Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
“But… not everyone we’re attracted to is good for us. And sometimes you don’t see the danger until it’s too late. Trust me.”
I sighed. I loved my friends, Kenji included, but sometimes they were a bunch of mother hens. “Look, I appreciate the concern. But this guy—” I jerked a thumb toward Rowe’s picture on the screen. “—can’t lie his way out of a paper bag. He’s not a danger.”
Kenji was the king of long-suffering sighs. “Why must you people always do things the hard way? Fine, then. Proceed at your own risk.” He tapped on his tablet. “FYI, I’m adding a line item to the budget for dealing with the fallout of this. Let’s call it the Fake Sterling Chase Escape Fund. We can use it to buy champagne when we toast you successfully evading the wiles of a con man… Or, alternatively, buy you a ticket to Central America so you can paraglide into an active volcano to cheer yourself up after it all ends in disaster.”
I opened my mouth to retort that I’d need no such thing when I heard a rap on my office door.
“Hey, hey!” Austin Purcell, Sterling Chase’s head of development, breezed in, his brown hair sleek and tidy, his smile bright. “Bash, do you have time for a quick chat?”
“Hey, yourself.” I gave him a genuine smile and gestured him toward the unoccupied seat in front of my desk. “Come in. Sit.”
“Mr. Purcell, Mr. Dayne doesn’t have an appointment with you on his calendar.” Kenji had dialed his chilly politeness up to a level that would give polar bears frostbite.
Austin shrugged good-naturedly. “Since he was supposed to be out today, I thought maybe his schedule would be open. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. But I can come back another time if you’re busy.”
“Kenji, it’s fine,” I said, waving a hand. “I’ve got a few minutes. I planned to call Austin this morning anyway.”
Kenji sniffed, plainly displeased when Austin stretched out his long legs in the chair beside him.
I smothered a grin. For all his flawless efficiency, Kenji tended to be fairly easygoing with most people—a requirement, working for my friends and me—but there were a couple of people the man simply never seemed to warm to. Landry was one. Strangely enough, Austin Purcell was another.
He claims he’s just passing by when his office is at the other end of the building. He lies in wait for you in your office in the morning, ready to ambush you with overly sweet coffee and enthusiasm. No one should smile with so many teeth. He takes liberties, Sebastian!
Personally, though, I liked Austin a lot. We weren’t close outside of work, but he was dedicated to his job as head of development, his team loved him, and Clarissa, our CEO, considered him her right-hand man. When he’d first started, we’d actually clashed a little—before Austin, I’d been the one taking meetings with potential clients on behalf of Sterling Chase’s board of directors, and though I’d been the one to initiate the change, I’d also struggled to give up control, especially to someone I’d seen as needlessly risk-averse.
Then Austin had executed the first of his drive-by “hey, hey” conversations.
Trust me to manage this, Bash, he’d said. You’ve done an amazing job during your time as the face of the company. But if you want Sterling Chase to grow, to be famous for anything besides the Emergency Traffic Control launch, we can’t simply follow your whims anymore when deciding which projects Sterling Chase will acquire. The more successful our project launches, the bigger our profit—which will keep the company’s owners happy—and the better our reputation, which will attract even better projects to us in the future. Projects that deserve your passion and expertise.
He’d been right. Thanks to his tireless work, I’d scaled back my public involvement in the company and focused my attention on one or two of Sterling Chase’s projects each year where I could really dig in, help fledgling entrepreneurs hone their visions, and then bring them to life.
There were times when I almost felt bad that Austin and Clarissa didn’t know the truth—that my four mostly silent partners and I were the founders and owners of Sterling Chase and the creators of the ETC program—but telling them would be a decision all five members of our brotherhood would have to make unanimously, and none of the others knew Austin and Clarissa as well as I did.
Instead, I showed Austin my trust and friendship in other ways, like respecting his position as head of development and supporting his projects as much as I could.
“I spoke to Clarissa yesterday,” I told him. “She’s going to be at least another week in Sierra Leone since the launch of the digital education venture hit another snag.”
Austin grimaced. “It’s always the ones that seem simple…”