As he stepped out of the elevator, his eyes widened in surprise. The dully lit corridor was no more. Cream colored walls with lovely art hanging upon it caught the eye. Warm hardwood floors gleamed and what caught his eye was the lighting. It was indirect, but he swore there was sunlight sshing across the ceiling here and there. He wondered how they did that. Maybe it was sr tubes piping real sunlight from the floors above?
Two of Mr. Duncan’s security personnel stood guard in therge, pleasingly lit vestibule beforerge dark oak double doors. He smiled and nodded to the men who returned the smile and nod while opening the doors for him. He felt a little weird with this treatment as he was capable of opening doors for himself. He wondered at VRL’s seemingly over-the-top emphasis on security. He had to admit though, instead of being intimidated by the silent sentinels, the staff seemed to takefort in their presence. He’d never seen anyone cast a worried look in their direction.
Of course, he hadn’t been present when these same men collected the guilty parties his new security protocols detected moving corporate data onto unauthorized devices.
That had only happened on two asions, and the message was received. Don’t fuck with VRL. With the ‘spies’ identified and removed, the office settled down into a positive andfortable environment.
Beyond the doors was arge room with arge round table in the center. Chairs circled the table with aptop docking station before each. Some sat in their assigned chairs, while a group of executives stood by the sideboard pouring themselves a cup of coffee, tea, orange juice, or spring water. There was a selection of cookies as well.
Today’s would be his first executive meeting as Henry Gable. During his time at VRL as Stanley Garin, there hadn’t been an executive boardroom to have the meetings in as he’d been busy converting it into the new server room. So during that time, Cam had resorted to one on one meetings or small group meetings in her office. He hadn’t attended any of the group ones, so this was a novelty for him.
“Henry! Good morning!”
He smiled as he turned to face Sigrid Gunderan, VRL’s head of Human Resources. Tall, broad-shouldered and powerfully muscled, she’d lost none of her dazzling femininity for her size, in his opinion. The woman’s blue eyes shed with happiness as she smiled at his enthralled gaze. Her long blond hair was pulled back in herplex and lovely braid, bound by the gold cylinder swinging behind her.
“Good to have you,” she said.
“How was the HR Conference? Florida, right?” he asked.
She grimaced and shivered. “I have no idea why those hotel conference rooms have to be so damn cold! I get it! The state is sunny and hot, but that doesn’t mean they need to ovepensate by setting the thermostats so bloody low inside!”
He grinned at her then made a pouty face of false sympathy.
“Don’t make me bite that lower lip,” she growled quietly for just the two of them to hear.
A flush appeared on Henry’s face as he nced at the others.
She gave him a yful grin and headed over to her seat.
Henry smiled to Eve Summerly, their new CFO. For a second, he wondered if he was smiling at Anna Summerly instead. He couldn’t tell the twins apart as they looked, spoke, behaved, and even dressed identically. Luckily aside from this one entricity, they were excellent at their jobs, and the ounting Department staff were all very happy with their new leader and her personal assistant.
The previous CFO had been a bit of a tyrant apparently and was embezzling from thepany. When he was Stanley, he’d somehow helped flush him out, though they never really exined to himhowhe’d helped. Honestly, he didn’t want to know as it probably involved magic and he was still ufortable thinking about how intimately linked he was to the stuff.
The co-conspirator in the embezzling was Henry’s predecessor, Mr. Hokensev, who was the former CIO. Their conspiracy led thepany into a terrible technical debt with antiquated and cut-rateputer systems and a failingwork. Cam Vimor, VRL’s CEO, brought Stanley into thepany to save them from that fate by taking on the role of CIO and personally designing and building their new systems from the ground up. In short months, he’d reced almost all of their hardware andwork technology and some of the software as well.
He smiled and sighed as he could almost feel the happy hum of VRL’s new server room on the penthouse level from all the way down here in the basement.N?vel(D)rama.Org''s content.
“That’s a smug smile if I’ve ever seen one.”
Henry turned to see where the snarkyment came from and looked into the smiling eyes of their head of Security, Mr. Duncan. Henry had finally discovered the man had a first name. Roy. While he’d been invited to use it, he still didn’t feelfortable addressing the intimidatinglyrge red-bearded man so informally yet. The dark suits he and his team chose to wear just increased the impression of size and danger.
“No, it was just a happy one!” He gestured to the well-appointed boardroom. “This is a much better use of this space.”
“Yes, I’m sure your precious machines are enjoying their lofty new home while we’re stuck down here in the muck,” the big man grumbled.
Surprised, Henry gave a short bark ofughter. He looked around again at the lush appointments. “How could this be considered ‘muck’? It’s gorgeous!”
“Ay, but ever since I heard you moved the servers to get them above sea level it gives me the willies to be down here!” heined. Roy rolled his big shoulders and made his way to his chair.
Henry looked at the table and wondered where his position was. He spotted a man with salt and pepper hair and dark-rimmed sses waving at him and pointing to a chair next to himself. As he walked over to the chair, he recalled meeting the man while he was doing the upgrades, when he was Stanley. The man held out his hand, and Henry shook it.
“Hi, Frank Caprelli, Operations,” the man said with a broad smile.
“Hi, Henry Gable, CIO.”
“Shit, do you ever look like Stanley!” the man gushed. Then he leaned forward a little to address the woman on Henry’s other side. “Roz! Doesn’t he look like Stanley?”
The woman in question gave Frank an exasperated look then aimed an apologetic smile at Henry. “I’m so sorry for your loss. If Frank weren’t such a boob, he’d be sympathetic too.”
“Oh shit, ya,” Frank said as his smile dropped away. “It sucks that you meet your brother just to lose him so quick.”
“It’s ok. I mean it’s not, but, you know,” Henry waffled. He wasn’t good at this. Still, he got a relieved smile from Frank and a warmer smile from the woman who was Siobhan Whn’s boss if he recalled correctly.
“I’m Rosalind Wingham, Marketing and Communications,” she said as she shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he replied.
She passed her eyes over his features as she reminisced. “You know, your brother wasn’t with us for very long, but he did some amazing things for thepany. We’re all in his debt.”
Henry smiled and nodded as he squirmed inside. He felt weird hearing this praise and didn’t know how to react. He just did his best and stayed silent. That seemed good enough.
He looked around the table and saw Myron Glickman was next to Rosalind. He led the Auditing Department. There was also an external auditing team, but they didn’t attend the executive meetings.
In the next chair sat Akshay Bhatt, Head of Compliance. Henry hadn’t spoken with him yet. Then Mr. Duncan, Sigrid, two empty chairs, Eve Summerly, Noah De Hann who was VRL’s in-house legal counsel and someone else he hadn’t spoken with, and back to Frank.
The far doors pushed open, and Cam entered, striding forward with energy and purpose. Her eyes locked on Henry’s for a moment and he felt the heat in that look all the way down his torso to his balls. There was just the hint of a smile on her lips, and his mind shed back to their reunion when he returned from Irnd. He had no doubt she was thinking of it at this moment too.
She was every bit as gorgeous as she had been the first day he met her in this very location, not that long ago really. Raven haired and stunningly beautiful from her dark eyes to her sensual lips, and her curves to drive a man to distraction. She stood six foot tall in the designer two-inch heels she preferred. Her crisp business suit spoke of style and sophistication, her keenly intelligent gaze demanded your respect and attention, yet the raw sensuality she exuded promised- ah, Henry had to turn his mind from that.
His eyes caught motion behind her, and he was surprised to see a face he’d never seen before. The woman was maybe 5′ 8″ and her suit jacket, crisp white blouse, and skirt spoke of fine tailoring and money; as did the ring on her right hand. The sheer quantity ofrge, shimmering diamonds clustered on that one piece of jewelry was daunting. Henry’s ears picked up the gentle tones of the dozen or so fine gold wrist bangles she wore.
She was of Indian descent and truly lovely with an odd intensity. Her skin was cinnamon toned, and she kept her gleaming, straight ck hair loose. It hung down to just above her ass. Her features were fine with dark brows above dark brown intense eyes. Gold framed rectangr sses perched on a slim nose adorned with a small gold stud on the left side. Henry thought she might be wearing the sses in an attempt to tone down the intensity of her eyes which almost, almost seemed to be glowing slightly. She wore deep red lipstick on her full lips which were currently frowning slightly.
Henry picked up the distinct impression that she wasn’t exactly happy to be here.
Cam gestured to the chair next to the CFO for the new woman then took her own. When Mahati sat, the CEO addressed her people.