"But how, Jack?" she asked. "How on earth am I going to get someone to give me a chance to rebuild?"
I looked down at her lovely face, trying hard to ignore the fact that I'd had crushes on her since I was a teenager, and suddenly I had an idea.
"Sloan, what if you helped me turn a profit for Baby Steps?" I asked. "My miserable father left me the company and then took away access to my own money so that I'd be forced to run it. The will stipulates that I have to turn a profit before I turn it over to a new CEO, what if you help me do that and in the process, you rebuild your reputation independent of your father?"
"Are you serious, Jack?" she laughed. "Me? Running a baby company? What kind of drugs have you been taking? I'm an investment banker who works with large funds and international clients! I'm not some kind of soccer mom who spends her days figuring out how to match her child's diapers to its bottles!"
"You're so narrow-minded and self-centered," I said, grinning as I recounted all of the information that Leah had given me on my tour of the facility that morning. "Baby Steps is about a lot more than products. It's about ecological responsibility and efficient supply and demand. It's a global business just waiting to be pushed to the next level."
"Right," she snorted. "By someone like me? I have no children, and for that matter, neither do you!"
"It doesn't matter, Sloan!" I said a little too loudly, making her chuckle as she shushed me. "What matters is that we work together to complete this damn contract so that I can get my life back and you can regain your reputation!"
"Do you really think this could work?" she asked as she returned her hand to my thigh. "Could we work together?"
"Only if you stop putting your hands on me," I said giving her a warning look before I signaled the server to come take our orders.
Sloan backed off, but only a little, and I knew that she and I were going to be walking a fine line if we worked together. She would be pushing boundaries, and I would have to constantly reinforce them. It wouldn't be easy, but I knew that if I were going to get the hell away from Baby Steps and my family, I was going to have to man up and deal with the temptations that Sloan presented.
The irony was that here I was on a date with a gorgeous woman who obviously wanted to end up in my bed, and all I could think about was the way that Leah had felt in my arms.
I shook my head and muttered, "You're going soft, old fella" before ordering another drink and turning my attention back to the woman who was going to help me get my life back.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Leah
"Well good morning, darlin'," Norma drawled as I entered her domain and looked around. In the days after Bernard had died, Norma had draped the office in black bunting and mourned openly. It was disconcerting, but she explained that her Southern roots run deep and that a proper period of mourning was essential to completing the rituals surrounding someone's death. Having come from an Irish Catholic family, I understood the process of mourning all too well, but I still thought it was a little over the top.
"Good morning, Norma," I said as cheerfully as possible. "The office looks different. What did you do to it?"
"I pulled down all the decorations, sweetie," she smiled as she finished storing the last of the black bunting in a box that she covered and then ran a strip of packaging tape around before sliding it into the storage space in the corner. "It's time to stop crying and start looking forward again! We've got a lot of work to do, and very little time to do it, darlin'!"
"You're a piece of work, Norma," I said, shaking my head as I walked to the area where each of the mailboxes for the team leaders was kept. I checked mine and found that there was a brand new stack of orders in my box. "Where did these come from?"
"Where did what come from, sugar?" she asked as she worked on opening a tall stack of envelopes. She'd pick one up, slip the letter opener in one side and slice the envelope open before pulling out the contents and stapling the envelope to the innards. She worked quickly and efficiently, and in the few minutes that I was in her office, she must have sorted thirty pieces of mail.
"Where did this stack of orders come from?" I asked as I flipped through the papers. None of the names on the top of the sheets looked familiar, and I wondered if my mail hadn't gotten mixed up with someone else's.
"I don't know. I didn't put them there," Norma said as she looked over her shoulder toward Jack's office. "He did."
"This makes no sense," I said as I walked toward Jack's door, knocked lightly, and then before Norma could stop me, opened the door. "Jack, I … oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were busy."
"It's okay, Leah," Jack said as he looked up at me and then back at the icy blonde who was leaning over his shoulder looking at something on the computer screen. "This is Sloan Morgan. Sloan, this is Leah Walsh. She runs the warehouse operations with incredible efficiency, and she's also got a mean skull."
"I see," the woman said as she straightened up and walked toward me with her hand out. "It's nice to meet you, Leah."
"It's nice to meet you, too, Ms. Morgan," I said as I took her hand. She was wearing what looked like a designer dress that fit her perfectly, and I suddenly felt very out of place in my much more casual scoop neck t-shirt, cotton skirt with leggings, and work boots. I'd found that working in a skirt made the warehouse guys treat me more like their boss than their sister, but it wasn't conducive to all the bending and climbing, so I'd put together a mishmash of clothing that seemed to signal my supervisory status while still being practical.
"Please, call me Sloan," she said smiling. Her eyes were blue, like mine, but she had a layer of chilly reserve in them.
"All right, Sloan," I said hesitating a little before turning to the matter at hand. "I've got a whole batch of new customers I've never seen before. Do you know where these came from and how do you want me to deal with them?"
"Ah, yes," Jack said as he ran his hand through his already messy hair. He looked rugged and wild, and I had a hard time meeting his gaze as I listened to him discuss the way that business was going to change. "So, we're going to solicit more online business via omni-channel marketing. That way we'll be able to target the market most apt to use, and reuse, our services. What do you think, Leah?"
"Huh? Oh, right, that sounds like a good plan to me," I said. "But the problem is going to be that we don't have enough warehouse workers to meet the demand if it increases substantially."
"We're going to work on that next," Jack said as he looked at Sloan. "I should have a plan for you by next week. It might mean increasing hours or hiring temps to fill the gaps."