Page 80 of Auctioned To Be Mine

“Closed. If it’s open, everyone comes in and out.”

I closed it and sat in the chair across from her. She finished making a note on whatever she was reading, capped her pen, and set it down. Then she took off her glasses and looked at me.

“Jeff Connors,” she said.

I barely concealed my grimace. “Okay.”

“He reached out last week.” She smiled and wrinkled her nose. “He’s considering a significant sponsorship for the upcoming gala. It would be a huge win.”

“That is huge,” I said.

“It is.” She folded her hands on the desk. “He wants a dinner meeting to discuss the terms. I’d like to send you. This is your baby and you would be able to give him all the ins and outs.”

I felt the smile on my face go slightly stiff. I kept it in place through sheer force of will. “The last dinner meeting I went to ended with me losing Jack Montana.”

Betty laughed. “You’ll be fine.”

“I know, I know.” I shifted in the chair. “It’s just, full disclosure? Jeff Connors was at the auction.”

She nodded. “I remember.”

“He was a little—” I paused, trying to find the word that was accurate without being melodramatic. Or offensive, even if the guy was one of the most offensive men I’d ever heard. “Aggressive isn’t quite right. Pushy, maybe. Gross. The level of ick was a lot. I brushed it off at the time because it was a crowded room and I was focused on the event, but looking back on it, I didn’t love it.”

She sighed, tapping her fingers on the desk.

“Victoria, I would never ask you to walk into a situation that makes you uncomfortable. Not for any amount of money. If you don’t want to handle this meeting, you don’t have to. I’ll find another way to handle it or I’ll go myself.”

She wasn’t trying to guilt me into the job, but I felt it. She did so much for the charity. I could get through a meal with a mildly gross guy.

“No,” I said. “I can handle it.” I thought about it for another second. “Does it have to be dinner though? Could it be something else? Could he just come here?”

Betty tilted her head. “Here?”

“To the office. An actual meeting in an actual conference room with an actual agenda.” I gestured vaguely at the room around us. “He’s considering a sponsorship. That’s a business arrangement. Why does it require a restaurant?”

She picked up her pen again and tapped it lightly against her notepad. “These finance types tend to work long days. They cram meetings into their meal breaks, too.” She paused. “But I understand your point.”

“A lunch meeting,” I said. “Could you get him to agree to lunch instead of dinner? It still has food. It still feels social. But it’s a different energy. More professional. I’d feel a lot better walking into a lunch meeting than a dinner one.”

“Yes, I think I can probably make that work. I’ll say it’s a scheduling issue.” She made a note. “Lunch it is. I’ll have his assistant reach out and we’ll find a date that works.”

“Thank you,” I said. And I meant it for more than just the scheduling adjustment.

She looked at me over the rims of her glasses. “You know you can always tell me when something feels off.”

“I know.” I stood and smoothed my skirt. “I’ll be ready. I can handle him. If he’s a jerk, I’ll walk away.”

“Good. We want his donation, but not that bad,” she said. “If he steps one toe across any lines, tell him to shove it.”

I walked back down the hall to my desk. Lunch with Jeff Connors would not be pleasant, but I had sat across from men like him my entire life. I knew how they operated. I spoke the language fluently even though I’d chosen to stop living in that world.

I could do this.

I packed up my desk a little after five, which was practically a miracle given the week I’d been having. The afternoon had been quiet. Betty had left early for a board commitment and the rest of the staff had cleared out by four thirty. I sat alone in the office for the last hour, catching up on emails and trying not to think about Jeff Connors and his pending lunch meeting.

I texted Callum and let him know I was on my way. We had taken a couple days off. Both of us needed to work. It was too easy to get caught up with one another and ignore everything else.

Callum answered the door before I could knock. He was in jeans and a gray T-shirt and holding two bottles of beer.