I frown. Everyone at the firm thought my shower idea was brilliant. Three more went in after mine was installed. “Are you complaining about your hours, Ernest?”
He throws up his hands. “No. I love working on Saturdays.”
“Good because this weekend, we’re going over the Patrie depos. I think I caught one of the brothers admitting he was intentionally decreasing the value of the stock to play into the hands of short sellers.”
“Sounds like the best time.” Ernest flops into his chair.
“I feel like that’s sarcasm, but I’m going to ignore it because that’s what I do.” I slam the door to my office shut and stomp over to my desk. Lucy giving me the list and Ernest complaining about work puts me in a sour mood. So what that I like to work? What else is there to do when the love of your life is ignoring your non-stop proposals for marriage?
The phone rings as I’m contemplating the unfairness of it all.
“It’s your uncle.” Ernest’s voice speaks over the intercom.
I ignore the phone and get up. Uncle Cristoff will keep calling until I go and see him. “Not a word, Ernest,” I warn when I leave the office. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him making a zipping motion across his lips.
Uncle Cristoff’s office is at the end of the floor, behind a set of solid cherry doors. I wave to his secretary, a lithe young thing of maybe twenty-five. He always replaces them before they’re thirty. “I’m old,” he told me once, “and having nice things to look at is my one weakness.”
Because Uncle Cristoff is the head of our family, I refrained from pointing out that he has a gambling addiction as well as a tendency to make terrible investments in the market. Good thing we Donovans have a buttload of money, or Uncle Cristoff would be living in a shack along the railroad tracks.
“Wyatt, my boy! Come in. Come in.” The old man waves me into one of the large leather chairs arranged in front of his desk. Cigar smoke is so thick it almost creates an opaque bubble around Cristoff’s head.
I clear my throat and wonder how much second-hand nicotine I’ve inhaled in my thirty-five years of being in Cristoff’s presence.
“How is the marriage hunt going?”
“Uncle Cristoff, don’t you think it’s archaic to force people to marry? Everyone knows I’m competent. Everyone knows you’re giving the firm to me. Marriage as a prerequisite is an outdated notion not to mention not enforceable in a court of law.”
“That bad, huh?” He taps the cigar against the ashtray. “Is it that you don’t have any ideas? Because I can have…” He pauses, trying to think of his secretary’s name.
“Rose?” I think it’s a flower.
“Right. Rose. I can have Rose make up a list for you.”
“I’ve got a list.”
“Oh? Let’s see it.”
I toss the now mangled list of names onto Cristoff’s desk. He peruses it, grunting a few times and making a mark by a couple entries.
“I like these girls.” He hands the list back.
“Do you even know them?”
“No. I like their names. Candy Wittig? Sounds like she’d be sweet.” He waggles his eyebrows.
“I’m not choosing a wife based on her name.”
“Then invite them all up here, and we can have an impromptu fashion pageant.”
“I don’t want the firm to get sued.”
“Harrumph.” Uncle Cristoff folds his fingers across his stomach. “You young people and all your rules. In my day, we could do fun things like that, and no one would bat an eye.”
I keep my mouth shut.
“If you can’t inspect them all together, you’re going to have to do it individually. That’s not so terrible, though. Might be exciting. You could rate them based on looks, agreeability, and talents.” Uncle Cristoff is getting into it. I decide to cut him off.
“I have someone in mind.”
“Oh?” His eyebrows go up. “Then close the deal.”
“She doesn’t want me.”
Cristoff jerks back. “Don’t let that out, boy. If the board heard that you can’t get the woman of your choice into your bed, they wouldn’t believe you were fit to run this firm. Can’t have the head of our company not close the most important deal of his life.” He shakes his head. “Never speak of this woman again. Marry Candy. Have sweet babies. Take over the firm. There. You can go now.”
“Thanks for your advice, Uncle Cristoff,” I say dryly, taking the list Lucy made and tucking it away.
“I’m always here for you, boy. Now get out and send Rose in here. I want to look at her legs again.”
I leave and say on my way out, “Rose, go get lunch and don’t come back for two hours.”
“He wants to look at my legs again?” she says.
“Yup.”
“When are you taking over the firm?” Rose gets up from her desk and gathers up her purse.