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smile
widened as his gaze locked onto her. “Because you said ‘we,’ which makes us a
team.”
    Carrie stared
at him in confusion. Why did he focus on her use of ‘we’ now? A since of joy
flooded her as she understood. The ugly gray wall of his father’s teachings
must have finally cracked a bit. Trent saw her as his team, which redefined
‘team’ as a good thing. She needed to expand the crevice while she could. “Yes,
and our team needs to get bigger, so you don’t have another horrible
month like this past one.”
    He grasped her
right hand and covered it with both of this. “I’m completely on board with this
team stuff. And as soon as we hire this HR person and he gives me the nod, I’ll
fire as many as you like and hire team workers instead.”
    “Our expert
might be a woman.”
    His brow
furrowed again. “Why would you think that?”
    “Because we
want to hire the best person we can afford, and given women tend to be paid
less, the best person we can afford will probably be a woman.”
    “True…. I only
had to pay you half my former EA’s salary and you do twenty times the work he
did.”
    The pride in
his voice pissed her off and tempted her to lecture him on pay discrimination,
but she really needed to keep this conversation positive. “Once the
improvements I made in Taiwan improve our profit margins, I hope you’ll reward
me for my efforts.”
    “I intend to.”
His eyes sparkled with a worrisome amount of delight.
    God, don’t let
him do something stupid like give me his Dali painting.
    A moment
later, the driver cursed and slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a halt.
    Carrie stared
out the window at the rows of parked cars. She looked through the back window
and watched the parking lot grow behind them. Something must have happened to
close Cross Bronx Expressway or the George Washington Bridge. God, would she
never get home?
    Not
surprisingly, Trent lost his meager patience at once. “Sam, take the local
roads into the city. I’m tired of sitting in this car.”
    “The local
streets aren’t particularly safe,” Sam warned.
    “I sent you to
defensive driving school, for God’s sake. It’s time I get my money’s worth.”
    Sam sighed
heavily. He stared at Carrie through the rearview mirror. “Please secure your
seat belt. I may have to perform evasive maneuvers that could result in injury.”
    Trent huffed.
“Not if you plan to keep your—”
    Carrie touched
his arm. “We should practice our positive management responses on your home
staff so it becomes second nature to you when the new people come to work.”
    He sighed. “I
intended to say Sam wouldn’t wish to lose his self-esteem. He ranked first in
his class if I recall.”
    Sam grew an
inch taller. “True, but I’ll need to focus on evade-and-escape techniques, not
drive-smoothly-so-the-passengers-can-sip-their-wine.”
    “I’m sure you
can do both.”
    “I can, sir. Just
not at the same time.”
    Deciding a
need to interrupt this discussion, she reached over Trent, located his seat
belt and buckled him in. “Well done. A good manager should know details about
his employees’ lives.”
    Instead of
complaining about her securing him in a seatbelt as if he were a child, he smiled.
“Thank you.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
    Butterflies
fluttered in her stomach. Why had he done that? She couldn’t make sense of his
actions. Perhaps he’d been touched to discover one of his employees didn’t want
him dead. Embarrassed, she gently pulled her hand to the safety of her lap.
    Trent’s focus
turned to Sam. “Why aren’t we moving?”
    “Because I
require an exit, sir. I’ll take the first one I can.”
    Trent eyed the
side of the road. “Just drive on the side of the road.”
    “No, sir.”
    “If you get a
ticket, I’ll pay for it.”
    “Sir, the side
of this road is littered with stripped cars, and once you pull over, no one
will let you back in this lane. We’ll just