More applause. He beams at the group.
“In particular,” he says, his voice quieting them. “I want to thank my wife, Maggie. Come over her, Mags.”
I walk over and he hugs me, kisses my cheek. More applause, even louder this time. I blush a little bit and hope my pregnant belly isn’t showing too much. I’m wearing a simple navy dress, a little more business casual than I’d like, but the best I could find in my new pregnant size.
“Without Maggie, none of this would have happened. Maggie and her father were instrumental in making sure this merger went smoothly and fairly, and I can’t thank them enough. Now, we’ll break out into groups, get to know each other a little bit, and get prepped for the real opening tomorrow. Thanks again, guys.”
The group breaks down into chattering as people find their smaller groups. Josh pulls me off to one side, narrowly avoiding managers that want to talk his ear off. We walk down a side hallway and stop outside of his office, right in the corner of the open main floor, a large and spacious thing, all glass and modern lines.
“What do you think?” he asks me.
“You know I love it,” I say.
“I have a surprise for you.” He takes me by the hand and leads me down to the next office. It’s a little smaller, but the desk is still large, and the view is amazing. I can see all of downtown Philly. “This is all yours.”
“Wait, what?”
He laughs. “It’s all yours. You’re an investor and a board member, so I thought you should have an office. Plus, you own seven percent now.”
“Josh. I don’t know anything about running a company.”
“Who cares? Don’t worry about it. You’ll learn faster than you think. I’m sure in a month or two, you’ll be giving me orders.”
I grin at him and kiss him. “I bet I will.”
He hugs me, though not too tight. He puts a hand on my belly and lets out a sigh. “Boy or girl?” he asks.
“You ask me every day and I keep telling you, I have no clue.”
“It’s a girl,” he says. “I just know it.”
“We’ll see.”
He grins and kisses me. I move away then sit behind my desk, swiveling in my chair for a moment. He sits in the chair in front of my desk and cocks his head. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s amazing.”
“Yeah, me too.” He leans back, hands behind his head, and stretches. “And now that Seb left the board, we won’t have any more problems.”
I sigh and close my eyes. The whole merger was a fight. Seb made our lives hell every step of the way. But eventually, after a year of pushing, we made it happen. We got everything finalized, the documents signed, and we’re finally starting to open the first office of many.
Seb sold his shares a week after the documents were signed. He said it was a protest, but nobody seemed to mind. Really, he was doing us a favor by walking away. If he had stayed, I know for a fact he would’ve just kept making things hard.
But now without him, the company can move forward. The new merged company, with the power of both Bushings and Cork behind it.
The future of BC Telecom looks very, very bright.
“Come on,” I say, standing up. “We should go join the group.”
“We will,” he says. “Come here first.”
I walk over to him and he pulls me into his lap. I laugh and kiss him. “What are you doing, Mr. Cork?” I ask.
“Nothing, Mrs. Cork. Just letting my very pretty pregnant wife sit in my lap.” He kisses my neck. “My beautiful wife. And all mine.”
“All yours,” I agree.
“When everyone leaves, I’m going to fuck you raw on that desk,” he whispers. “First your desk, then mine.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say, biting my lip. “But we should definitely wait for everyone to leave.”
He laughs and kisses me one more time before I get up and head to the door. He follows me, and together, we step out into the hall.
We have a lot of work ahead of us still. There’s a lot to be done, a lot of merging to do. My father’s been working long hours at the Bushings office, getting everything settled and moved over to this new building. Soon, he’ll come take his office here, and the whole company will be in one place.
It’s just the beginning. BC is going to be huge, I can already feel it. We’re going to make my cousin Shaun’s investment back, triple or quadruple. After that, maybe we’ll even start taking some market share from the big guys, and go international.