Fake Marriage Box Set

I wasn't sure who orgasmed first, whether it was me or him, but we finally stilled, caught up in shimmering bliss. Andrew gave a few final, slow thrusts as almost an afterthought before he pulled out and collapsed next to me. He pulled me close, gently smoothing down my hair and then kissing me.

“Wow,” was all I could say.

Andrew chuckled, but he sounded just as blown away as I was. “Yeah,” he said, shaking his head.

I grinned, proud that I'd been able to get him to sound like that.

Andrew continued to hold me there in the bed for the rest of the flight, until we had landed at the airport, even though I was sure that we were probably supposed to put on our seatbelts once we began our descent. All too soon, it was back to reality. But I clung to the memories of that night, from the dinner-date to the “dessert.”

Maybe things with Andrew and I would work out after all.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Andrew

I drummed my fingers on my desk, running through the meeting's agenda and mentally preparing myself for the questions that I knew would be coming. I sighed and pushed back my chair, making myself a quick cup of tea before I went into the conference room. Everyone was already there.

It's going to take a while before they quit expecting to be fired over every little thing, I thought, knowing that they were probably all here early because they were afraid that if they showed up after me, I'd fire them on the spot. That wasn't the plan for today, though.

“Good morning, everyone,” I greeted them, sitting at the head of the table. “Let's get started. Now, I know that many of you are wondering why we've gathered here today. Don't worry; we're not here to discuss the mid-quarter numbers, although they are looking very impressive. I can see that you are all thinking about those internal goals and about everything that we talked about in our last meeting.”

There was a murmur of assent around the table.

“As some of you may have noticed, I've been working from home a lot more lately,” I continued. “I've decided to begin changing my management strategy.” I could see looks of surprise around the table. “It's come to my attention that I've micromanaged this company for far too long. And although that has obviously yielded results, I think it's time for me to begin to take a step back from things.”

One of the men seated to my left frowned at me. His name was Tom, and he'd been with the company since my father had started it, way back when. He asked the question that I knew they were all thinking. “Are you retiring?”

I laughed. “I'm too young to retire,” I told him. “What would I do with myself? That would be a lot of time to kill. Besides, I don't have someone to take my place at the moment. Although I appreciate all that each of you does for the company, you all work in your own departments more often than not. The person who will eventually replace me will be someone who has experience bringing together the work of all those different departments.”

There were some nods around the table, and even though I knew most, if not all, of my employees feared me, there were a number of them who looked relieved. They were probably worried that if I left the company, there would be layoffs and other big changes to the company structure, more than anything else.

“The thing is, the more I micromanage you, the less you have the opportunity to show me that this company could, in fact, exist without me,” I said, folding my hands in front of me. “The reason why you've all been working in your own specific departments is because that's the way that I've forced you to work. You're all very talented, but I haven't given you the opportunities to prove yourselves.”

“You make it sound like you're going to pit us head-to-head with one another and award the company to the last man standing,” someone quipped.

I smiled as there were a few nervous chuckles around the table. “That's not the plan,” I promised. “However, I am planning to start scaling back my hours, effective immediately. I will continue to work from home some days, but there will also be days when I don't work at all.” I paused. “I don't plan to drastically cut back on how much I'm working, but I will be giving you all a lot more independence, and I'll need everyone to step up to the plate.”

There was silence around the table. Everyone looked like they were processing this news.

“And if we don't step up to the plate, we get fired?” Jack asked.

I remembered that he was the man who had almost gotten himself fired in the previous meeting, and I barely managed to suppress a smile.

“That's not what I'm saying,” I told him, looking around the table and meeting everyone's eyes so that they'd see how sincere I was. I shrugged. “We'll try this out for a little while, maybe just one quarter or maybe for a few quarters. We'll see how it affects our numbers, if at all. If things don't seem to be working, I'll step back in. But we'll discuss that, as a team, when we get to the point.”

The emphasis on “as a team” shocked them.

“So essentially, you are planning to retire soon?” Bob asked. “You just want to make sure the company will be all right without you when you do?”

“That's not it,” I said firmly.

“Then why?” someone asked, sounding absolutely baffled.

I shrugged. “As I said, I feel as though I haven't given you the chance to show me what you can really do, to achieve your full potential,” I told them. “That's all there is to it.”

That wasn't all there was to it, of course. Not

by a long shot. What it really boiled down to was that I wanted to spend more time with Lexi and Emma. That was why I'd begun working from home more and more. The more I worked from home, and the more I spent my lunches with them, the less motivated I felt to go back to work for the afternoon.