A small digression from my other story threads, but this one landed in my head and wouldn't leave. I'm working on my other drafts, I promise! Here be the same flag that I raise for my other stories: build up is long with a focus on the plot and the romance itself. Not for those looking for a story about a quick roll in the hay. Comments/feedback always welcomed!
Heartfelt thanks to
Ripley
for thoughtful guidance and to
AwkwardMD
for helping make sure some of my more esoteric plot points were anchored in reality! Any and all mistakes are mine.
Chapter 1: Spark
It was a Monday morning. Davina, the office manager, was clucking around more than usual. Apparently, the IT department forgot to set things up for the new Finance Director and she had to scramble to make it right in less than forty-five minutes.
I was in my second week of a consulting gig with the firm Winchester and Brown, which was in the midst of building out its Finance and Strategy department. They've gone through some growing pains and the new Finance Director was the first of the new guard. "Win-B," as it's known on the Street, was a boutique investment bank with a selective roster of blue chip clientele. It recently expanded operations to the UK and was already gaining market share. They brought me in to review and update their revenue sharing model. I'd spent the last week doing research and interviews and was just getting started on framing a new proposal for them.
Davina was on the phone when I got back from the pantry with my first cup of coffee of the day.
She was glaring at no one in particular, "Tell I.T. to set up the profile on whatever hardware they have, we'll swap them out for newer models later. And where the hell is the nameplate?"
Davina slammed the phone down, "It's 8:13 and I am already having a hell of a Monday. How's your Monday so far?"
"I've got a presentation to reformat," I ducked as she threw a pad of post-its at me.
"You may say you are all mid-western nice, Lauren, but you've got a New York edge to you, you know that?"
I feigned offense, "Why Davina, I was just answering your question honestly!"
Davina shooed me away with her hands, "Go away. 'Reformatting a presentation'
pfffttt!
Some of us have real work to do... Ah!" She broke into a huge smile as a messenger dropped off an envelope.
"Here, make yourself useful and slide this onto the wall before the newbie walks into a nameless corner office," Davina handed me the envelope.
"Yes, ma'am," I took it from her and headed back to my cubicle. I placed my coffee on my desk and ripped open the envelope. Inside was a slim, rectangular nameplate. It was brushed nickel with black lettering: ROWAN J. KAN. I didn't know much about the "newbie," as Davina said so dismissively, only that he came from some big deal VC firm and was a hard-ass. I had no idea how accurate the information was; my source was Oliver Donovan the Finance VP, and he was at best threatened by Rowan's arrival, and at worst shitting his pants that someone would shove his Ivy League MBA where the sun don't shine.
I walked over to Rowan's empty office, slid the nameplate into its bracket and went back to my cube. Annoyingly, Oliver was there, leaning against my desk, chewing on his pen.
"Is he here yet?"
I shook my head, "Nope."
I sat down and unlocked my screen. The clacking of the pen between Oliver's teeth continued.
"What?" I looked at him impatiently.
"Nuthin'. Just wondering if I should get on his calendar for today, you know, to introduce myself, show him the model I built for this year's budget..."
"Jesus, Oliver, shut up about your model already."
Oliver took the pen out of his mouth and pointed it at me, "I built some awesome macros for that thing."
"You're not the only one who can build macros you know? And you're in Finance and Strategy, isn't it sort of a pre-requisite?"
"No one else has an MBA. Everyone else joined as an analyst. My spreadsheet skills are pretty solid compared to the rest of them."
Bet you can't outdo me,
I thought to myself. Instead, I sighed, "Oliver, no-one cares. Really. If you wanted to be the Director of Finance, you should have spoken up... and knowing how to build macros in a finance model isn't going to get you there."
Oliver's mouth hung open.
I felt a little bad, "You're three years out of your MBA; even if you were a total whiz at all of this, they wouldn't have tapped you for the job. But you've got good instincts, so don't do stupid stuff and you'll get there."
His features softened a little, "Really? You think so?"
"I've consulted for dozens of Finance teams; I know so," I nodded, "I also know I need to have this presentation ready by eleven, so stop hovering."
Oliver muttered a quiet 'thanks' to me, and shuffled off back to his cube. I turned back to my screen and tried to turn my brain on. The presentation was a beast. It wasn't an easy message to deliver: Win-B's revenue allocation methods were basically a web of ad hoc policies which worked fine when the firm was smaller with lower revenues. I was essentially going to tell them they needed to smash it into a million pieces and put it all together again. But better.
As I said, it was a beast. Big investment banks, and boutique ones like Win-B, have all had to tackle this particular slice of performance reporting, with mixed results. The banking business is built on relationships, and every banker wants to claim credit for red-hot deals and get a share of the fees. Building a model that mitigates bad behavior and drives business forward was a thankless task. I had the advantage of being an outsider, so I was uniquely positioned to attempt marrying the client relationship structure and the profit sharing structure without walking into the buzzsaw that was the politics of ego and profit-maximization.
It was 10:57am when I hit 'print' and I ran into the printer room to grab the copies.
"FUCK!" The printer didn't collate the pages. "Goddamit," I muttered, taking the stack of papers with me. Manually collating the deck as I walked was next to impossible, and I backed into the conference room with my arms full of paper.
"Speak of the devil," Mona Winchester, the co-founder of the firm, said as I turned around.
Mona raised an eyebrow, "Did the printer throw up on you?"
I arched an eyebrow of my own, "Someone took off the default collate function... and walking and collating is not a skill I thought I had to develop."
Mona chuckled, "It better not be - we'd be paying you all wrong otherwise!"
I smiled gamely at her and started putting the decks back in order. I was just about done when the door to the conference room opened again, and a voice behind me said, "Sorry I'm late - the techies needed some extra time getting me set up."
I looked up and I swear to god, some voice in my head said,
oh, there she is.
As in,
forget everything and everyone that came before, this is the one.
She was tall, for one. Eurasian, but I couldn't begin to guess exact provenance. Shortish dark hair, brown... no - hazel eyes, boyishly handsome but distinctly female. It was hard to describe her any better than that, because my brain stopped functioning. I forced myself to shuffle around what remained of the uncollated presentation. My pulse pounded in my temple, and I wondered who the woman was and what just happened to my heart. Helpfully, Mona said, "Everyone, this is Rowan, uh, RJ Kan, our new Finance Director."
I think my jaw dislocated itself and landed on the floor. And not for nothing, but this proved once and for all that I should never listen to Oliver Donovan because he had no idea what he was talking about. Rowan Kan wasn't some slick high-finance banker bro with a swagger and attitude. Rowan Kan was a hot high-finance banker dyke with a swagger and attitude. And yes, I was assuming she was gay based on appearances, but I was pretty sure I was right and did I mention my brain was melting?
Rowan went around the table, shaking people's hands. I wondered if feeling would return to my limbs before she shook my hand. I knew I was blushing. I could feel my neck blooming with heat.
"RJ," she said, hand outstretched.
"LE," I responded. I didn't know why I did that. Reflex or something. I took her hand. Her grip was firm and business-like. But I reacted like she had caressed my palm. Seriously. It felt soft, sensual, and strong, and I fought the urge to hug her. This was very clearly all in my head, because RJ looked like she was ready to move on to meet the other folks in the room; I wasn't even a blip on her radar. Conversely, my brain or whatever it was between my ears was projecting this weird glow around her entire being. It was like time jumped for a second before falling back into its groove.
