Her Best Match (The Best Girls 1)

“Henri, I don’t think he’s as bad as you think he is.”

“Of course, my angel, you will defend him. He does not deserve your loyalty. Let me ask you a question… Has he never done anything to keep you in his control? Has he never made you feel foolish? Has he never made you think he was your friend, and then done something to hurt you?”

She didn’t answer, struggling with memories of the previous night. Henri continued, “But a better question is this… Have I ever done any of those things to you? I pray the answer is no. If I have, I fall on my face and beg you to forgive me.”

“No Henri, you haven’t ever done any of those things.”

“But? There is something you are not saying.”

“But… but you push me, Henri. I don’t like pressure. It makes me nervous.”

“I am sorry.”

“You don’t look like you’re really sorry.”

Henri chuckled. “Life is short, and I have wasted much of it. I do not want to waste another day. So I may try to hurry you along.”

Anne tried to keep a stern countenance, but failed. “Okay, Henri. You’re forgiven.”

His smile was unrepentant.

After meeting with Sam’s friend, Randy, Anne attacked her project with a vengeance. She had slides to show the actual profits from the five prior years. Then she organized the PowerPoint with comparison tables to show the projected profit with the merger and cooperative contract. She had organizational charts and slides with tax consequences.

Occasionally, some of Jeff’s notes would look like a foreign language to her, but so far Randy had been able to clarify the issues. Anne was tired but extremely pleased with her progress. She started reading a particularly tedious stack of notes. The information was random. Some pertaining to the physical plant while others referred to economic trends. She read until her eyes were blurry.

“Anne! What are y

ou still doing here?” Gherring’s voice startled her from her trance.

“I was… I was just working. What time is it?”

“It’s nine thirty! There’s no one here but the night guards. How were you planning to get home?”

“I don’t know. The subway, I guess. I didn’t know it was so late. What are you doing here?”

“I tried to call you, and you didn’t answer your cell.”

“My phone is right here.” She picked it up from the table and stared at the black screen. “Oh. It’s dead.”

“You weren’t at the apartment and Rayna hadn’t seen you come in.” Gherring flailed his arms. “Gram didn’t know where you were. I even called Emily, and she hadn’t heard from you. Everyone was worried.”

“You had Emily’s cell number?”

“That’s not the point. No one knew where you were. You can’t stay here this late by yourself.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. But look what I got done. I’ve almost finished Jeff’s whole PowerPoint.”

“I don’t care about the PowerPoint. I care about—”

“You’d better care about this PowerPoint! I’ve sweated blood over this thing, and you’re going to look at it whether you want to or not!” She glared at him with her arms crossed, until he finally gave in.

“Fine. Let me see what you’ve got.” He leaned over the computer. “You do remember I said I would do this tomorrow?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t give you time to practice the presentation.” Anne brought up the PowerPoint, flashing quickly through the slides and summarizing the information. “Okay, that’s not quite all of it, but most of it. What do you think?” She held her breath.

He was staring at the computer screen, scrolling though the PowerPoint. “How did you do this? How did you put this together using those crappy notes Jeff left? How did you know how to organize this or what this stuff even meant?”

“I just did some research, and I got Randy from the international accounting department to explain the concepts and the laws and such. I mean, some of it still seems like Greek to me, but I’ve got the gist of it.” She paused for a breath, crossing her fingers. “Is it good?”