"No thank you. I’ll take it from here,” I removed the card from her hand and left the bouquet on the front desk.
I strolled to my office with Lissa on my trail. The click of her heels behind me sent images of me spinning around and gripping a handful of her bountiful ass that I knew was bouncing along with her poised stride through my mind.
"Sorry, I wasn’t set up when you arrived,” I said and placed the card on my desk.
“It’s really not a problem. I got here a little early.”
“Now that I know you are an early bird, I'll never be on time again." I smiled, hoping to lighten the mood and hopefully see her pretty smile in return.
Her cheeks turned up delighting me with her shimmering beauty as she took her seat on the opposite side of my desk. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t waiting on me. That’s all,” she said coyly.
With that smile, she sucked me into her air like she did yesterday. Her essence just overpowered the room, extracting my greatest loss from the atmosphere and implanting her winning spirit wherever there was once despair. All my problems faded away and I only saw Lissa McDaniels when she was in the room. That could go two ways. Either she was a damn good businesswoman who reset the atmosphere to achieve her intended effect, or she was a real live angel sent to show me the light of the new day.
I gripped my hand tight as if that would help me get a grasp on my wandering thoughts. The firmness of the card from the flowers cradled my palm. I looked down at the envelope and glanced inside to see who sent the arrangement.
Seeing Destiny’s name compelled me to read the entire card. I didn’t get a chance to tell you goodbye face to face before you left Miami, but I take from your abrupt leaving and you not attending the wedding that you just weren’t ready for all of this. I will give you time to come around, and I know you will. I just want to tell you again how much I thank you for being such a great man and father. I will always love you as a true friend should – Destiny.
I held the card as my eyes roamed over the words I had just read. It wasn’t in her handwriting, but signed with her name.
"Wow! Must be someone really special,” Lissa’s voice scissored into my reverie.
I dropped the card down onto the pile of papers in front of me on my desk. “Why do you say that?” I asked nonchalantly pushing the papers aside.
“The look on your face when you read that card. I don’t know, you just seemed to be taken to another place, another time," Lissa stopped short of saying more.
I pushed the card off my desk and into a top drawer. "Yeah, it’s the mother of my kids thanking me for co-parenting with her while she lives in Florida. She moved there to be
with her new husband."
"That's impressive, Montie. Co-parenting, that is."
I looked intently into her eyes. She was only attempting to be supportive in her small talk. However, I had no interest in hearing how great I’d been by allowing my children to move states over without contest. I should have fought harder for my kids to stay in Atlanta. I should have fought harder for my marriage.
As if sensing the inappropriateness of getting into my personal business, Lissa slid a CD across the desk to me. "I was up all night sketching this out and had one of my best developers come in at four this morning to finish the preliminary draft. Of course, keep in mind that the final quality will be much better, but I think you will appreciate the headwork we’ve done."
"Let see what you have," I took the CD from her hand and popped it into my computer.
"It will work better on their computers that are set up for the test environment, but you can definitely try it on your computer."
“I have this computer souped up with all of the latest software and hardware,” I assured her as a colorful display with Mr. Bromage’s company logo popped up on my screen. A clean looking application with an exquisite array of fonts was on the next screen. I was impressed with the quality of her mock up.
“What do you think?” she asked anxious to hear my thoughts.
"It looks excellent," I scrolled through a few screens. “And it’s user friendly with all of the modules highly visible at the top.”
"I wrote it to work best with the specifications for the computers that Mr. Bromage purchased."
"This is the direction we want to go in,” I said calmly, while wondering where she’d been all my life. There’s nothing like a woman who is motivated, talented, and beautiful. She was exactly the type of smart person I needed on my team. “Where have you been all my life?” I asked with a hearty smile spread easily across my face.
"I've been waiting on you to consult my firm," Lissa giggled, after her cute smile teased the corners of her lips.
"Well, now we're together. Imagine the things we will do."
“We don’t have to imagine. Let’s just take over the world.”
“Deal,” I reached inside my desk, pulled out her contract, and signed it. “Sign on the dotted line and I’ll get Shalonda to make us each a copy,” I told her. Once the formalities were out of the way, we dug into the software a little deeper.
“So, you want the quick close feature removed and the sign out prompts added?” she asked thirty minutes later.