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“Not much besides the fact that she runs a tight ship—and did you know her brother Nate works there, too?”
“Yeah, but I focused on the names that started with M.A.R. Does he have anything to do with this?”
“I didn’t have a chance to talk to him yet.” Though from what Justin had seen, he wasn’t impressed.
Jordan rested his elbows on his knees and fingered the label on his beer bottle. “Someone in that family’s gotta be connected somewhere, otherwise why would Granddad scribble one of their names on a piece of paper as he’s dying?”
“I’ll see what I can dig up over the next few days…try to get close to one or both of them.”
“How long can you stay?” Jordan asked.
“My boss pulled someone from Vancouver to cover long enough to give me a month leave-of-absence.”
“Just a month? You own half the company now, why don’t you quit?”
Justin went on the defensive even though Jordan sounded more disappointed than angry. “I like Toronto. I didn’t ask you to quit your job—that was your decision. I’m not ready to do more than a leave just yet.”
Jordan held up a hand. “Fair enough.” Then he grinned. “So how do you like having a woman for a boss?”
“It’s no big deal.”
“What’s she look like?”
Too damn attractive. He kept that thought to himself and deflected Jordan’s question. “She’s a woman in construction—what do you think she looks like?”
“One can only hope, like Pamela Anderson.”
Justin snorted, then considered. Marley’s natural appeal far surpassed Pamela Anderson in his opinion, even though she had a smaller chest. Not too small, though, just big enough—
“I’d work under Pamela Anderson any day,” Jordan added.
Annoyed, Justin straightened and headed for the kitchen. “You’d work under anyone in a skirt.”
Jordan chuckled and sing-songed, “Someone likes their boss.”
“I thought you said you grew up,” Justin groused. He threw his empty bottle into the recycle and heard the glass shatter when it impacted the other bottles at the bottom.
“I was joking,” Jordan said from behind him.
Justin bit back a sigh of frustration and took Jordan’s bottle to drop it in the bin. “I know, sorry. It’s just that I’ve had a few too many surprises today—and that bomb you dropped about the finances certainly doesn’t help.”
Jordan clapped him on the shoulder. “You do your job, I’ll do mine.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Over his shoulder on his way to the bathroom for a shower, he asked, “Same time tomorrow?”
“You know it.” After two more steps, Jordan called after him, “You need to live a little, bro. You’re growing old way too fast.”
Easy for Jordan to say, he thought as he stepped under the needle-like spray a minute later. Jordan had followed the Blake family motto and done what Mom and Dad expected. He’d gotten his degree and moved directly into a high-paying executive position at an advertising agency.
Jordan was damn good at his job, but it didn’t change the fact that his employer was an old-money family friend. Justin knew in the same situation, he wouldn’t be able to shake the feeling that he’d gotten the job because of that connection. And now they were co-CEO’s by inheritance.
Someday Justin planned to start his own business, build it from the ground up into a solid, respectable company like Granddad. But he planned to do it himself, without anyone else’s help.
****
Steaming coffee warmed Justin’s hand through the thermos cup as he watched the sun climb toward the treetops. He’d arrived early enough to do a walk through inspection of the job site without prying eyes, but by six-thirty he’d returned to the Jeep. No sense raising anyone’s suspicion if they discovered him nosing around.
Everything looked fine. In fact, yesterday the men had worked like a well-oiled machine and Marley Wade had been impressive in her command. His respect for her in that aspect had grown.
