Undersold (3 page)

Behind all of this was a simple question: why would he lie to me? Why would he tell me his name was Rex Blue? I felt a little betrayed, although I realized I had no real right to. Did he plan on telling me the truth later, or did he hope I wouldn’t recognize him? The contrast between the man I had been texting with, and the man standing in front of me with a surprised look on his face, the one who lied to me about his name and his identity, was like a hurricane inside my head.

Before the moment got too awkward, Shane put his hand out.

“Shane Green. Nice to meet you, Miss Woodall,” he said. His confusion shifted into a devilish smile.

I wasn’t sure how to play this. He obviously recognized me too, or at least I was pretty sure he did, but Royal Brown was watching us closely. I reached out and shook.

“Hello, Mr. Green,” I said. His hand was large and strong in mine, but it wasn’t soft like I expected. For a brief moment as we shook, my face turned bright red as I remembered describing how I wanted him to tie my hands behind my back while he took me from behind. I couldn’t believe I said that to my potential future employer. We released, and Shane went to sit by Royal.

“Well, you look a little flustered,” Royal said.

“Does she?” Shane answered. I thought he sounded disinterested, which confused me.

“Almost like you saw a ghost.” Royal laughed.

“I’m just a little nervous,” I managed to say.

“Well young lady, that’s totally natural,” Royal said. Shane’s gaze was piercing into me, and he wasn’t looking away. His face was impassive. I nervously sat and shuffled through my notes, trying not to think about how badly I wanted his lips pressed against mine.

There was a brief lull, and Royal looked between Shane and me.

“Well then,” Shane said finally, clearing his throat. “Shall we get started, Miss Woodall?”

I
didn’t need to be nervous. Royal took control of most of the meeting, and he was easy to get along with. He passed me contracts detailing the offer, exactly how much they were willing to pay, which was more than enough, and the terms of my employment. My stomach did backflips when he said ‘employment,’ and Royal must have noticed my joy because he couldn’t help but smile back. Meanwhile, Shane stayed quiet, and only spoke when it was clear he had to break in. There was something strange about him, almost brooding, and I felt like I was only seeing a drop in the bucket.

I didn’t understand this man. He was pretending like we didn’t know each other, or worse, like he was disappointed in me. Maybe the texts and pictures gave him a different idea, and once he met me in person, I wasn’t living up to his idealized version. I really had no clue what his passive silence meant, and it was all I could do not to reach across the table and grab him by the shoulders, maybe shake him slightly, and yell all the questions I had buzzing through my mind. Instead, I sat as patiently as I could and listened to Royal explain the deal, while Shane remained the epitome of passive professionalism. Royal was leading the meeting, but it was clear that Shane was in control. Even though he hardly spoke, Royal always looked to him before anything got signed.

How didn’t he recognize my profile picture? Didn’t he research me before buying my app? And why was he lying about his name on a crappy dating site? The answers were obviously not happening at this meeting. At least Royal seemed blissfully unaware of the issues between us as he droned on about insurance packages and salaries. Normally, that would have been the happiest moment of my life, but there was too much turmoil inside of me to enjoy it.

Toward the end of the meeting, we signed the final contracts. Royal passed me the papers first, and with a sharp bite of self-doubt and fear, I signed my name on the dotted line. Then, when I pushed the papers over to Shane, our fingers briefly touched. A slow shock tingled up my tips and through my hand, and our eyes met briefly. He looked away, pulled the contracts toward him, and signed as well.

The meeting ended soon after that. We all shook hands again, but I could still feel that brief touch between us. It was the first time we made casual contact, and although we shook hands, it didn’t have the same spontaneous shock that his fingers grazing mine did.

I was elated and confused. On the one hand, I just landed a job at the largest company in the city, a job I had wanted for years, while also selling an app that I had labored over since I was in school. My student debts would all be repaid and I would have some extra income to help pay my Dad’s medical bills. On the other, the first man I felt anything for in a long time, and maybe the most gorgeous one I had ever seen, lied to me about who he was, and seemed distant and distracted.

The two men left, and Janice came in to see me out.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

“It went perfect.”

“Oh yeah? Are you rich now?”

I laughed. What a weird question to ask someone. It felt unprofessional, but coming from her, completely comfortable and funny.

“Nope, not yet. But my student loans will get paid, and I’ll have a job,” I said.

“Well congratulations, Amy.”

We walked out, Janice in the lead. As we moved down the hall, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Normally I wouldn’t check it, but I was so elated and confused that I pulled it out without thinking.
Meet me at McCullough’s around the corner in ten.

It was a message from him. Rex Blue or Shane Green, whoever he was, still wanted me to meet him. And he wanted me to do it now.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted. As I followed Janice, I looked around the office and tried to catch a glimpse of Shane slash Rex, but he was nowhere in sight. I had no clue if I should go, but maybe he had a good reason for the way he was acting, and for why he lied to me. At the very least, it might be good to air all of this out before I started working for him. I decided it would be a good idea to make nice with the new boss.

Janice took me to the front of the office, and held open the door to the lobby.

“Thanks Janice,” I said. She smiled warmly in return.

“I look forward to working with you.”

“Same to you,” I said.

We shook hands again, and I exited into the lobby. I was an emotional mess, I realized as I got onto the elevator. I was also going to meet with Shane Green, reclusive billionaire, my future boss, my sext partner, alone in a bar in the next few minutes, and I had no clue what was going to happen.

I
was late. After I left the lobby, I went into the building’s public bathroom and fixed myself up. I took off my glasses and unbuttoned the top two buttons on my blouse. Might as well let him see what he’s missing, I figured. I guessed this wasn’t just a business meeting since he invited me to a bar. I washed my hands, and gave myself a mental pep talk. I can do this. I can do this. The knot of doubt was there, but I ignored it, and went out to try and find McCullough’s.

The bar was in a basement under a hair salon around the corner form Adstringo’s office. There was a tiny sign at the top of the staircase, and it took me fifteen minutes to even find it. By the time I did, I was 20 minutes late. I hurried down the steps, hoping he’d still be there.

I pushed open the old, dirty door and walked into the dimly lit room. There was wood paneling on every wall half way to the top, with the top half mostly dominated by old fashioned advertising signs. The place smelled like cigarette smoke, although nobody was smoking. It was pretty empty, and the long bar took up most of the room, with just a few booths off to one side, and an old jukebox in the corner. It was the definition of a dive, the more I looked at it, and I couldn’t believe a guy like Shane Green would go into a place like this. I felt instantly at home.

It took a second for my eyes to adjust, but once they did I spotted him sitting alone at the bar, nursing a drink. As I got closer to him, he looked up at me, and gave me that same crooked grin from the picture he had sent me. I felt my stomach do flips, and suddenly the knot of self doubt loosened up just a bit.

“Hey there, Amy,” he said.

“Hey yourself, Mr. Green. Or should I say Rex?” I took the seat next to him and dropped my bag on the floor. I didn’t know where this confidence was coming from, but it felt good being near him.

His grin vanished, replaced with a look of deep intensity. He bowed his head slightly. “I have some explaining to do.”

“Yeah, you do. But first, buy me a drink. White wine.”

He looked up a little surprised, but the intensity didn’t go away. If anything, it deepened, and I felt something stir inside of me. He motioned for the bartender, and ordered my drink. It felt good to act demanding, even though we both knew who held the power in this situation. We waited in silence while the bartender poured it, and placed it in front of me. I could feel Shane brooding beside me, and I stole glances at him out of the corner of my eye. He was staring into the mirror behind the bar with a far away look on his face, obviously thinking deeply about something. He was drinking a half-empty whiskey, or scotch, or whatever is brown.

“Alright then, go ahead, Mr. Blue,” I said, taking a sip from my drink.

He leaned back in his chair. His body and his piercing gaze took control of the room instantly. “Where do I start?”

“Maybe the name, for one.” I was pretending to be brave, but I already felt completely at his mercy.

“Alright, but first let me say this. I promise I didn’t know who you were when we started messaging. Not even when you sent me that picture.” He wasn’t smiling anymore, and his eyes were smooth and serious.

I wasn’t convinced. “How? I mean, you were buying my app.”

“I have a team that does purchasing. I actually didn’t have much to do with the basic research. I didn’t know your name until this morning, and even that didn’t ring any bells. Not my finest hour, I realize. I was a little distracted at the time.”

“Fine, even if that’s true and you didn’t know who I was, why did you lie about your name in the first place?”

He let out a deep breath and sipped his drink. I could tell this was difficult for him, and he glanced around the room before answering. He was clearly tortured over something, and I had no idea what.

“I’m a private person, Amy. Extremely private. I hate being in the public eye, but when you own a company like mine, you’re going to run into that sort of thing. I try my hardest to have a regular life, but for the most part it isn’t possible.” He paused and shifted his weight. “This is embarrassing, but the dating profile thing, it’s mostly to flirt with strangers. It makes me feel normal.”

I could understand that. I had read about his quirk, but hearing him talk about it, and seeing how physically uncomfortable it was making him, had an interesting effect on me. Instead of being angry or turned off, I wanted to run my fingers through his hair and kiss his mouth as hard as I could. This was clearly a man who was not used to having to explain himself, let alone admit to something as deeply personal as making a fake dating profile to feel normal. His vulnerability, mixed with his secrecy, was compelling.

“So then, what? You were going to ditch out on me?”

“No, absolutely not.” He looked me dead in the eyes and leaned closer. My breath caught in my chest for a moment. The light seemed to bend toward him.

“Is that what you do? Ditch the girls you flirt with?” I asked, my head swimming with images of his body.

“No. This is the first time it got that far, and I was going to tell you the truth when we met. I am sorry I lied to you. I never meant to mislead you.” He was inches away from me, and I could feel his heat. I was completely sucked into is gaze, and I felt like I would do anything he said.

“What am I supposed to call you, anyway?” I asked, breathing in his smell.

“Call me Shane. In the office, call me Mr. Green. I promise, this won’t affect our working relationship. I don’t wish to make you ... uncomfortable.”

He made me uncomfortable, all right. So uncomfortable, I was imagining taking him into what is probably a disgusting dive bar bathroom, unbuckling his belt, and sucking him off in the stall. I didn’t normally act or think like this, but something about this man made me need him.

“Thank you for saying that,” I said quietly. It made him lean a bit closer and I savored the intimacy. “I don’t want our professional relationship to suffer.”

He smiled that half grin of his and moved away to sip his drink. I drank mine too, if only to cover how much I wanted him to come closer again.

“So, where do we go from here?” I asked.

“You start work next week, and I’ll be overseeing your project for the first two months.”

“Is that your way of keeping me close?” I said jokingly.

He smiled. “I do that for all our new acquisitions.” There was a hint of something more in his tone, but I wasn’t sure what it meant.

“Oh, is that what I am? An acquisition?”

“Don’t undersell yourself, Amy.” His expression turned intense again as his eyes raked along my body. I felt myself wanting him to hold me in his gaze for as long as possible. I wanted to be the object of his attention, or maybe just his object. “You’re much more than that. We don’t always hire the developer of everything we buy.”

That gave me pause. I didn’t know his business practices, and because Adstringo wasn’t public, I had to rely on second hand sources. There were rumors, of course, but rumors didn’t always mean much.

“So why hire me, then?” I asked, confused.

“You have to ask?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You created and developed a complex application in your spare time that not only has a revenue function, but also a positive social benefit. It’s impressive. I wanted to poach you before someone else did.”

I didn’t know what to say. It’s true that my app was a little complicated. Connecting low-income students with online tutors willing to help them for decreased rates has a lot of moving pieces, but I never looked at it as anything more than a worthwhile puzzle.

“Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying that,” I said, and blushed.

“Of course. I hope we can get through this oddness, Amy. We’ll be working very closely together in the coming months.”