“Are you sure you really want to do this? I mean, this way?”
Mandy twirled her rings around her finger and chewed the inside of her mouth. Aaron appeared to be cool as a cucumber, which somehow made her even more apprehensive.
“Oh yeah.” He slung an arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Kill all the speculation at once then head out for Madrid with the press approximately 65 percent less interested in my love life.”
“Your father is going to kill you.”
“Not until after the election.” He gave her a little pat on the rear and nudged her toward the entrance into the packed meeting room. Flashes lit the room as photographers caught their arrival.
Mandy slipped in behind the long white-cloth-covered table and sat to the immediate left of her stepbrother. She made an appreciative grunt at the title printed on the placard in front of him.
“Congratulations, I guess. Development director? Fancy!”
Mike wriggled his brows. “Thanks, I’m feeling pretty fancy.”
“What’s Archie think?”
“Ooh! Let me answer!” Tina, at Mike’s right, tapped the tabletop in front of him for attention. “I heard the entire exchange through the phone speaker. Archie’s loud, huh?”
Mandy cringed. “Understatement.”
“I believe, and correct me if I misheard, Michael, his instruction was for Mike to blow it out his ass. Apparently he thinks Mike is bad for business.”
Mandy nodded, considering. “Yep. That sounds like Archie.”
Jasmine scampered up, panting, right at the one-minute-before-showtime mark and placed paper name tents in front of Aaron and Mandy respectively. “Sorry about that! I truncated the letters in Mandy’s name. That would have looked bad, people thinking I can’t spell.” She darted away. Mandy turned the placard around.
“Hey! I have a new title, too.”
Aaron sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, smirking. “Two new titles. I think the unwritten one is more important, though.”
“Yeah, you would.”
The reporters on the front row went quiet, studying the signs. Hands started going up.
Aaron ignored them and got down to business. “I thank everyone for their continued interest in Cars to Work and the growth our organization is currently experiencing. Today I’m going to speak briefly about some of our recent corporate partnerships and what our expansion plans are. First I’d like to introduce some of my key staff members. At the end is Tina Hoye, who’s been with me since the start of CTW. She is our training director and will be overseeing the competency of all the staff we’re hiring. Beside her is Michael Leonard, our development director. He’s come on board to help us plan our future programs. You can ask him any questions you’d like about how we go about procuring and distributing cars. You all know Miranda. She’s our COO. Just call her ‘chief.’ She likes that.”
Laughter filled the room.
“Now, I’d hate to rush this thing but I’ve got nonrefundable plane tickets for tonight and I haven’t packed my suitcase yet.”
The reporters in the room waited patiently while Aaron ran down his talking points for about fifteen minutes. When he was done, he took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “Any questions?”
Every person in the room put up a hand.
“Well, let’s just start first row and go left to right.” He pointed to the woman closest to the door. “Yep?”
“I’m sorry, just for the sake of accuracy, your COO’s surname — ”
“Is correct.” He pointed to the next person. “Yeah?”
“Uh, and by correct you mean correct as printed on the name card?”
“Yes. Miranda Owen.” He pointed to the next person.
“Um … ” The man looked down at his notebook and seemed to have forgotten whatever it was he was going to ask.
“Next?”
“Yes, I’m from the Indy.”
“Oh, boy,” Tina mumbled.
“First of all, congratulations?”
“Thank you,” Aaron and Mandy said in unison.
The woman made a note. “Second, as you’re married to your COO, how are you going to handle oversight issues?”
“The same way I handled them when I was CEO, COO, CFO, phone grunt, mechanic, coffee guy, and delivery boy all in one. And while we’re on the subject of transparency, I’d like to make it obvious that Mr. Leonard is my brother-in-law.”
Hands went down. More popped up.
Aaron pointed to the next person. “Yes?”
The man cleared his throat. “Mr. Owen, how much involvement does the governor have with your organization? Is he on the board, or — ”
“None.”
The reporter blinked. “Uh, sorry, if I may follow up on that question, are you saying CTW has no ties to the governor at all?”
“That’s correct. We’re a non-governmental organization in the purest sense. As of next year, we’re receiving no funding from the state at all. Politics don’t come into play here, folks. We’re just trying to help folks in rural communities get to work. I think that’s something both sides of the party line can get behind.”
Mandy marveled at his absolute cool. He hadn’t even pulled that pen out of his pocket, and she wondered what had happened to it, anyway. She, on the other hand, was shaking like a leaf and was glad no one had directed a question specifically to her. Or so she thought.
When she felt a hand on her left thigh, squeezing, she looked up to find Aaron giving her an encouraging smile.
“What?” she whispered.
“You can answer.”
“What was the question?”
“Mr. McNamara, can you repeat the question for my wife, please?”
She looked out into the room and found a man in rough-dried clothes with messy hair standing and squinting down at a pad. “Ms. Mc … uh, Mrs. Owen, I understand you developed a traffic system to coordinate the CTW staff coordinates. Is this a system that can be adapted to other businesses and organizations?”
“Possibly. Really, it started as a series of spreadsheets and my stepbrother Donald adapted it into a simple program. Each team member inputs data from their own computers and it gets compiled on our server. I make assignments based on that information.”
“I’d like to learn more about it, if possible. I write for a technology magazine based out of RTP. I think a lot of small companies with remote staff would be interested in how it works.”
“Of course. I can put you in touch with Donald. He loves talking geek. See me after the press conference? I’ll get you his card.”
Another squeeze of the thigh. This time, a good girl squeeze.
The questions continued for another half hour. There were a few questions about Aaron and Mandy’s relationship they carefully diverted and one about Aaron’s politics which he responded to with, “Politics get in the way of getting real work done, as evidenced by the last legislative session, so what exactly are you asking me?”
The reporter didn’t follow up.
After that, once the crowd had seemingly determined the panel was not, in fact, a circus sideshow, the questions became more specific to the mission of Cars to Work — why they were there in the first place.
At the end, Aaron pulled Mandy behind the curtain the secretary had put to hide the sound equipment and gave her lips a crushing kiss.
“What was that for?” she panted once she’d caught her breath.
He pushed her bangs back from her eyes and kissed her again. “For being a perfect human being.”
“Wow, you said it even with me wearing clothes.”
He smiled that thousand-watt smile. “It’s true. Think about it. I went out looking for someone to organize my staff, and ended up with a woman to run my life. It’s like a buy-one, get-one special.”
She laughed and gave him a swat. “I don’t want to run your life, Aaron.”
“Really? ’Cause from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re stuck with me. Remember that whole ‘better or for worse’ bit? No warranties. Sold as is, sweetheart, and you’ve already driven me off the lot.”