I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs
26
Beck
“For the next item of business,” Owen said, “the recruitment numbers. Universities are going to be graduating their next classes in a few months. We need to start reaching out to attract more new employees.”
“We have employees scheduled to attend career fairs at their alma maters to talk to prospective hires. We should also be able to accommodate the increase in numbers of interns you requested, Beck,” Cressida said. “And the marketing department sent out the new brochures and posters for people to take with them.”
“It would be a lot easier to recruit if Beck didn’t fire everyone.”
“Ashley needed to go,” I reminded Walker.
“Tristan is an idiot.” My brother scoffed.
“And as such, we have to protect him. Ashley was probably trying to trap him so she’d have a guaranteed paycheck for the next twenty-five years, assuming she had found a good lawyer.”
Walker’s phone rang. He sent it to voicemail.
“The next item on the agenda is the Holbrook contract. Cressida, I think we’re good for now, if you have other work to do,” Owen said.
As Cressida gathered her things and left, Walker’s phone pinged with incoming text messages.
“Shit,” he said. “Several of our little sisters were expelled.”
“You mean suspended,” I corrected.
“No, I mean they blew a giant hole in the side of the building because they wanted to mix the pink and the blue chemicals together, and they are now officially expelled. Also, I will need to write a very big check to the school.” He held out his hand.
I rolled my eyes and pulled out my checkbook.
Owen shook his head. “And I thought your little brothers were bad. I don’t think any of them have been expelled.”
“To be fair,” Walker said, packing up his laptop, “this is a fancy-schmancy private school, and they don’t let things slide like they do at the public school in Harrogate.”
“Back to the Holbrook contract,” Owen said after Walker left.
“I have Tess looking at a way to salvage it,” I said. “Though you know my thoughts on the matter. I don’t want to grovel to them.”
“You Svenssons,” Owen said, clearly annoyed. “Is it Greg? I know he and Hunter hate the Holbrooks, but your feuds cannot affect our bottom line.”
“It’s not Greg,” I shot back. “I just don’t see the point in wasting our time.”
“They do work with the military,” Owen replied, jaw tense. “Federal projects always look good for our company.”
I felt a breeze on my neck.
“Can you come to the park with us?”
I looked down to see Annie.
“I’m in a meeting,” I told her, annoyed. “Didn’t you see?”
“Oh.” She deflated. “I saw Walker leave. I thought you were done.”
“I will see you this evening. Can you please go to Tess?”
“She’s busy,” Annie complained, loudly. Several of the employees looked over.
“Annie,” I said, more harshly than I intended.
She sulked out of the room.
After the door shut, Owen sighed deeply. “Another thing, Beck…”
I set my jaw, knowing what he was going to say. I was not in the mood.
“You need to do something with your sisters. They cannot just traipse around the office.”
“I’ve brought my other brothers here before,” I countered. “And there wasn’t a problem.”
“Yes, as interns. They work,” Owen reminded me. “We can’t be a legitimate company if your little sisters are sprawled out on the floor, coloring. Have you found a nanny?”
“We’ve been blacklisted,” I admitted. “Greg hired someone, and my other brothers decided to dump our other sisters off on the nanny, and when Greg got home, the poor woman was locked in the bathroom. Greg had to pay her off to keep her from suing him.”
“You need to work something out,” Owen said. “Do you need to take a leave of absence?”
“No,” I barked. “I’m fine. Tess—”
“Is a Quantum Cyber employee, not a nanny. You need to work something out,” he repeated.
I wasin a terrible mood when I went down to the lobby. Tess was on her laptop, ignoring the girls, who were arguing loudly with my little sister Luna. Uniform rumpled from fighting, I suspected, she had apparently been haphazardly dumped in the lobby by Walker.
“That’s not how you make a scone,” Annie scolded Luna. “You can’t overwork the dough.”
“I want to make cookies!” Luna shrieked. She was several grades younger than Annie and Enola and did not have their level of maturity and patience.
“Don’t you have homework?” Tess said to them, finally looking up from her laptop, “Walker, did the school not—oh!” She started when she saw me. “I thought you were your brother.”
“Where is he?”
Walker strolled over, phone in hand from just finishing up a call. He smiled at our sisters.
“While you all are back there baking, can you make a cheese and spinach tart? Holly was out of them this morning.”
“Yes,” Enola said happily, her face lighting up.
My heart melted a little bit. I hadn’t quite realized it when I had first met her the day Crawford dropped her and our sisters off, but Enola had been extremely stressed. She’d had too much responsibility placed on her at a young age with taking care of our younger siblings. Seeing her excited about something as childlike as baking was nice. She seemed younger and way more relaxed. As much as I might think they were an annoyance, I was so happy my little sisters weren’t in the cult. I was going to do everything to make sure they had the chance to have a happy childhood.
“I want to make a unicorn bread,” my other sister whined.
However, as much as I wanted my sisters to be happy, Owen was right. The current situation was chaotic. Our little sisters could not just live in the lobby.
“Tess, can we talk upstairs?”
“I have the best idea for the AstraDrone contract,” she said, grabbing her laptop and following me to the elevator.
“Really?” I asked warily.
“It’s still a surprise,” she said, practically bouncing up and down. “It might be a total disaster, so I’m not going to tell you what it is until I have a draft.”
We stepped off the elevator and headed to my office.
“The marketing people emailed me,” she added. “They want you to go to several schools as part of the recruitment drive. Stanford, Harvard, and MIT are obvious choices, but did you want to go to Georgia Tech and Northwestern as well?”
“Let me think about it.”
“Let me know soon because I need to make custom presentations for you for each school.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because each school has a different history and focus, and you need to make sure your presentation speaks to those local elements. You want the students to feel engaged. Otherwise, they’re just going to take their talents elsewhere. With a computer science degree, every one of them, but especially the top performers, are in high demand. They can basically write their own ticket in life.”
“I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do that much traveling,” I admitted when we arrived in my office. “My sisters seem to be taking up a lot of my bandwidth.”
“They should be back in school soon,” Tess said with a sigh.
“I already know where it’s headed,” I said. “They’re not going to make it another month before they’re full-on expelled. I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened.”
Tess snorted.
“No,” I continued. “I know that you have work to do, so I came up with a great idea for the girls, since they like baking so much. Owen’s brother’s girlfriend has a bakery. She always needs helpers. The girls could go decorate as many cookies as they want, and maybe I could sign them up for some baking classes.”
I was expecting Tess to jump up and down and tell me what an awesome idea that was. But instead, she gave me an angry look.
“So your solution to your bored sisters is to have them bake cookies for the next ten years until what?” Her eyes narrowed.
“Why are you acting like this? I thought you would think it’s a great idea?” I was confused. “Besides, you like to bake.”
“Yes, as a hobby,” she said slowly.
“People run bakeries as jobs,” I argued.
“You mean like Chloe and Holly?” Tess said in annoyance. “They are small business owners. They manage franchises. That’s marketing, finance, investing, real estate, logistics, and computer coding so they can design their own systems.” Tess ticked off on her fingers. “If the girls want to run a bakery franchise statewide or, hell, nationwide, they need to learn more than baking. And you need to provide it. You’re a CFO, and you have access to resources. You could at least spend some time with your sisters.”
“But they’re happy baking.”
“Of course they’re happy baking! Who doesn’t want to bake?” Tess railed. “I love baking. That’s literally all I’d do if I could. And it’s great that they’re passionate about it, so you need to use that as a way to teach them real skills.”
“I’m busy,” I said.
“Make time,” she countered. “Your sisters need you—not your money. They need you.”
“I just want them to be happy.” I swallowed.
“They’re not going to be happy if they don’t have the skills to build their own lives,” Tess said. “They need to be able to build their own empires. They were bored and constrained at school. You can help them reach their full potential.”
“They’re just little girls.”
“I just don’t see why you don’t care about them,” she said, frustrated.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I said, slamming my fist on the desk. “I care about them. They’re my sisters. I know what’s best for them. Not you. You’re not their mom. I don’t know why you’re giving me a hard time. Nothing I ever do with them is good enough for you.”
“Excuse me for having high standards,” she said sharply, “and for not wanting Annie and Enola to end up in some dead-end assistant job.”
I paused. “What’s wrong with being an assistant?”
“Never mind,” Tess said, mouth a thin line.
“I thought you liked being my assistant.”
“I said never mind.” She jumped up out of her chair. “I have to go. I have work to catch up on.”
Tess didn’t like being my assistant? Did she not like me? I thought we had, well, something.
You knew that was a bad idea to begin with, I reminded myself as I scrolled through emails, not really reading any of them.
Tess is literally just doing her job. She wasn’t being nice to you because she liked you. She was being nice to you because you pay her.
Tess must have mentionedsomething in the car to the girls because the entire ride back to the condo, they bugged me about baking.
“Why can’t we bake all day?” Annie begged. “I love baking.”
“You need some additional skills,” Tess told them.
“No, we don’t,” Annie said, dramatically flopping back in her seat.
A headache set behind my eyes. Normally, I used car rides home to de-stress from the day. Now they just amped up the pressure.
“Are you going to teach us about finance?” Enola asked me.
I was annoyed that Tess had gone behind my back to talk to my sisters.
“I’ll see.”
“You don’t think we can do it?”
“Is that what Tess said?” I asked her sharply.
Enola refused to answer and glowered at me.
What the hell is Tess’s problem?
All three of them were angry at me when the car pulled up in front of the tower.
I wanted to escape and go for a swim or a run, especially when we walked into the tower lobby and were confronted with ear-piercing shrieking.
“This isn’t a day care,” Belle was saying to Greg, who had two wailing toddlers at his feet.
“I’m a resident. I’m allowed to use the lobby, Belle.”
“You’re disturbing the other residents,” she argued.
“No, they’re not!” Vera said. She and Hyacinth waved at me and toasted drinks that a black-clad server was handing out. “We love seeing hot guys caring for children. We’re thinking about selling tickets.”
“Or at least having this be an annual stop for our photography club,” another woman added.
Belle pursed her mouth.
“I’m trying to sell units in this building, and no one is going to buy one that is infested with screaming ill-behaved children.”
As designed, I thought.
“My sisters just came out of a very traumatic situation,” Greg argued. “I’m trying to help them adjust.”
“You’re trying to scare off buyers,” Belle argued. “Which is against the bylaws.”
I headed past them.
The girls were still mad at me for different reasons, and they ran to their rooms and slammed the doors when we arrived at the condo.
“Are you cooking anything?” I asked Tess.
She blinked at me.
“Am I what?”
Jesus.
“The kids are hungry.”
“I’m your fake girlfriend, not your fake wife. Cook your own shit.”
And with that, her door slammed too.
