Tallie’s voice squeaked. She blinked rapidly. Now she was sure that hell had frozen over. Or that she’d lost her mind.
But Socrates picked up his knife and fork and cut into his chicken paprika and said with a shrug, “You’ve always said you wanted to come into the business.”
“Yes, but—”
“So now you’re in.”
Tallie shook her head, mind still whirling. “I meant…I didn’t mean I expected you to buy me a company, Dad!”
“I didn’t buy you a company,” he said, enunciating every word. “I acquired part of a company. And so, I have a say in how it’s run. I want you to run it.”
Tallie wet her lips. Her brain spun with possibilities, with potential—with panic. She tried to get a toehold on her thoughts. “I don’t— It’s so…sudden.”
“The best opportunities often are.”
“I know.” But still…she needed to think. To consider. To—
“So, what do you say?”
“I—” Her tongue seemed welded to the roof of her mouth.
Socrates smiled gently and regarded her over a forkful of chicken. “Or maybe you were just talking. Maybe you don’t think you can do it.”
By God, yes, she could do it!
And she’d said so.
Socrates had beamed, the way a shark must beam when an unsuspecting little fish swims straight into his mouth. Tallie knew it. She could almost hear his jaws snap shut. But she didn’t care.
Whatever agenda her father had in offering her this job, she had her own agenda—to do the best damned job she could do and prove to him that she was worthy of his trust.
The two weeks she had to spend working out her notice at Easley’s had given her time to break in a replacement and do a crash course of reading everything she could get her hands on about Antonides Marine International.
What she’d learned about its history had made her even more eager to get to work. It was an old and respected boat-building company that had fallen on hard times and over the past eight years had been in the process of righting itself and moving ahead. While there was no change in leadership—Aeolus Antonides was still president (until today!)—his son had been running things. And apparently the son had done rather well. He’d economized and streamlined things, getting back to basics, redefining and refocusing the company’s mission. Recently she’d read that AMI appeared poised to branch out, to test the waters in areas other than strictly marine construction. It was on the brink of expansion.
Tallie could hardly wait to be part of the process.
And now, she thought as she stood on the pavement and stared up at the old Brooklyn warehouse that was the home of the offices of Antonides Marine International, she was.
Amazingly the address was only nine blocks from her flat. She had expected some mid-Manhattan office building. Six months ago, she knew, she would have been right. But then AMI had moved across the East River to Brooklyn.
Tallie understood it was a cost-cutting move. But there was a certain rightness to it being here in DUMBO, the neighborhood acronym for its location “down under the Manhattan Bridge.”
DUMBO was a vital, happening place—lots of urban renewal going on, considerable gentrification of the old brownstones and even older warehouses that sat on or near the edge of the East River. It was that energy, as well as the more reasonable rents, that had drawn her to DUMBO. She imagined it had drawn the management of AMI as well.
But looking around in the crisp early morning light, Tallie could see that it belonged here anyway, in the old five-story brick warehouse in the process of being restored. Within sight of the old Navy Shipyards, it was where a shipbuilding company—even the corporate offices thereof—ought to be.
Feng shui, her friend Katy who knew these things, would have said. Or maybe that was just inside buildings and where you put your bed. But it felt right. And that made Tallie smile and feel even better.
She was early—way early—but she couldn’t wait any longer. She pushed open the door and went in.
It was like stepping across the ocean. Expecting the traditional neutral business environment, she was startled to find herself in a foyer painted blue—and not the soft pale blue one usually found on walls—but the deep vibrant blue of the Mediterranean. From floor to ceiling there was blue sea and blue sky—and dotted here and there were brown islands out of which seemed to grow impossibly white buildings and blue-domed churches. All very simple and spare, and almost breathtaking in its unexpectedness. And in it appropriateness.
Tallie had never been to the Greek homeland of her forebears. She’d never had time. But she knew it at once and found it drawing her in. Instinctively she reached out a finger and traced the line of rooftops, then a bare hillside, then one lone white building at the far end of one island. As if it were a sentry. A lookout.
She’d never particularly wanted to go to Greece. It had seemed the source of all the tradition she’d spent her life battling. But now she could see there was more to it than that. And suddenly the notion tempted her.
But not as much as punching the elevator button and hitting 3.
The elevator was apparently part of the refurbishment, all polished wood and carpet that still smelled new. When the door slid open three floors later she saw that the renovation was still a work in progress. The floor was bare, unfinished wood. The walls were plastered but unpainted. She could hear hammering coming from behind a closed door down the hall.
She thought briefly that whoever was doing it, she’d have to get his name and pass it on to her landlord. Arnie was trying to get some renovations done on one of the apartments and couldn’t find a workman who would show up before noon.
She passed several offices—an accountant, a magazine publisher, a dentist—before she found the new heavy glass door of Antonides Marine International. The door was locked. At six-forty in the morning she could hardly expect otherwise.
No matter. She had a key. A key to her company. Well, a key to the company she was president of.
Now all she had to do was prove herself worthy of it.
Taking a deep breath and feeling the rightness of the moment, Tallie set her briefcase down and shifted the bag in her arm to get out the key. Then she turned it in the lock, pushed open the door and went in.
She was late.
First day on the job and the new hotshot president of Antonides Marine couldn’t even be bothered to show up!
Elias prowled his office, coffee mug in hand, grinding the teeth with which he’d intended to take a bite out of her. So much for the “eager beaver” his father had assured him Socrates insisted she was.
He supposed he ought to be pleased. If she wasn’t there, she couldn’t screw things up. He’d spent the past two weeks trying to make sure she had as little opportunity to interfere as possible.
Once it had been
