LOVING THE HEAD MAN (6 page)

       “Oh, yes, sir.  I believe I’ll win it all.  I intend to win it all.”

       “You’re in it to win it,” Robert said with a small smile as he sat his phone back on the table.  “Don’t worry about Alan,” he said.  “Just do your best.”

       “And if I do my best and he still doesn’t recommend me?”

       Robert studied her.  “Are you asking me to guarantee an outcome, Miss Hudson?”

       Bree smiled and looked away from Robert.  At that moment she did kind of feel like a used car salesman overselling her wares.  When she looked back at him, however, she was stunned to see that he was staring at her cleavage.  His eyes immediately moved back up to her face, and they were now hooded, lustful eyes.  She flushed so hot she thought she had suddenly entered a steam room.

       “I wasn’t trying to suggest that you guarantee an outcome,” she finally answered him.  “I was just hoping that you would guarantee a fair process.”

       “I’ll get with Alan and assess how well each of you
are
performing over the next twelve weeks,” Robert said.  “I guarantee a fair process.”

       Bree winced as the door to the outside deck pushed open and two men she remembered Monty had introduced as Colgate attorneys, entered.  When they saw Robert, they moved in his direction.  Robert, knowing that they were there on business, looked at Bree.

       “You’d better get back downstairs, Brianna,” he said.

       Bree quickly stood up, took off his coat, and handed it to him.

       “And put something on your arms,” he admonished her as he accepted his coat.  “You aren’t too young to get pneumonia.”

       “Yes, sir,” she said.  “And have a nice day.”  She left, walking steadily toward the hard-to-open door, sensing that all eyes were trained on her.    

       And they were.  The attorneys coming Robert’s way looked back at her as she fled.  One looked at Robert with one of those
who’s that
head gestures, but Robert didn’t notice the gesture, or the man making it, because he was still staring at Bree.

THREE

The next day she arrived on the twenty-first floor at Colgate to find all of her competitors already present.  They all stood in the board room parading around like peacocks.  Bree was the only African-American in the group, which was nothing new to her.  She was one of only a handful of blacks in the whole of her law school, and was therefore accustomed to standing out that way. 

       But ethnicity wasn’t the great divider in this group.  Class was.  For they all stood around in their Prada shoes, Versace suits, Dior bags and jewels, and talked a talk that sounded almost foreign to Bree.  She tried her best to join in the conversations, to at least act like she had some sophistication, but she was roundly outmatched.  They all talked about their visits to the south of France, about their Harvard-Yale-Princeton educations, about their father the judge, or mother the CEO, or brother the presidential appointee. 

       Bree was from dirt-poor circumstances, whose father worked for years as a school janitor before he died, and whose mother had serious partying and responsibility issues.  Her father earned far less in months than the modest expense check Colgate had given the finalists just to participate in their twelve-week program. 

       And when the other finalists asked and Bree told them that she had graduated, not from any Ivy League university, but from Mississippi Coastal Law School, they looked at her, looked her up and down in fact, and then dismissed her out of hand with their eyes, with their body language, with the way they resumed the talk that only people of their social class could appreciate. 

       And just like that, after only one question and one answer, Bree was relegated to the back of the bus.  Was the odd girl out
again.
  And that doubt that had plagued her all of her life, tried to insinuate itself upon her once more, tried to make it clear that she was way out of her league. 

       But she ignored that voice, and listened to her father’s reassuring voice, instead.

       They all eventually sat down, and while they continued talking, Bree listened and observed.  Her stiffest competition would come from Deidra Dentry and Prudence Cameron, she’d decided, because they were the leaders of what Bree called the pretty Prada girls, the ones who had the total package: the great looks and the great intellect.  And Deidra Dentry, with her long blonde hair and brightest blue eyes, presented herself as the prettiest and smartest of them all.

       And although many would conclude that Bree could easily be classified as pretty too, although it would be more along the lines of
something about her
than pure attractiveness, she never saw herself that way.  She wouldn’t have a clue how to use any feminine wiles to get some man to bend to her will, while Deidra and Prudence behaved like they were born to bend men, born to seduce every one. 

       But Bree wasn’t moved.  Her brains and hard work had gotten her there, and her brains and hard work, rather than any feminine wiles, would lead her to victory. 

       Alan DeFrame, along with Mark Ellerbee, his tall, razor thin, blonde-haired assistant, entered the board room just as some of the finalists were arguing over the merits of the
Citizens United
Supreme Court decision.  It was a tired fight, it seemed to Bree, but they were fighting it tooth and nail, until Alan and Mark walked in.

        After answering a series of housekeeping questions and process questions, Alan announced that they would be going to meet the boss.

      
“The boss?”
Prudence, one of the pretty Prada girls, asked excitedly.  “You mean Robert Colgate?  We’re going to meet Robert Colgate?”

       “That’s right,” Alan said as he stood, causing everybody to stand to their feet as well.  “You will get to meet the head man himself.  And remember this:  We’re like Vegas.  What goes on in this program, stays in this
program.
  Not even Mr. Colgate is privy to our conversations, and he has no problem with that.  Understand?”  They all nodded, or verbalized, their understanding.  It was like a cult, it seemed to Bree.  They wanted in, and would do whatever it took to get in. 

       Alan turned to Mark Ellerbee.  “Call Hyacinth and find out where he is.”

       “I’m on it,” Mark said, pulling out his cell phone, following behind a fast-walking Alan DeFrame, as all of the finalists followed, too.

***

He
was in the executive dining room on the top floor of the Colgate building.  Bree thought it ridiculous that all of them would march into a dining hall and interrupt the man’s breakfast, but Alan had no qualms about it whatsoever.  He led them through the dining hall and then into a private room within the hall, a room so exclusive that Alan wasn’t even senior enough to dine.  Near the back in that room, at a rather elongated table, was a solitary figure.  His legs were crossed as he sipped coffee and stared out the window at a sweeping view of rainy Chicago, the morning paper opened before him.  It was Robert Colgate.

       Unlike yesterday, when Bree talked with him on the top deck, he seemed well rested and relaxed today.  He was dressed in a plain brown suit, white shirt, brown tie, but it all fit his impressively built, tanned body as if it had been stitched on.  Not an ounce of fat seemed to be on the man.  Although Bree had spoken with him the day before, she was just as excited as everyone else to see him. 

       “Good morning, Robert,” Alan said strongly as he and his contingent approached.  Robert turned at the sound of Alan’s voice and looked at the approaching mob for the first time, his facial expression almost completely unchanged to them, although he did change.  For Bree was with them, and although he was trained enough to not give away his motives, she was the real object of his interest. 

       All of the finalists, including Bree, smiled as if they were meeting their favorite rock star and were giddy about it.  In law circles, and to all of the finalists, it didn’t get any bigger than Robert Colgate.

       Although Robert didn’t smile back at them, his cool demeanor warmed them. 

       “Ah, the Vegas group,” he said and they all laughed.  “I feel surrounded,” he added, folding his newspaper.  They all laughed again.  “Please, everybody sit.”

       Bree found it almost comical the way the pretty girls jockeyed for seats close to Robert.  Even the guys seemed aggressive.  Bree didn’t bother, the man, she felt, was too smart to be conned that way, and therefore was the last to sit down, ending up the farthest away.  If face time was the issue, she didn’t see what their problem was since he had a clear view of all of them.

       Of course, the pretty Prada girls easily outshined all others as their ability to sell themselves with all of their feminine wiles came across more impressively.  Bree listened carefully as each one described to Mr. Colgate their Ivy League educations, their judge father or surgeon mother or titan of industry grandpa.  Despite Monty Ross’s warnings earlier against self-promotion, they were dizzily self-promoting.  Bree could hardly believe how they continually dropped their own name, as if determined to etch it into Robert’s brain.   How they could believe a man of his worldly savvy would fall for such amateurish overkill, was beyond her.  But they kept at it, over and over.  Deidra Dentry must have said her name ten different times in one paragraph.  

       Bree studied Robert as he studied the talkers.  His facial expression was extremely difficult to read.  He paid close attention to each person speaking, and seemed polite about it, but she couldn’t tell if he bought into their hype, or dismissed them outright.  Which, for an attorney, was a skill honed by years of practice and experience, both of which Robert had plenty of.

       When they finally finished their excessive back-patting, for in Bree’s mind that was all they were doing, Robert stood up, as if he’d had enough.  Alan and the finalists all went to stand too, but Robert motioned them back down.  “No, no, stay where you are.  Have breakfast on the house.  But I’ve got to run.”

       “Here?” Alan asked as if he was stunned.  “You want them to have breakfast here in this room?”

       “Yes,” Robert replied as if he was somewhat irritated by Alan’s question. 
“My treat.”
  Then he looked at the finalists again.  “It was a pleasure meeting all of you.” 

       “It was a pleasure meeting you, too, Mr. Colgate,” Deidra said as Robert began moving away from the head of the table.  “You’re the best there is, in my view,” she added, and many of the others agreed, praising him verbally too. 

       Bree was stunned, however, when Robert stopped walking as he approached the side of her chair.  When she looked up at
him,
and saw up close his big, compassionate eyes, smelled his fresh, clean scent, her
breath
caught. 

       “And how are you, Brianna?” he asked to the shock of everybody at the table.

       “I’m good, sir, and you?”