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When he and Mandy are only a few feet away, I see the short scar that reaches from the outer corner of his left eyebrow to his temple.
“And I want Pete to edit the audio,” he dictates, “not that Dominic guy you hired last time. He fell short.”
“Pete on edits,” Mandy mutters as she jots notes on a tablet strapped to her hand.
“And get him to tweak the intro. I still don’t like it. I want less from Leo, more from Jordan, more from me. Cut all that banter about post-workout protein shakes at the end; we’ll put that out to fans as bonus content. I want it to wrap up with the teaser about the episode, but tell Pete to make the transition smoother.”
“Intro… tweaked.” Mandy scribbles furiously. Her shoulder brushes mine as she passes in a cloud of perfume that mingles with Brock’s cologne.
His demands continue, but I stop listening now that they’re behind me.
I’ve yet again gone unnoticed.
Relieved, I slip into the break room. When I stand by the box of donuts on the table and look out toward the door, I have a view of the elevators that will take Brock up to his fourth-floor office.
He’s on the phone now. When he laughs, it’s as big and booming as his voice. His smile is handsome in a way that’s impossible to deny. Dimples dig into his cheeks, and his brown eyes are lively.
Mandy’s shoulders are tucked up near her ears, and her eyes are pinched. The poor thing looks stressed. When she glances toward the break room door, I hold up the pink box of donuts and wiggle it.
A minute later, she shares some parting words with Brock, and then she heads my way.
“Girl, you’re an angel,” she gushes, reaching for a cruller. “I have been chasing after that man since six a.m., and I haven’t had a minute to grab sustenance. I’m about to faint.”
“I wish I could take all the credit, but I didn’t buy them. I just shared the good news.”
“Well then, someone in this company’s a thoughtful, donut-buying angel, and it isn’t Brock, I’ll tell you that much. He’s doing no-carbs again and getting ready for the GQ photoshoot. Oh, darn, that reminds me, I forgot to call them back…”
Worry lines dig into her brow as she sets down her cruller and pulls a cell from her pocket. She juggles the tablet and cell, switching back and forth as she taps messages into each.
Her voice is a reedy squeak, high with stress. “I swear, if I don’t write things down, they’re gone these days. Slip straight through the cracks! Brock’s days are chaos, go-go-go from the minute he wakes up ‘til he goes to sleep. Keeping up with him is like managing six people at the same time. I don’t know where he gets his energy. And he piles it all on me, and I’m like, dude, you need six assistants, not one. Plus, he’s asking me to do personal assistant stuff, like run his errands. Guess what he has me doing today, for example?”
“Um… pick up dry cleaning?”
“That’ll be tomorrow.” She rolls her eyes. “Yuck. I always dread that job because he’s a perfectionist about his wardrobe and always finds something wrong with whatever they return. No, today it’s a run up to his estate to find a bikini bottom and get it into the mail, Priority shipping. And he called the task ‘urgent.’ Goodness knows his date, whatever-her-name-was, can’t get back here to Windsor to pick it up herself. And, of course, she simply must have it before she jets off to Cabo later this week… These people and their ‘emergencies.’ I swear, I’m getting so sick of it, I can’t even tell you.”
The cell phone in her hands rings, interrupting her rant.
“Hang on…” She cringes when she looks at the screen. “Oh… no. No, no. Her again. Brock’s sister. Kate. Agh. They don’t get along. Well, he doesn’t get along with her. For her part, she wants to be this close.” She crosses her fingers to show me as the phone continues to jangle. “I just don’t see why she insists on calling me multiple times a day. I’ve told her—I pass her messages along. It’s not my fault Brock won’t call her back.”
I fill my coffee cup as she answers the phone, then pour a mug for her.
“Does he know you feel overworked?” I ask once she gets off the line. I extend the mug to her.
She sips gratefully, much like I did when Lizzy extended the same offering. Here in the office, caffeine is our love language.
“I can’t tell him that, Gwen. You know I can’t tell him that. You know how much he expects of us.”
She’s right.
Brock Benson makes his high standards for the staff known via weekly inspiration videos in our inboxes each Wednesday morning—complete with a soundtrack, nifty editing, and action tips.
The videos feature our CEO in all his glory—usually sweaty, with some kind of post-workout glow—delivering words about hard work, enthusiasm, and taking life by the horns.
Living every day to the fullest. Taking action. Going above and beyond.
That kind of motivational mumbo jumbo seems to work for him, given that he’s as fit as a pro athlete and owns a multi-million dollar company.
Now that I think of it, those video messages must take a lot of work to produce.
