for their client Proud Stone Financial Inc. Apparently, they were an investment firm looking to create branches all over the Midwest that would be under the authority of this office. Brandon could tell they had big things in mind since they had rented out several floors of a building in downtown Chicago, which could not have been cheap. They had made it clear they wanted a top notch and very secure network installed along with several very powerful servers, a customer care center, videoconferencing in every conference room, and the hundreds of PCs required for all its various employees. It was a huge undertaking for a firm as small as Resin and Clay had had to divert most of his resources, as well as hire a few more, to meet the demand. Brandon knew his ultimate hope was that Proud Stone would sign a huge maintenance contract for all the technological hardware they were installing. To do that however he needed a good report from the head of the project which was of course the aforementioned Ice Queen. This was the reason he had first sent his best people pleaser, and now sent the best he had in to make the picky exec happy. Brandon knew if he could succeed here, it would be a massive boost to his friend's business, but cracking the Ice Queen was going to be no simple matter.

Especially given that Larry's report was not good. Long story short, they were behind. The delays were due to a combination of factors, from construction issues, to Clay over promising a bit, to Miss Murphy changing her mind every couple of days, the result was a slowed work pace that was well off target. Admittedly Brandon could see the Ice Queen had a lot to do with the delays, sure construction was slow, but it was not helped by her insistence on reviewing practically everything despite having no expertise in most of what she was reviewing. As was the case with the items Resin had been had been tasked with, her micro-management of the project was clearly causing delays. As for Clay's overconfidence, well he could not help that, but he would certainly try. He thanked Larry and went to look at the list left by Elsa.

The list was outrageous, half the stuff on it was certainly not agreed to in the contract, and the others were clearly more errands for Miss Murphy than actual IT needs. Brandon decided he would work on the list and, in a few days, see where things stood before confronting the Ice Queen herself. He called Clay to let him know that he would be focusing full time on this account in order to observe and try to figure out how things had gotten so off.

Brandon was able to easily dispatch most of the tasks on the list fairly quickly and ordered any items he needed to complete the rest. He ignored the items he knew were not in the scope of the contract, as well as the items he was sure were more the execs' personal errands than anything to do with helping set up IT. He had to admit it was a marvel she had managed to procure a full-time contractor assigned just to her since there really was not a ton to do. However, he soon figured out why she had requested someone assigned to her as, once the list was finished, she sent him running all over the place to speed along his coworkers. She even tried to get him to resolve some of the construction issues. After a few days of this, he had had enough.

Miss Murphy came in one morning to find Brandon sitting in her office waiting for her. From the look on her face, it was clear something was angering her.

He opened his mouth to wish her a good morning, but she immediately rounded on him, "Where the hell is the rest of your team? We have a contract Mr. Metcalf, and your company is clearly behind."

Brandon looked at her with a surprising amount of calm and replied, "First off, Good Morning Miss Murphy. To answer your first question, I gave them the morning off. I figured we needed to chat first, and funny you should bring up that contract because, while I admit Clay clearly over promised, I believe it is you who are far more in breach than we are miss."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?" she asked incredulously.

"Well for starters, I am not your assistant. Elsa may have done your personal errands, but I certainly won't. Second, on this list are several things I know for a fact aren't on that contract, which means you're either trying to bully us into giving services you aren't paying for, or you're trying to screw us. Finally, your construction crews are massively behind ever since you sent the project manager packing for apparently disagreeing with you. We cannot, and will not, install any of the hardware your bosses are paying for until construction is fully completed, as the dust and debris will be harmful to the inner workings of the very expensive machines we've been asked to install. Something we were sure to put in the contract to protect your companies long term investment."

"Your predecessor said work would be completed on schedule regardless of the construction delays."

Brandon smiled, "That's because Elsa is a people pleaser first and foremost, she hates disappointing people, and will do everything she can to avoid failure." Brandon paused and said, "But you knew that about her, so you bullied her because you could, and you knew she'd agree. I, on the other hand, am a realist Miss Murphy. The fact is you're using that we're small, and probably desperate, to take advantage of us, and what's more after your assistant and project manager quit you've been trying to do everything all by yourself. So, here are my terms, you and Proud Stone figure out a way to resolve the assistant and project manager issues. I don't care how you do it, but we can't do our job until those are back in place and these floors get finished. Second, if you want the more expensive items on my list, call Clay and renegotiate, we won't do those for free. Finally, from here on I'm the onsite manager for the Resin team, not you. They take orders from me, and no one else, all requests for their work goes through me." He paused to make sure he covered everything then finished, "Those are the terms take it or leave it. We don't need this so bad we'll be taken advantage of, and honestly, we've already been paid enough to have made this worth our time."

"Your boss knows you're making these terms?" Brandon nodded, she sighed, thought for a second, then said, "it would seem that I need to speak with him then." She proceeded to pick up her phone, and after a lengthy discussion with Clay, had a tentative agreement, pending approval from her company. She also agreed to look into the issue of her assistant and the project manager. Since the agreement included at least some of the Resin staff returning to work on sections that were complete, some of them returned for the afternoon to work on installing what could be installed.

Over the next few weeks, things got better for all involved as the construction got back on some semblance of a schedule, and work progressed well. Brandon noticed that once she had a sound support structure in place, the infamous Ice Queen was less frosty. It would seem he had misread her a bit while she was under the stress of trying to complete the project on her own. While she was still cold and distant with the others in the office, it was clear the micromanaging that had irritated everyone so much, was not her default management style. Clearly, things had gotten off on the wrong foot, and kind of snowballed on her. She was still demanding on her expectations, and Brandon found himself more managing the Resin team than doing any actual IT work, but he didn't mind. After all, this was all to help Clay, and he knew making a great impression would certainly lead to good things for Resin. Brandon just could not have imagined that it might change the course of his career as well.

Chapter 2

"Which brings us to one of the fully automated video conferencing rooms that were requested." Brandon said leading a group into the aforementioned room. He was doing a walkthrough with Miss Murphy, and some of the newly hired staff for Proud Stone, to show off the new hardware they had installed. This walkthrough also included a brief demonstration of how some of the technology worked. He proceeded to show the group how to operate the control panel for the room and assured them that all the other rooms worked in a similar manner. "And of course, staff from Resin will be on site for the first week to assist with any issues."

"Actually, there will be a small group from Resin here on a permanent basis, thanks to the new service contract we just signed," Miss Murphy said with a smile. This came as a shock to Brandon, but before he could enquire further she added, "but since we will be unlikely to have the expertise of Brandon here, for quite some time, feel free to ask him any questions you might have now."

Brandon fielded a few minor technical questions, and when there were no more, Miss Murphy thanked him for the tour. She then indicated to the group there was still more to see, though the technology portion was finished, and that they were dismissed for lunch. As they filtered out, Brandon started shutting down the various devices in the room, since they wouldn't be truly needed for a few more days. He was so involved in his task, he hardly noticed Miss Murphy was still in the room watching him.

He was burning to ask about the announcement she just made minutes earlier, but instead asked," Is there something you needed?"

She seemed hesitant, but breathed in and said, "Yes, do you have any lunch plans Brandon? I have an opportunity I'd like to discuss with you."

Intrigued Brandon asked, "Does this have anything to do with the announcement you just made?"

"Yes, and no. We have an offer just for you, a special assignment, but I'd rather not discuss it here."

Brandon agreed and they headed out together to a nearby lunch favorite, and quickly ordered. Brandon was surprised by his lunch companions order in two ways. First, he was surprised it was not ultra-healthy, as while it was hard to tell just how in shape she was, thanks to her more masculine and loose-fitting attire, Brandon could definitely tell she was not overweight at all. He was also surprised to realize that, despite working close to her for over a month, he had never really seen her eat. That was saying something given the amount of time she spent at work.

Once they had ordered, the always business focused Miss Murphy wasted no time launching into what they had come there to discuss. "Before I tell you about the opportunity," she began, "I believe you asked about the service contract announcement." Brandon nodded, and she continued, "well there's not a ton to say about it. I think we both know your friend Clay was hoping for that from the beginning, he made that clear when we agreed to hire Resin. Given the level of service we received during the installation process, and the familiarity of your coworkers with our hardware and systems, it only made sense to recommend Resin get the contract. I feel it'll be mutually beneficial for all involved."

"Indeed, it will, Clay has to be thrilled"

"He seemed to be, and he has you to thank for it. You were vital to the success of your team, it'll be a blow to lose you on the front lines with this."

"Yes, well as Clay undoubtably told you, I didn't really want to get too super involved with this contract if possible. No offense, but a big day to day service contract like that is not my desired job description. It's a huge gain for Clay though, so I'm glad to help him out."

To his surprise his companion smiled and said, "Yes, Clay did mention you guys have a special arrangement for your assignments. He indicated he's more like your agent these days, than a boss."

"I've never thought of it like that, but yeah, that sounds accurate."

"Which brings me to the real point of this lunch. When we approached Clay about the contract, we indicated that we had a special side project for you, if he was agreeable. He told us we had to discuss it with you, of course. His only condition was that your rate would not be cheap, especially if he was to lose your services for a significant amount of time." She paused and now Brandon was really intrigued.

"As you know, the office we just setup is the headquarters for the new Midwest region. Now that it is up and running, we need brick and mortar branches for it to manage. As such, we need a two-person team to oversee the opening of the various branches. The responsibilities of this team are to oversee the final construction details, hire and train the staff, and set up the technological infrastructure. As you can gather, due to the technical nature of what is involved, it had been recommended that one half of the team be someone with experience and knowledge of installing and instructing on the use of any and all tech installed in each branch. So basically, a small-scale version of what Resin just did here at the Midwest office, at several offices across a five-state area.