“Sometimes people need a reminder that there’s more to life than business.” The first person who needed that was himself. Outside this building, a big world waited, a world Trent had spent far too little time exploring lately.
“I’ll put it in motion,” Sarah said. She made a note, then reached into the folder beside her and pulled out a stapled pile of papers. “By the way, the results of the employee survey are back from HR.”
“Let me guess. They want more vacation time and less work hours?” Trent chuckled as he flipped through the report. “I would vote for that.”
“Actually, the number-one suggestion was getting rid of the glass walls.”
Trent looked up. “What? Why?” He scanned the open space beyond the conference room. In a single glance, he could see every one of his employees at work. He could wave to George in Sales, or give Leslie a thumbs-up for her great customer service. The entire floor had a light, airy, cooperative feel to it, just as Trent had planned.
“Well, they say that the glass walls make them more distracted and reduces privacy. If someone’s having a bad day, they don’t exactly want the entire office to know about it.”
Trent’s brow creased. “The entire purpose of the glass walls is to build a cooperative, supportive environment. Switching to traditional partitions would erase that.”
“Maybe not. The employees—”
“Need to get used to the environment I created. Being open and honest is the first sentence in our mission statement, and that includes the glass walls.” Trent set the survey aside. He didn’t want to argue this, not when he had so many other things on his mind.
“How about we try a middle ground?” Sarah suggested, unwittingly echoing Kate’s words from last night. “We could let them hang some posters in their spaces or put up a curtain or—”
“No.” Trent was rarely curt with his employees. For some reason, the whole idea of a middle ground irritated him. Maybe because he’d never found one with Kate, and she’d reminded him of that last night. Maybe because Kate kept questioning how open and honest he was really being in his life and in his book.
It didn’t matter. They were over, and whatever happened after they were done working together would be a friendship at best. “I want this company to have the look I planned and created when we do press about the IPO—”
“And the book,” Sarah added.
The book. Trent both dreaded it and couldn’t wait to work on it again, because the book came tangled with Kate. And everything to do with Kate seemed to become more and more of a mess every day. “The glass walls aren’t going anywhere. I want that clean, open aesthetic for any photos and interviews with the media.”
“You’re the boss.” Sarah got to her feet and gathered up her files. “Oh, about the book launch party…I think it might be good to invite members of the press. We can talk up the buyback program, tie it in with a preview of next season’s designs. I think it would give GOA some much-needed positive press.”
Trent still wasn’t sure the IPO would work out. Investors could be fickle, and it could all backfire. He’d built GOA from the ground up, and going public with stock options and all that entailed was like putting his baby out in the world to be judged—or rejected. He’d always told himself he’d be content running a small, profitable company. Until GOA became a huge, unwieldy thing that kept him away from the very activities that had formed the basis of his approach.
Either way, too much was riding on this to have doubts. “Invite the press,” Trent said. “Let’s show everyone how amazing Get Outdoors Apparel is, and will be.”
Three days of basically chaining herself to her computer, and only communicating with Trent by email and short phone calls, had resulted in fifty pretty decent pages. Kate built on what she knew about Trent from college, because he still hadn’t opened up much about his childhood or his life in the last few years. Everything he’d emailed her had been corporate—press releases, media articles, end-of-year review reports. None of it was personal, and none of it fit the theme of the book. Somehow, she needed to get him to open up more and give her that true, unvarnished look at himself and the company.
Well, sort of true and unvarnished, at least when it came to the college years. She’d left a gaping hole in Trent’s history—a Kate-shaped hole of truth. Putting herself in the book seemed weird, because she had no idea how Trent felt about the year they had dated or how their relationship had impacted him. In the end, Kate decided that meeting her hadn’t changed anything when it came to GOA, so she left out that part of his personal history. But when she read the pages over, the paragraphs seemed as hollow as a half-filled bottle.
Charlie came over, slinking his body against her leg. He let out a plaintive why-are-you-ignoring-my-not-even-close-to-empty-food-bowl meow.
“You have plenty of food, silly cat. I filled your bowl an hour ago.”
Charlie vehemently disagreed. His tail flicked along her calf, and his meows became louder.
Kate gave him a head rub. “Silly cat. Dinner is at six. You can wait.”
Charlie purred for a second, then walked off in a picky-cat protest. The clock chimed three, which meant Kate had just enough time to run over to Grandma’s for a quick visit before she met Loretta at that party. She’d almost forgotten about it until Loretta had texted her the invite a few hours ago.
She checked her phone for the hundredth time since she woke up. Nothing from Trent today. No How are you? Had a great time bowling. Thinking of you.
Of course there wouldn’t be anything personal from him. They weren’t dating. They weren’t even technically friends. They had a working relationship, and working-relationship people didn’t send thinking of you texts.
As she threw on some shoes and brushed her hair, her gaze strayed to the phone at least a half a dozen times. On the short walk to her grandmother’s house, she checked it another three times. Not a word.
Kate didn’t feel so much as a smidge of disappointment. Nope, not at all.
“I made cookies,” her grandmother said as soon as she opened the door. Grandma Wanda’s bright orange shirt burst like a flower over the long, pale green skirt she wore. On rainy days, Grandma always seemed to bring something sunny in exchange. “I had a feeling it was a cookie-needing day.”
Kate laughed. “I swear, you can read my mind.”
“No, dear”—her grandmother cupped her cheek—“I can read your face. You’ve been looking like something is troubling you lately.”
Kate used the excuse of hanging up her raincoat and umbrella to avert her gaze. Talking about Trent would only make her think about him more often. If there was such a thing as more often than ten thousand times in the last six hours. “A little stressed about work, that’s all. You know how I get when I have a tight deadline.”