First Comes Love (Love Comes To Town)

“Let me finish,” Reginald continues. “The accusations were later retracted, for whatever reason, and nothing substantial came out of it. But still. The very existence of these allegations is enough to cast serious doubt on her suitability as an employee, especially at this vulnerable time for your company what with your father’s tax evasion recently being revealed. That, plus her night in jail, and your relationship… this is a perfect storm, Greyson.”

I return his concerned look blankly. Reginald’s right. I know he’s right. He’s telling me the exact thing I’d tell any one of my brothers if they got it into their dolt head to fall for some bad-news girl. And yet, as he speaks, all I can do is stare deeper and deeper into the wooden map of 18th-century England on his wall.

“All it’ll take is one ambitious journalist to do a little digging—finding all this out took me minutes, by the way—and you’ll have another perfect storm to dig the company out of. If you can even manage it again. There’s only so many scandals the public can stomach from your company before they start to lose trust for good. And once it’s gone, there’s no getting it back. Not ever.”

Not ever.

Storm Inc. ruined… Landon and me out of a job. My dad’s legacy gone. My mom’s fortune… gone. All Dad left her was the company, after all. Same with the rest of us. He always believed in pouring most if not all of the profit back into the company, so that it was always growing, expanding.

“Don’t take my word for it,” Reginald’s saying now, “look at American Apparel, McDonald’s. Big companies that got hammered by bad press and nearly destroyed because of it. Sure, McDonald’s bounced back—but is Storm Inc. as much of a superpower as McDonald’s?”

We aren’t. Of course we aren’t.

I’m standing now. I can’t bear to hear any more of this.

“I need… to think,” I tell him. “Talk to Harley, too.”

Reginald’s look on me is stern. “Make sure you do more thinking by yourself than talking with her.” He sighs. “I know business can be hard and cutthroat, Greyson. But you really have to cut out your weaknesses before your enemies can use them against you. For all your father’s faults, he was always good at that.”

Don’t I know it. He never hesitated to miss one of our birthdays, or blow off a date with my mom for wining and dining some top exec. But he grew the business—by leaps and bounds—made profits that his competitors only dreamed of. There’s no denying that.

“Thank you,” I tell Reginald at the door.

“Don’t thank me unless you listen to me,” he says sternly.

“You don’t know her,” I say without thinking.

Seeing his face, it’s clear that he doesn’t understand. I’m not sure that I do either.

It should be clear, what has to be done. But it’s not.

“So,” Nolan says, once I’m in the waiting room. “How’d it go?”

“I need to talk to her,” I say.

“That’s it? He didn’t show you the… and the…”

I glare at him as we go into the elevator. “He did. Anyway, I’m going to go over there right now and—”

“Now?”

I check my watch. It’s 11 at night.

“Remind me why this meeting couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” I ask him.

“Because this is the only time Reginald could fit you in,” Nolan replies, “Plus my comedy show is tomorrow—unless you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t.”

By the time we’re in the car, I’ve made up my mind. There’s no point in going over to Harley’s with my head all messed up. I need to sleep on this. Think about it. And then, decide what I’m going to do.Chapter 26Harley

“Second day of work, second day of work, I’m going to my second day of work,” I mutter-sing to Anchovy as he picks his way about the weeds outside of our building.

If he keeps taking his sweet time to poo, I’m going to be late for my second day of work.

“C’mon, little guy, let’s do this thing,” I urge him.

Sure enough, he finally does his thing, and I hurry him inside.

“Aren’t you late?” Hannah asks helpfully as I’m rushing around to jam everything I need in my messenger tote and also throw on something at least halfway acceptable looking.

“Aren’t you late?” I shoot back.

“Yep,” she says, grinning. “But I stay late at work and Marjory loves me, so I’m good.”

“Marjory loves everyone,” I mutter with a sigh. If only I had enjoyed working at that chichi nursery as much as Hannah does. Of course, Hannah is the vice-manager and gets paid $30 an hour to sit on her ass and smile at flowers. I, on the other hand, was so bored that I was driven to strange and unfortunate plant experiments: pairing cacti with random trees (I figured the change in company might encourage them to make odd babies), propagating every succulent limb I found in a massive bin called ‘Succlandia’, trying to upsell the customers from one or two plants to ten. Needless to say, I was fired after a month.