Hostile Makeover
Victoria Edward moved through the large open-plan office with the sharp strikes of high heels on a mission.
Every heel strike broadcasted her bad mood and three heads popped up from colorful laptops to stare at her.
She glared back.
One—she’d had to leave New York when she hated leaving New York. Especially when the leaving meant she’d be in San Francisco.
Victoria and San Francisco had decided long ago that they did not get along. It was too relaxed, too alternate reality, too nice and smiley-smiley.
When Victoria smiled, it was not nice, and no one had ever dared describe Victoria as relaxed.
Two—she’d had to move her father across the country when any change to his routine caused weeks of irritability and mental anguish. His Alzheimer’s was getting worse even in familiar surroundings and while Victoria had done the best she could—full-time care with nurses who’d agreed to play assistant and reams of paper in the office she’d set up—she knew this change would be hard on the both of them.
Three—the morons currently running this company into the ground were software engineers with no business sense, and they were trying to monetize medical software they had no business trying to monetize. Even if they were the ones who’d created it in the first place.
And four—the morons currently running this company into the ground were doing it while sitting around on beanbags in their hoodies.
This was a place of business, probably. It might be more accurate to say it could be a place of business because right now, this was an amateur operation. And Victoria Edward was no amateur.
She’d learned at her father’s feet—sitting in on board meetings, international deals, takeovers and mergers since before she could spell CEO.
Her pint-sized pink desk had sat right next to her father’s and been littered with gifts from Fortune 500 companies and world leaders.
She’d fired her first employee from it when she was a kindergartner.
She was supposed to still be sitting right next to her father—taking over his company and growing his empire—and instead she’d left to start her own angel investing company.
She’d unknowingly left him to fend for himself when his mental health had been declining, leaving the board no choice but to oust him, and she wasn’t going to start questioning if she’d made the right decision because of these morons.
She would make sure it had been the right decision.
Victoria kicked a light blue beanbag out of the way, cocking one hip and crossing her arms. Three sets of eyes ran down her tight black pencil skirt and long, long legs to her Giuseppe Zanotti black and gold scorpion high heels, and she said, “At least it’s not your garage.”
No one made a sound, or met her eyes again, and the silence grew until one of them sat up a little and cleared his throat.
He said to her shoes, “Can we help you?”
She watched him fiddle with the zipper on his green hoodie and said, “I’m fairly certain no, but we’ll see. Where’s Jace Adams?”
“Oh,” Green Hoodie said, still talking to her shoes. “He went out to get some gumdrops. It’s National Gumdrop Day.”
Victoria stared at him.
Green Hoodie looked at Blue Hoodie to his right and Black Hoodie to his left, then back in Victoria’s direction.
“We celebrate one fun national holiday every week. It was Jace’s turn…to get the…” He glanced up into her unsmiling eyes and whispered, “Gumdrops.”
Gumdrops. Hoodies. Beanbags.
Oh, she was going to dismantle this company from beneath them. Rip it apart and save the treasure they were sitting on.
Blue Hoodie silently pointed behind her and Victoria turned to see a grinning Jace loping towards her.
His tall, lanky frame was sporting a tie-dyed hoodie and his dress slacks were wrinkled.
His light brown hair was unruly and unkempt, and he was wearing Birkenstock sandals with thick woolly socks.
Basically a fashion nightmare by any standards but San Francisco.
Victoria might have forgiven him if he’d had any business sense at all.
But he didn’t, and he’d proved it when he’d sold her half his company.
“Victoria!” He held up his shopping bag, shaking it at her. “Gumdrops. It’s National Gumdrop Day.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Yeah, we pick one fun holiday and celebrate it all week long. Just something we started doing and it stuck. Last week was National Latte Day, that was a good one. We got a lot done.”
Green Hoodie piped up with, “Kiss A Ginger Day was my favorite,” and then hid behind his laptop when Victoria turned her attention back to him.
Jace said, “Did anybody kiss you besides the three of us?”
Black Hoodie folded her arms and glared at the scorpions on Victoria’s shoes.
“The three of us used to be enough. For everybody.”
Jace said softly, “Amberlee,” and the woman closed her laptop with a snap, climbing to her feet—gracelessly, because it was a beanbag.
Victoria said, “I haven’t heard of any of these holidays. Is there a National Get To Work On Time Day? A Save This Company Before It’s Too Late Day?”
Jace dug through his shopping bag, finally pulling out the gumdrops triumphantly.
“That’s every day, isn’t it? We’ve got to have a little fun while we do it.”
Victoria eyed him a long moment, then held out her hand.
Jace grinned, dropping the bag of candy into it, and she said, “No. We do not.”
She threw the candy into the nearest trash can and Jace blinked, his grin disappearing.
“Okay, I thought you were going to eat those.”
“Candy is for children, not failing entrepreneurs.”
Jace reached down, pulling them back out and dusting them off, and Victoria grimaced.
He said, “What about successful entrepreneurs?”
“No.”
“Well, luckily, we are software engineers. And candy is an occupational necessity.” He ripped open the bag and when Victoria fake-gagged, he shrugged.
“There were just papers in there. It’s fine.”
“It’s gross.”
“You had issues with them before they went in, I’m not taking your word for it,” he said and looked at Black Hoodie.
She held out her hand.
“It’s gross but I’m not going to agree with her.”
“That’s the spirit. Craig?”
Green Hoodie scratched his head, flicking his eyes between Jace and Black Hoodie and Victoria’s shoes, and then held out his hand too.
Jace looked over his shoulder at Victoria and grinned.
“How can you tell an extroverted engineer from an introverted one?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “He makes inappropriate jokes during work hours?”
“He’s staring at your shoes instead of his.”
Victoria looked at the three engineers.
“They’re all staring at my shoes. Except for Black Hoodie, she’s glaring at them.”
“Yeahhhh.” Jace looked down too, at the scorpions climbing up the bridge of her foot. “Your shoes kind of ruin that joke. Why scorpions?”
She pointed her toe at him.
“Gold scorpions. What’s not to like?”
“They’re scary.”
“I know.”
“Aggressive.”
“Yep.”
“Your feet look beautiful and dangerous,” he said, then looked back up into her eyes. “You love these shoes, don’t you?”
She smiled, hoping it looked beautiful and dangerous too and judging by the look in his eyes, she’d got it right.
She said, “They’re a few years out of fashion. That’s how much I love them.”
“Okay…” he said and then noticed Green Hoodie still holding out his hand. “Sorry, Craig. Didn’t mean to leave you hanging. Dev? You want in on this holiday celebration?”
Blue Hoodie held out his empty #desi coffee mug to be filled and Jace said, “I think you’re outnumbered on this one, Vicky.”
“Call me that again and you will. Not. Enjoy. It.”
All Jace did was laugh and pop a handful of gumdrops. Just one of the maaanny reasons she wondered about his mental faculties.
She said, “Can we be done with this holiday and actually get to work now? Where’s your office?”
Jace indicated the wide, open room. “No offices.”
“Lovely. Anywhere we can speak in private?”
“Nope. Don’t believe in privacy.”
“You don’t believe in privacy…”
She pointed to a door on the far side of the room and he said, “The stairwell to the fire exit?”
She started walking towards it.
“It will have to do.”
“We really can talk out here.”
“Nope.”
Jace cleared his throat. “Um…”
Victoria pulled the fire door open, then pointedly looked at him to follow.
“Victoria—”
“It’s going to be different now, Jace. We’ve got a lot of work to do and there’s no time for gumdrops.”
He cleared his throat again. “Here’s the thing—”
“There is no thing,” she said, walking into the stairwell and slamming the heavy door behind her as best she could.
She waited, folding her arms and tapping her shoe.
He followed her in seconds later saying, “There is a thing. I split up my shares. That’s the thing.”
Her foot stopped tapping.
“What do you mean you split up your shares? With who?”
“Craig, Amberlee, and Dev.”
She raised her eyebrows. “They weren’t owners when I bought half your company.”
“I know. But there’s nothing in our contract that says we can’t sell our shares to whoever we want. You made sure that was in there.”
She had. She wouldn’t be trapped in to owning any business, no matter how much she believed in the product.
She didn’t know why he would willingly become a minority owner in his own company, though.
Victoria stayed silent, trying to work out his angle, and Jace cleared his throat.
“I thought it would be safer. Just in case you were more hostile than you appeared.” He looked at her expression. “Or as hostile as you appeared.”
“You thought it would be safer to dilute your shares, to make it so I only had to talk one of them into whatever I wanted to have majority share?”
“That was true anyway. You only ever had to talk me into something to get majority share. And I thought it would be safer for them.”
Her mouth fell open. “Talking you into something is not the same thing as talking one of them into it.”
“Yes, it is. I trust them. They trust me.”
She snorted. “Like I haven’t heard that a million times before.”
He cocked his head and said, “That’s just sad.”
“It’s just truth.”
He said softly, “They needed protection. And now you can’t just come in here and fire them. They’re part owners.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
“I wouldn’t necessarily have fired them.”
“You wouldn’t necessarily hadn’t have not fired them… You know what I mean.”
She probably would have fired them, eventually. Get workers in who would be loyal to her.
And who weren’t morons.
He said, “Plus, I owed them. They’ve all been here, with me, from the start.”
“You owed them…” She sucked in a breath. “Wait. Are you telling me you gave them the shares?”
“That’s right.”
“You gave away more than a third of your company?”
“Yes.” He looked at the expression on her face. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay! What is wrong with you?!”
“It was always the plan to make them partners but it was just easier for the company to be mine. And then it was going to be a failed company so it didn’t matter if they owned part of it or not. And then you came along.”
He smiled, like her coming along was a good thing.
The door behind them opened slightly and Green Hoodie stuck his head through the crack.
“You guys okay in here? Seems like there’s a lot of shouting going on.”
Blue Hoodie’s head appeared underneath and he said, “You must have told her about the thing.”
Black Hoodie said from behind them, “I’m not crawling under you two.”
Victoria ignored them as they shuffled around to hover in the open doorway, and she said to Jace, “You could have just given them a bonus from what I paid you.”
“There wasn’t really any money left over after I paid off the debts from trying to stay in business. But they said they wanted the shares.” Jace smiled at her. “They believe in this. They believe in you.”
Black Hoodie snorted. “She’s not the one we believe in. She’s probably going to try and sell the company out from under us.”
When Victoria glanced at her, the woman was glaring at Victoria’s shoes again.
Jace said, “You going to try and sell it out from under us, Victoria? Gonna work toward an IPO and get your payout?”
“No,” she said harshly. “I’m not doing this for a payout. We’re going to take this software to market so it can get better, not so we can get paid.”
He smiled like he’d known she would say that. He smiled like he knew.
He said, “And why is that?”
She narrowed her eyes, ignoring his question.
“It has to be profitable, though. I can’t support it without it being able to stay afloat on its own.”
“But,” Jace said, turning to the other three. “Money is not her priority. And that’s why we’re going to believe in her. She wants this to succeed. We want this to succeed. We all want the same thing.”
Victoria looked at her new co-owners. They looked back at her, meeting her eyes for the first time since she walked through the door.
And they all knew except Jace.
They weren’t ever going to work well together.