“What the fuck just happened?”
“They’re refusing to do further business with us until you apologize,” Omar said, staring pointedly at Kelly. “You crossed a line with them.”
Kelly scoffed. “It was a joke!”
“It doesn’t matter. You spoke poorly of their families and our culture.”
“This is business,” Kelly said, his red-rimmed eyes narrowing to slits. “I don’t give a flying fuck what your women do in their spare time. That has nothing to do with this deal.”
“But respect has everything to do with it,” Marian said, crossing her arms. “And you ruined the deal by disrespecting them.”
“I’d say you did.” Kelly stepped closer to her, a sickening heat rolling off him. “You just couldn’t keep your goddamn mouth shut. You don’t tell the brokering firm that their equipment sucks. God knows what your real job is here, but according to me, it’s to stay quiet.”
Marian opened her mouth to respond, but Omar stepped between them, raising a hand in the air.
“Listen. This deal doesn’t move forward without a representative from each of our merged companies.” He looked between Marian and Kelly, his face drawn tight. Even when he was pissed and talking to them as if they were warring children, he was drop-dead gorgeous.
“I’ll be the representative then.” Marian balled her fists, standing up straighter. Even at her tallest, she barely reached Kelly’s shoulders, let alone Omar’s. “I can do his job in my sleep.”
“You’re insane,” Kelly said.
“Well, you’re argumentative and impossible to work with,” Marian shot back. “If we want the deal, either you have to apologize or I’ll do it.” After a second thought, she added, “And I’ll do the job you couldn’t.”
Kelly laughed exaggeratedly, as if acting in a bad after-school movie. “That’s hilarious.”
“We’ll have to take this to the CEOs,” Omar said after a moment, massaging his temple. “Come on.”
He walked briskly down the hallway, leading them
out of the building while he fiddled with his phone, presumably to call the driver. They hadn’t lasted fifteen minutes in this building before being essentially kicked out. Omar paced the lobby while he spoke with someone in anxious Farsi on the phone, his shiny leather shoes tapping softly as he walked.
Was Omar on her side? He was hard to read. He clearly was miffed about Kelly’s inglorious stunt, but didn’t seem very excited by the idea that she take over. Though he probably didn’t have the executive function to just kick Kelly out and let her slide into his place. Still, it would have been nice to see more support from him. He’d barely looked at her in the meeting when she brought up the crucial point. If they got into a bad deal with piss-poor machinery, then what was the point?
Marian stood far to the side, arms crossed. If she could avoid speaking another word to Kelly, she would. But for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to snag—or keep—his job with an attitude like his. It was like he tried to sabotage himself at every turn. The business would be better off booting his ass to the curb.
A moment later, the car arrived, and the three of them got inside in tense silence. The ride to Almasi Holdings didn’t feature even a murmur of conversation. Marian tapped out furious texts to Annabelle, updating her about the heinous happenings, to which her friend responded with pure “OMG”s and “WTF”s.
At Almasi, Omar practically led the two of them up to the top floor by their ears. Marian had never felt so much like a kid in trouble. Here they were, going to meet the Parsian CEO, who would report back to the American CEO. It felt exactly like tattling, and someone was about to get a painful ass whooping.
The Sheikh Almasi, Omar’s father, sat stern and majestic behind an enormous desk in a lushly appointed office lined with bookcases. The air smelled faintly of myrrh.
“Father, I’d like you to meet Kelly Gunther and Marian Frank. Kelly is the CTO of our American branch, and Marian has accompanied him to finalize the deal with National Oil. We had a problem at today’s meeting that is, as of now, completely unresolved.”
Mr. Almasi nodded, his jowls wobbling a little. “Let’s call New York, shall we?”
4
Omar sank into a chair while his father dialed Mr. Thomas. Not only was this an epic deal-making failure, their call was timed for squarely in the middle of the night over there. Who liked to be woken up to bad news?
Kelly and Marian sat stiffly in the chairs beside him. Marian craned her head as she peered around the office, clearly fascinated by her surroundings. He liked that about her—in fact, he could watch her observe the world around her for hours and probably never grow bored. Something about her called to him, made him desperate to know more.
The phone rang several times on speaker before Thomas picked up. “Hello?”
Omar’s father gave a curt introduction, and then Omar took over. “Sir, we apologize for the intrusion so late at night.”
Mr. Thomas grumbled from his end of the phone.
“There was a misunderstanding at our meeting today that resulted in National Oil being unwilling to negotiate until they receive an apology from Kelly.” He paused, looking over at Marian, who stared daggers at Kelly. “Kelly is unwilling to apologize for what he says—”