Inappropriate by Vi Keeland
Chapter 6
Grant
“Millie!” I shouted without getting up from my desk.
My assistant rushed into the office. “Yes, Mr. Lexington?”
“I need to start a new committee.”
Her brows knitted. I avoided committees like the plague, and here I was telling her I wanted to start one. “Okay…what kind of committee, and who will be involved?”
I shook my head and grumbled the answer. “The focus of the group is to improve the workplace for women.”
Millie’s eyebrows jumped.
Yeah. I know. I’m fucking shocked, too.
“Okay...” she said hesitantly, like she was waiting for the punch line. “Do you have committee members already picked out?”
I waved my hand. “Get a bunch of women. I don’t care who they are. And maybe my sister Kate. She loves to have meetings.”
“You don’t care who the women on the committee are?”
“No.” I picked up a pile of papers and shuffled them, trying to pull off casual. “Maybe invite Ireland Saint James to be part of it.”
“Ireland? The woman who sent you the decapitated flowers?”
Well, when she said it like that, it sounded a little nuts to create a committee out of thin air and invite someone who cut the heads off of the expensive flowers I sent her and walked out on our lunch date before we’d even ordered.
I sighed. “Yeah, her.”
“When would you like me…”
“Soon.”
“Do you have an agenda in mind for this committee’s first meeting?”
“Women’s shit. I don’t know. You must know better than me. Pull something together.”
Millie looked like she was seconds away from walking over and feeling my forehead to see if I had a fever.
Maybe that’s what it was. Maybe I was sick instead of losing my mind? It damn well better be one or the other. I dragged a hand through my hair. A committee on women’s initiatives? I wanted to be part of that almost as much as I wanted someone to grip my nuts in their fist and twist. Yet here I was, apparently spearheading the group.
What the fuck?
Ireland Saint James. That’s what the fuck. In my entire life, I’d never had to go out of my way to talk to a woman, yet this woman had me calling her to check how her day was going and then inventing a fucking committee when she asked the reason for my call. Stress, too much work—it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that I could be experiencing a breakdown.
While I debated a quick trip to a therapist, my assistant was still standing in my office, looking at me like I had two heads. I picked up a file and looked at her pointedly.
“Do you need anything else from me to get it started?”
“Umm... No, I don’t think so.”
“Good. Then that’ll be all.”
Millie stopped in my doorway and turned back. “The mail came. Would you like today’s letter—”
“Throw it out,” I barked.
“I’ll get right on it. And don’t forget about the photo shoot tonight.”
The confused look on my face told her I had no fucking idea what she was talking about, so she filled in the blanks.
“You have an interview and photo shoot for Today’s Entrepreneur magazine. It was scheduled a few months ago, and it’s on your calendar.”
Shit. Photo shoots and interviews were right up there with committees on women in the workplace on my list of crap I had zero interest in being part of. “What time?”
“Four thirty. At Leilani.”
I looked at my watch. Great. I had an hour to finish up six hours of work.
***
A half dozen people were already sitting on the dock in front of Leilani when I parked at the marina. It was four thirty, right on the nose. They must’ve been early.
A familiar-looking redheaded woman smiled as I approached.
“Mr. Lexington. Amanda Cadet.” She extended her hand to me. “It’s so nice to see you again.”
Again.Well, that explained why she looked familiar. Though I had no idea where we’d met. Probably some industry function. “You, too. Please, call me Grant.”
“Alright. And please call me Amanda.”
I looked around at a shitload of equipment. “Are you moving in?”
She laughed. “We brought a lot of camera and video equipment, because we weren’t sure of the setting. To be safe, we even packed some props and a few canvas backgrounds. Though we can obviously put that all back in the truck.” She turned to eye my boat. “This sailboat is stunning, and the scenery is better than any movie set.”
“Thank you. It was my grandfather’s. First sailboat he ever built in 1965.”
“Well, you could have told me it was brand new.”
I nodded my head toward the Leilani May. “Why don’t I show you around, and you can decide where your crew wants to set up.”
I gave Amanda a quick tour. The sixty-foot ketch was eye candy, even to non-boaters. Navy hull, satin finish teak wood, cream upholstery, stainless steel galley, an owner’s stateroom more luxurious than most apartments, and three guest cabins made it look more like a Vineyard Vines ad than a sixty-year-old sailboat.
“So…what do you think? Where should we do this?”
“Honestly, anywhere would make for a great shoot. The boat is beautiful.” She lifted a painted nail to her bottom lip, calling my attention to it. “And the subject is flawless. This cover is going to pull big numbers.”
Amanda Cadet was attractive, and she knew it. She also knew how to use it to get what she wanted. Though whatever she thought she was getting from me—a story with some major revelation or my mouth between her legs—she wouldn’t be. Because business and pleasure don’t mix. I almost laughed at that thought after the way I’d been acting around Ms. Aruba Tits.
I held out my hand to indicate she should exit the cabin first. “Why don’t we go out on the rear deck and set up on the left side with the marina in the background?”
“That sounds perfect.”
I posed for pictures for the better part of an hour, hating every moment of it, but keeping my contempt to myself. When they had enough shots to plaster the walls of my office, Amanda told everyone to pack it up.
“Do you want me to video the interview?” her cameraman asked.
The piece she was putting together was for print, but it wasn’t uncommon to record a session so the reporter could go back later and listen for things they’d missed in their notes.
Amanda’s eyes swept over me. “No, that’s okay. I think I’m good taking care of this one all by myself.”
After the crew left, we sat alone on the back deck.
“So how often do you get down here to go boating? My brother is an orthopedic surgeon with a fifty-foot Carver down in San Diego Bay. I think he used it twice last year.”
The truthful response to that question was every damn day. But I preferred to keep my private life private. The fact that I lived on the Leilani May was none of her business, and definitely not something I intended to share with her readers.
I nodded like I could relate to her brother. “Not often enough.”
“I love that you still have your grandfather’s first boat. I think the things a man holds on to say a lot about him.”
If she only knew the half of it. “This boat built my family’s company.”
“How so?”
“This was his first model, and he used it to take the initial orders for Lexington Craft Yachts. Thirty years later, Lexington Craft went public, and my family used the proceeds to expand into different entertainment-related businesses. My dad had started a sports magazine, and my grandfather bought a few more publications. Eventually that led to buying a news station and chain of movie theaters. So without this boat, you wouldn’t be interested in interviewing me today.”
She flaunted a flirtatious smile. “Something tells me I’d be interested in interviewing you whether you were the CEO of one of the top 100 growing companies in America or your job was to clean this boat.”
“I’m not that interesting.”
“Humble, too, huh? I like it.” She winked. “Tell me about your family’s foundation. Your mother started it, correct?”
“That’s right. It’s called Pia’s Place. My mother was put into the foster care system because of abuse when she was five. She moved around a lot, so it was difficult for her to keep the same therapist for too long. She had a different counselor every year at Child Protective Services, because those people are underpaid and overworked, so they tend to have a revolving door. She always felt different than the other kids in school, most of whom didn’t know what foster care was. So it was difficult to connect with someone who understood what she was going through. Pia’s Place is sort of like a big brother program for foster kids, except all of the big brothers and sisters are former foster children themselves, so they can really connect with the kids they’re assigned to. The foundation trains the volunteers and covers the cost of all of their outings, meals, and entertainment when they spend time with their Little Sister or Brother. It also pays down a chunk of any student loans the volunteers have or helps them pay for a college education.”
“That’s amazing.”
It was amazing, and that’s because my mother was a very special person. But all this shit was readily available online. So if this was news to Amanda, she hadn’t done her homework.
I smiled. “My mother never forgot where she came from.”
“And you and your two sisters were adopted from foster care, right?”
I nodded. More shit anyone with access to Google could find in two minutes. “That’s right. My parents became foster parents when I was five. I was first, and then my sister Kate, then Jillian. We were all originally foster placements. My mother continued to take in children until she became sick.”
“I’m sorry about your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“And do you have a Little Brother? I mean, in the program. I know you don’t have an actual one.”
“I do. He’s eleven, going on twenty. My sisters are paired up, too.”
She smiled. “What’s his name?”
Finally, one probing question. Though I wasn’t about to give her Leo’s name. The relationships between a Big and a Little were private—especially mine and Leo’s tangled one. “I prefer not to divulge anything about kids who are part of the program.”
“Oh. Sure. Yeah. I understand. They’re minors. I wasn’t thinking.”
Over the next half hour we talked about more things that would find their way into the puff piece she’d write—who runs what at Lexington Industries, how well the company is doing, and the direction I’d like to take things in the next few years. Then she attempted to get some personal questions in.
“Are you single?”
I nodded. “I am.”
“No special someone to take sailing on the weekend on this beautiful boat?”
“Not at the moment.”
She tilted her head. “That’s a shame.”
My phone started to buzz. I looked down. “It’s the office. Please excuse me for a moment.”
“Of course.”
I swiped to answer, knowing full well who would be on the line, and took a few steps away from Amanda.
“Hi, Mr. Lexington. It’s Millie, and I’m about to head out for the day. It’s just about six o’clock. You wanted me to call and let you know when it was six.”
“Yes, that’s great. Thank you.”
I held the phone up to my ear for a minute after my assistant hung up, and then turned back to my interviewer. “Sorry. I have an overseas call I’m going to need to take in a few minutes. Do you think we can finish up?”
“Oh. Of course. No problem.” She stood. “I think I have everything I need for now anyway.”
It’s gonna be one hell of a dull article. “Great. Thank you.”
Amanda packed up her notepad and dug a business card out of her purse. Writing something on the back, she extended it to me with a tilt of her head. “I wrote my home number on the card.” She smiled. “I love to sail.”
I smiled back like I was flattered. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I’m going out.” Which will not likely be anytime soon…considering the boat hasn’t moved from the dock in close to a decade.
Offering a hand, I helped Amanda over to the dock.
She lifted the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and looked down at the name painted in gold across the back of the navy hull. “Leilani May,” she said. “Who’s the boat named after?”
I winked. “Sorry. Interview is over.”
