AllFreeNovel
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14
We endup meeting in the middle on my having a chaperone at a business presentation. Liamdoescome, but as my driver—Noel’s reasoning being that image is everything, and I “can’t take a bloody taxi or the fucking tube to a business meeting.”
So, the very not-so-subtle Bentley, with Liam behind the wheel, it is. He does stay in the car, though.
A pretty young woman who introduces herself as Natalie, Jacob’s personal assistant, greets me outside the former industrial building on the South Bank. She gushes about how excited “everyone” is to finally meet me as we head through the renovated former textile factory turned chic, hip office loft space.
The main offices once we get off the all-glass elevator, though, are even cooler. The whole second and third floor of the former factory has been turned into one giant open-air space, with private offices using glass walls to keep the whole thing open and airy.
Posters for upcoming streaming projects adorn the brick walls, and employees hang out on laptops in ultra-cool lounge areas full of leather couches and espresso machines. It feels like I’m walking into the hottest tech firm in Silicon Valley, rather than a South London media startup.
“There she is!”
Jacob steps out of his office dressed coolly in hip jeans, tailored dress shirt, and a vest. He grins as he strides over and shakes my hand warmly.
“Ella Ash—excuse me,Ransom. Finally here, exactly where you belong.”
I grin, blushing as he heaps praise on me. Meanwhile, Natalie just beams at him, clearly utterly smitten.
“Nat, would you be able to grab us a couple of those honeyed oat milk lattes for conference room A?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Prince.”
He flashes her a winning smile. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
When she leaves, he turns and clasps his hands together.
“Ella, I can’t tell you how psyched I’ve been for this day. You areexactlywhat this place needs. This is going to be fantastic. Here, let’s head over. The rest of my executive team is joining us in a few.”
As he leads me through the open-concept offices, it feels like I’m being given a tour by a rock star. Every single employee we pass seems to drop what they’re doing to say hello to him, orhigh-fivehim. The whole environment is beyond hip and feels so down-to-earth in such an organic way.
“Mate, you see that Bentley outside?”
I stiffen as we pass by two guys hunched over laptops on a leather Chesterman sofa. The second guy snickers.
“Bro, for real. What sort of old-school shit is that? Is the fucking Queen here?”
They both crack up as I flush and quickly match Jacob’s pace.
Thanks for the image tip, Noel.
Above us, workmen hang suspended in harnesses from the black-iron rafters, stringing wires of some kind.
“We’re going full in-house with our servers and computing power,” Jacob offers, following my eyes and gesturing with a wave of his finger.
“We were using third party servers for all of our online stuff. But we finally installed our own over the weekend. Sorry for the distraction, they’re just wiring the place up.”
“Oh, no distraction at all.”
He grins, nodding to a huge, glass-walled meeting room with a really cool looking slab-wood table and these big old round-backed leather chairs, like something out of an airline executive’s office in the 60s.
I grin. This place issofucking cool.
“Let me get you set up with one of those lattes in here, and you can prep your presentation while I snag the execs I wanted to see this.”
He grins.
“And donotstress, Ella. I already told you, the job is yours. Don’t worry about proving a thing, okay?”
