Me And Mr. I.T. (Kupid's Cove Book 2) (2 page)

She dropped her foot to the floor and craned her neck around to see my computer. “Did you try restarting it?”

“I’m afraid to. I’m not sure if it will save all the work I just finished. I don’t know how to recover it, if it hasn’t.”

She shook her head at me the way an exasperated mother would at her teen. “Have you tried closing all the open programs other than the one you’re working on?”

I stared at her as though she were speaking a foreign language.

She limped around and pointed at the computer. “You really need to learn some skills, Ellie. How did you get a marketing degree when you can barely work a computer?”

“I had good friends,” I mumbled, wringing my hands. “Can you fix it?”

“No, but you can. Do exactly as I say,” she ordered, but my hands hesitated on the keyboard.

“I’m afraid to screw it up,” I whined.

She leaned her hand on the back of my desk chair. “Would you rather I call Mr. I.T.?”

“No!” I exclaimed too quickly. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I mean, no, don’t bother him. I need to learn how to do this.”

“Exactly what I thought,” she snickered. “Okay, all at once hit control, alt, delete,” she instructed.

My fingers did as I told them and the screen went to blue and brought up options for me to choose. She pointed at the ‘task manager’ option. “Click that.”

I did and it brought up all the programs I had running. “Look though, it says that Power Point isn’t responding,” I moaned, still freaking out that my presentation wouldn’t be ready for Gideon.

“It’s not, but we’re going to quit all those other programs and try to trick it into responding when the CPU has more power behind it.”

She showed me how to close out the other programs and then close out task manager. I held my breath while the hourglass spun around for a few more seconds and then the program minimized then maximized then minimized again.

“Now, maximize it and see if everything saved,” she ordered.

I clicked the icon on the screen and was never happier to see all my work still there. “Whew, thanks Lisa, I don’t know what I would have done if I had to start over.”

“If I were you I would save that and close the program then restart the computer, just to make sure everything is working clean again. Those big programs usually need a lot of power from the CPU, so you can’t have twenty other tabs open on the internet and other programs running, at least not on a computer like this. You may want to consider talking to Mr. Armstrong about getting a computer that can handle the workload you throw at it.”

“I wouldn’t know how to turn it on,” I grumbled and she laughed.

“There’s always Mr. I.T. I’m certain he could walk you through the process. He could probably even recommend the best computer for your application.”

I groaned, “We aren’t supposed to call him Mr. I.T. He wants us to call him Mally, remember?”

“Regardless of what you call him, he knows his stuff and would be helpful.”

I waved my hand around. “I’ll think about it. It does get annoying when this thing crashes all the time. Maybe I’ll email Gideon and see what he says then go from there.”

She went to the door of my office and stopped, hugging the doorjamb. “You don’t need to email him. You have a meeting with him in thirty minutes.”

I glanced at my blotter that also served as a calendar and shook my head. “No, that’s tomorrow according to my calendar.”

She pointed at the computer. “Check your email. Oh wait, you can’t, because your computer is a piece of garbage. Gideon changed the meeting; it’s in thirty minutes.”

I sighed. “Good thing I’ve got you around or I would never be anywhere on time.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” She giggled, and winked so I knew she was kidding. “If I were you I would get there a few minutes early to talk to him about your technology needs. I happen to know this meeting isn’t your run of the mill marketing meeting.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, standing up and walking around my desk.

“It means you’re going to need a computer that doesn’t freeze up every time you turn around for what Mr. Armstrong is going to discuss with you. Now then, I’ll let you get back to your work.”

She waltzed out of my office on her bare feet as though she didn’t have a care in the world. What in the love of everything holy is she talking about? The owner of Kupid’s Arrow Resort, Gideon Armstrong, is hands on when it comes to the properties he manages. He has resorts scattered across the islands and it’s my job to market them directly to vacationers and honeymooners alike. The two biggest resorts are Orchid Reef in Honolulu and the one I’m standing in, Kupid’s Arrow, on the beautiful island of Maui. The rest of the properties are smaller, and he employs general managers to run them, but I still have to market all of them collectively, yet with an eye on what each resort offers individually. It can be a real nightmare to keep track of everything and this computer isn’t making it any easier.

We have monthly marketing meetings to discuss what’s working and what’s not, and to run ideas past each other that we think would improve the overall atmosphere and reputation of Kupid Enterprises. I couldn’t see how this meeting would be any different. I certainly hadn’t seen a memo that there were changes to come, but then again I didn’t get the memo the meeting day had changed either. I felt a nervous flutter in the pit of my stomach. I had no idea what Lisa was talking about and I felt as though Gideon didn’t want me to know ahead of time. I don’t like surprises, especially work surprises.

Suddenly the thought occurred to me that maybe he wasn’t happy with my work anymore. I’ve been tracking the different campaigns we’ve been running for each resort, and our numbers look fantastic. Gideon isn’t the kind of guy to air employee problems in front of other employees, so I doubted my performance influenced the meeting change in any way. When I took my walk this morning, the resort teemed with those escaping the cold of the winter on the mainland as they enjoyed sand volleyball, paddle boarding, and swimming, all proof that my marketing techniques were working.

I live in paradise all day, every day and it’s been way too long since I’ve been able to enjoy it. I’ve found it hard to do anything other than work since I broke up with Mark almost two months ago. The weird part is, I’m not even upset about breaking up with him. I knew from the beginning he wasn’t what I was looking for in a guy, but he was exciting and gorgeous, so I told myself I would enjoy it for however long it lasted. It lasted exactly thirty-seven days before he found someone far more exciting and gorgeous to have on his arm. I decided it was time to make a change from my current dating technique. When Bain disappeared from my life without a second thought, it destroyed what little self-confidence I had left when it came to men. Since then, I’ve fallen back into the habit I had in college. If a man wined and dined me and treated me like a lady, in return, I kept him happy in bed. That lifestyle wasn’t working for me anymore. Maybe I’ve finally grown up or maybe my crush on Maltrand Kekoa is the reason for my recent decisions about my love life. Regardless of what the answer is, I have to start enjoying life again.

I shook those thoughts from my head and gathered my briefcase, making sure the figures for the last month were in there before I tucked the offending laptop in as well, just in case whatever the meeting was about required technology. I made a mental note to check the local paper for any night classes on computer education. It isn’t that I can’t run the programs on my laptop. I have no problem with what they require from my technologically challenged brain. The problem lies with the computer itself. I’m useless at problem solving or troubleshooting anything that arises. If it involves knowing how hardware works, I’m useless in fixing it. Maybe I’m just hopeless when it comes to this stuff, but I have to try before I get fired, or worse yet, have to ask Mr. I.T. to help me more often.

I walked quickly down the hall toward the conference room where we always hold our meetings. Gideon Armstrong bought Kupid’s Arrow Resort for his wife, Katie, a little over a year ago, and they live in a bungalow on the beach. Katie is a lawyer and heads the team of legal representatives for the resorts, while working with the local free law clinics in the area as a volunteer. You’ve never experienced true love until you’ve seen Gideon and Katie together. They give me hope that someday I might find that same kind of love.

After Gideon finished the renovations, he relocated several departments from Honolulu to Maui, which I didn’t mind at all. It was nice to get off the big island and be farther away from my parents. In Honolulu, they were always there for me to fall back on, but here, I was a two-hour flight away. Even though I miss my parents, moving here has been good for my soul. When your leaders are two people who love each other, and care about their employees, it makes it a very pleasant place to be day in and day out. It always makes me strive to do my best for them because I know they’re investing in me as a bigger part of their family. I never want to let Gideon down, so if I have to take a class to figure out how to keep things running smoothly with my equipment, so be it.

I pushed the door open to the conference room and Gideon was already there waiting. I set my computer bag on the large table. “Hi, Gideon, how are you?” I asked as I began pulling stuff from my bag.

“I’m doing great, Ellie. I’m really excited to finally be able to bring you in on this project,” he said, laying the clicker for the projector down on the table.

“Lisa mentioned something about this not being like the usual monthly meetings. I’m nervous about it now.”

“No need to be. We have some exciting things happening and I’m going to need your expertise in order to pull it off. While we wait for the others is there anything you need to discuss with me from your department?”

“The others?” I asked, nervously clicking my pen open and closed.

He leaned against the table and crossed his ankles. “I’ve asked Flynn and Maltrand to join us.”

My heart stopped beating when he mentioned Mr. I.T. Why was
he
coming to the meeting?

“I’ll explain everything once they’re here, but I do want to see the numbers for this month, so I’m glad you came early.”

Feeling flustered I dug around in my bag for them, finally tugging them out from under the computer. The computer slid out of the bag with the paper and I juggled both until the computer hit the floor of the boardroom with a crunch.

I dropped the papers, too, and he caught them, setting them on the table. I stooped and picked up the laptop, the corner cracked and probably beyond repair.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen,” I whispered. “I think I’ve gone and killed the poor thing.”

Gideon started to snicker and soon was straight up laughing as I tried to repair the broken bits with just my fingers. His shoulders shook while my shoulders slumped, and I felt the burning in my eyes I didn’t like. I was a mess today. He took the computer from my hands and set it on the table then patted my back.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll give it to Mally, and he’ll make it good as new again.”

I rubbed my temple and took a deep breath. “Actually, I was going to talk to you about the computer. Lisa said it doesn’t have enough CPU power and that’s why my programs are always locking it up.”

“Have you been having problems with it working right?”

“To say the least. Just a few minutes ago, I almost lost an entire Power Point presentation because it couldn’t keep up. Lisa said I should talk to you about getting a computer with enough bits, or memory, or power, or something like that, for what I need it to do. I don’t want anything expensive, but this one doesn’t seem to be able to keep up anymore.”

Gideon folded his hands in front of him. “How much has your department spent on equipment in the last six months?”

I shrugged. “Just the new fax machine you sent over, does that count?”

He shook his head at me as though I was the dumbest bimbo on earth. “No, that doesn’t count.”

“Then we’ve spent somewhere around three hundred. Why?”

He sighed with frustration. I knew it was frustration because Gideon got frustrated with me a lot. “My point is, Ellie, I give you a budget for a reason. You don’t have to talk to me before you purchase a piece of equipment vital to your position on my team.”

My head did the nod and shake, nod and shake in an uncomfortable almost seizure-like twitch. “I understand that concept, Gideon. My problem lies in that I don’t have a clue what to buy. I was hoping you could point me in the right direction.”

He laughed, throwing his arm around my shoulders and pointing me toward the door, just as Mr. I.T. struggled through it with a cart filled with technological paraphernalia. “See that direction?” he asked. I swallowed nervously and nodded. “Your hopes have been fulfilled.” He leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “He doesn’t bite, I promise. You two are going to be spending a lot of time together. You might as well make friends with him now.”