Page 1 of Living with Fire
CHAPTER 1
SAVANNA
There are few things more embarrassing than getting caught with your pants around your ankles. Being caught red-handed by a high paying client is probably one of them.
A gasp strangles my throat while my stomach lurches at the sight before me. Standing on the far side of the boardroom I’ve just stumbled into is my boss, Preston, and his newest intern. Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t be an issue. But when one’s pants are dropped and the other’s skirt is hiked up to her hips, it can lead to trouble.
“What the hell is going on here?” Mr. Miller bellows from behind me.
Massive trouble.
I turn towards the man in his seventies. His piercing blue eyes are normally sharp and calculating, full of experience that has served him well in his lifetime. I’ve seen kindness and warmth in them when we’ve bonded over hockey teams, and annoyance when he needs to deal with someone he’s deemed unfit.
I’ve never seen the rage that’s in them now. A look that intensifies as his wife steps from behind him to find out what she’s missing. Mr. Miller tries to keep her from seeing, but the woman is fast, despite her age, and darts around him.
“Oh my!” she gasps, a hand coming up to cover lips that are a perfect shade of pink. If her pixie cut hair wasn’t already stark white, the shock that radiates from her would turn it so, I’m sure. “Well. This is quite the development.”
“I am so sorry you had to see that,” I tell them as Mr. Miller takes his wife by the arm and drags her from the room. I’m quick to follow, pulling the door shut with a hard slam, racing down the hall to catch up with them.
My heart feels like it’s going to come out of my chest, while heat flushes my entire body. It’s not secondhand embarrassment, or our upset clients, that has anger surging through me. It’s my own foolishness. Memories of the few dates I’ve been on with Preston flash through my mind. I knew better than to get involved with anyone, let alone my boss. I hadn’t wanted to go out with him. Hell, I’d even turned him down politely at first, declining every advance, ignoring all his blatant flirting.
Loneliness can screw with a person, though, and since I moved to Santa Rosé, California six months ago, I’ve been lonely. Between the cutthroat nature of my job, and knowing it was best to keep to myself—I couldn’t allow anyone to get too close to me—I starved myself of human contact.
Preston caught me during a weak moment one day, asking once more that I join him for dinner. It happened right after I’d caught a couple of my coworkers talking about me in the bathroom. Feeling down and dejected, I’d finally accepted.
The way he lit up when I told him I’d go out with him made me feel special, like I was giving him the only thing he’d ever wanted in his life on Christmas morning. I admit I was pretty dazzled by that. We were planning our fourth date for this Friday, but that’s out of the question now.
Mr. Miller stops at the T-intersection of the office and whirls on me. His jaw is clenched, his hand running through his perfectly tousled salt and pepper hair.
“Savanna, this in no way reflects on you, though I question your choice of employer,” he states, straining to keep some of the ice out of his tone. “Then again, we’ve had our money locked in this firm for years, so I question ours as well. No longer. We’ll be in touch within the next few days to withdraw everything we invest here.”
“I completely understand. Please know I would never have led either of you in there if I’d—”
“We know, dear,” Mrs. Miller cuts me off, putting a hand on my arm. “But if that’s what goes on in this office, we can no longer be associated with this place.”
“Of course,” I tell them, nodding my understanding.
I’m pretty sure I can’t be associated with it any longer either, but with a million thoughts racing through my mind, it’s hard to focus at the moment. One thing I do know is that I won’t try to stop them from leaving today, or taking their money out of here.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” I add.
“No need. We know where it is,” Mr. Miller says in a clipped tone. Without another word, he turns and strides down the hall.
Mrs. Miller gives me a pained smile before she follows, leaving me standing at the intersection in the office. One way leads to the elevators, and the other leads to my desk. I can hear a boardroom door open and I’m certain it’s from the room we just left. Probably Preston coming to do damage control, but the damage is already done. There’s nothing he’ll be able to do to save the Miller account. Of that, I’m sure.
People around here don’t talk kindly about the Millers. They’re known as the “crotchety old people”. In my second week as a financial advisor at this wealth management firm, I was thrown onto their account because so many had been kicked off it. The Millers were the type to have their hands on all of their investments. They wanted to know everything that was going on and saw a consultant once every few months. Usually they demanded someone new because no one lived up to their expectations.
Jaws dropped when I walked out of the boardroom with them after our first meeting, the three of us laughing like we were old pals catching up. It bolstered my confidence in my work that the notoriously hard to please couple had taken so well to me.
The downside was being cast as an outsider. I quickly learned the people at this firm weren’t here to make friends. They were here to work, compete, and outshine one another. I had outshone many of them without intending to, and while it made Preston, son of one of the owners, extremely happy, it made me a social pariah.
That was okay with me. Mostly. It made for long days and lonely evenings, but when I moved from Denver, Colorado, to this small city southwest of San José, I knew I would need to keep a low profile. What better way to do that than spending your evenings and weekends alone?
“Savanna!” Preston calls my name, and I cringe at the thought of having to deal with him right now.
Putting a hand up, I shake my head, giving him my back as I walk quickly towards my desk. “Save it, Preston. I don’t want to hear it.”
“I can explain,” he says, causing me to spin around to him.