“Don’t worry, I’m used to it,” he said.
The unusual mischief in his green eyes told me he was joking, but it wasn’t beyond belief that he was just that arrogant, either. The man didn’t lack confidence. I liked that twinkle a little too much as he kept smiling down at me while we were immediately taken to a secluded table in the luxe restaurant.
No, I didnotlike the twinkle or the hand on my back. What was I thinking? He was my boss, and I needed a job a lot more than I needed a romantic interlude, despite my budding loneliness in this vast city of strangers. And what was I doing, thinking about romantic interludes at all after swearing off men forever not so long ago, with good reason.
My trust issues were no joke, so the job was always going to be a priority over a relationship.
“Let me tell you what I’d like for you to do,” he said, before I could get dragged down an unwanted trip down memory lane. Didn’t need that, didn’t want it. “It’s not one on the list of job requirements,” he added.
“That ever-expanding list?” I asked. He didn’t seem to mind when I got a little sassy, and I quickly toned it down by assuring him I looked forward to whatever he thought I could handle.
“I believe you can handle a lot,” he said, his eyes locking with mine.
I reached for my ice water and nearly knocked it over. Something about the way he was looking at me today was different. I didn’t hate it, just didn’t understand it.
“The meeting with Bocharov is only a week away, and I’ve looked over what the research team has put together.”
Actually, they’d told me what they were planning, and I compiled the report for Rurik, but I didn’t want to seem like I was undermining the very team I hoped to be on one day, so I tried to hide my feelings.
“What did you think of it?” I asked, feigning enthusiasm. “I was especially impressed with the—”
“It’s all shit,” he interrupted, scowling.
“Yes, all shit,” I agreed, making his lip quirk up. “Should I schedule a meeting with them?”
“I want you to research a product that will knock my bull-headed silent partner on his ass,” he told me. “Can you do that in one week?”
My heart soared, and I shakily pulled my phone out of my purse. “Not to be presumptuous," I said weakly,
“I need you to be presumptuous if it gets me something better than long-lasting batteries,” he snapped.
I swallowed hard. That was the one item on the research team’s list I had been impressed with. Rurik was right. The products they were suggesting the company start importing were all shit.
“They’re being too careful,” I said, my hands shaking with excitement, but also abject fear. I had been doing my ownresearch for fun and for just such a moment as this, but even in my wildest dreams, I thought it would be years away.
“Agreed,” he said. “So, can you be bold?”
I found the information I’d been compiling on my phone and scooted my chair around closer to him so he could see it. “Meet Koboyashi Corp.”
I played him the videos and showed him their website. He turned to me, eyes dark, mouth drawn into a tight line.
“A game system?”
Okay, he wasn’t impressed. Yet. I scrolled through the Japanese company’s most recent sales figures, then showed him how much Americans spent on video games. “This handheld system is flying off the shelves in Japan,” I said. “You can’t compare it to anything we have here, and if Koboyashi were a bigger company and had a better advertising team, someone else would already be making millions off it. Look.”
He leaned closer as I showed him the videos I found of influential gamers who’d traveled to Japan solely to buy the system and were raving about it. Rewatching them made me feel the same rising panic that I first felt when I was digging through the internet for great products.
Rurik felt it too, as he had taken my phone out of my hand and was reading all the comments from young people dying to hand over their money. He knew we needed to jump on this before anyone else did.
“Make contact,” he said, realizing our steaks had arrived. “If they’re amenable, you’re pitching this next week.”
“Me?” I yelped.
“Why not you? You did the work.”
He said it so forcefully that there was no way I could chicken out. The next day, the president of Koboyashi Corp himself answered my inquiry email to tell me they were coming to Los Angeles in less than a month, and he’d added us to the roster of other companies who’d expressed interest in helping introduce their product to the American market. Rurik insisted we celebrate with champagne, certain we’d shine over anyone else who tried to woo them.
I barely slept for the next few days, and every evening I was in his office to show him my progress. He had so much confidence in me that I couldn’t help but feel just as sure that Mr. Bocharov would approve.