Page 10 of Illicit Education
She motioned toward my face. “The haircut. The shave.” She ran her fingers over her chin. “It suits you.”
I gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you. And that list? What time can you get it to me?”
A crease formed between Stella’s eyebrows. “Your schedule has been updated with today’s appointments, as always, Mr. Reed.”
“Perhaps I was not clear, Stella. Notmyappointments. Please provide me with a list of meetings taking place today within the entirety of Reed Publishing.”
Her mouth dropped. “The whole company?”
“Yes,” I huffed. “Is it too much to ask that I be kept abreast of the goings on within my own publishing house?”
She gulped, lowering her head quickly in response to the tone of my voice. “No, sir.”
Already on high alert after the titillating interaction with the woman on the elevator, my cock twitched at the familiar word, but, unlike my assistant, Iwasable to draw a distinct line between business and pleasure.
“My father in yet?”
“Not yet, sir.”
Good. He’d been showing his face around here less and less, allowing me the freedom to step into my rightful place as Chief Executive Officer of Reed Enterprises. With the official announcement just a few weeks away, I wanted my employees to be used to seeing me, not him. With both of us in the building, the chain of command became muddled; people didn’t know which Cabot Reed to report to.
I gave a curt nod and stepped past reception. “I want that list by nine o’clock, Ms. Whitney.”
She squeaked, but the sound was nearly inaudible.
“Reed,” Wilder called as I passed the CFO’s office.
Monday mornings were a nightmare and I was already late. A fact that just moments earlier had not bothered me in the slightest, what with all of my attention focused on one fiery brunette, but now caused an itch to bloom between my shoulder blades. I mustered up a smile for my oldest friend and leaned against his door jamb.
Travis Wilder was the best numbers guy in all of New York City. We'd grown up together, but even with our strong bond, it took years to convince him to join Reed Enterprises, and only when my father decided to step down as acting CEO and I was positioned to take his place, did Travis agree to come on board.
Just in time to run this empire by my side.
Wilder drug his fingers through his neatly-trimmed beard. “You look like a suit.”
“As was my intention.”
“I haven’t seen your chin since boarding school.”
Smiling, I ran my hand over my freshly shaved jaw. In an act of teenage rebellion after graduation, I stopped shaving and grew my hair out, so desperate to separate myself from my father. Eventually, I’d trimmed the beard to a respectable length and kept it maintained, but the hair became my signature look, jet black and reaching over halfway down my back. But, as I approached this new chapter, I finally realized that having long hair and a thick beard may have made mephysicallystand apart from my father, but it was the man I’d become that made us opposites.
And as we prepared to officially announce the transfer of power, I wanted to look the part.
“Are we still on for that luncheon with the good ol’ boys club?” he asked, his distaste evident in the curl of his lip.
I nodded, even though I, too, was loathe to share a meal with our peers.
With Roderick Rombauer at the head of that pack of vultures.
It was as if father and son Rombauer knew that once in control, I would let them go. But, unless Travis had spilled–which I would never even consider a possibility–no one but he, Stella, and I knew of my plans to do just that. And Stella’s lips were sealed tighter than a vault. I trusted her as surely as I trusted Travis.
The Rombauer firm represented all divisions of the Reed family conglomerate, even Reed Publishing, which had been my baby from the start, and had done so since long before I came along. Generations of Reeds and Rombauers working together to the point where the line between right and wrong was just as blurred as the line between Reed and Rombauer.
But that enmeshment stopped with me.
Reed Enterprises was soon to be mine, and everything about this business, from the staff employed in the lobby cafe to the executives at the top–hell, even the entire building itself–would be my responsibility. And, as such, would be one-hundred percentabove board. I didn’t need an unscrupulous legal team on retainer because I didn’t plan on continuing the Reed family's claim to fame with nefarious endeavors and gray-area practices.
Little MissNepotism Newsmight be surprised to learn that I was nothing like my father.