Page 4 of Love In Hiding

“And if it is, I’m used to it,” he said.

“Sorry,” West said, moving in. “Just firming a few things up.” West moved over with his hand out, Spencer stood to shake it. He hadn’t seen West since he last interviewed. “Have you been brought up to speed yet?”

Spencer refused to let his nerves consume him again.

In the almost two months he’d been here, everything he’d felt had been self-imposed. He wasn’t here long enough to know what a last-minute arrival of the big man meant.

And with the way his conversation was going with Braylon, it couldn’t be bad news.

“Not yet,” Braylon said. “Just chatting about if he likes it here or not.”

“Oh, I love it,” he said, a genuine smile filling his face. For a man who gave little away at his last job, and was still guarding things closely here, he found he was more open for sure.

“Good to know,” West said. “You might not in the next few months.”

His grin stayed on his lips when he noticed the smirk between West and Braylon.

“It’s not going to be that bad,” Braylon said.

He looked between the two of them. “What?”

“We’ve got a new venture. A consulting firm. Not something we’ve done much work in before, a service-type industry,” West said. “Lean consulting and strategic planning. We’ve been doing a lot of this in house when we acquire new companies or take on investments. Even managing those we’ve got. Laken oversaw a lot of this and with the baby and her workload, it was time to look at it differently.”

“Are you buying a consulting firm?” he asked.

“No,” West said. “London and Paris Westerly. Sisters. They are starting a firm under our umbrella. They will have a small office on the floor below us. Westerly Consulting. We are retaining them for our exclusive use, but they will also work with multiple other businesses and build as they go.”

His mind was racing, trying to keep up and figure out what to ask. “Do they have existing clients?”

“A few,” Braylon said. “They both worked for different firms previously. London focused more on operations, Paris more on personnel. Together, their wide range of industries, clients, and experience makes this a good fit for us. They will start more with Carlisle businesses while they reach out to other clients they’d worked with in the past and make connections here.”

Trying to steal them away, he thought. But it was a common business practice.

“Were they based out of New York?”

“No,” West said. “Both worked down south but spent a lot of time on the road.”

“Big change,” he said. “Good for them.”

He liked go-getters.

“You’ll be the lead on this,” Braylon said. “Along with your team.”

He had two staff attorneys under him, both relatively young, and two clerks. One attorney being Noelle Kleinfield who seemed to clash with Kenzie. He was positive that placing her on his staff was on purpose to separate the two, but so far Noelle had been professional around him.

“Great,” he said. “Can’t wait to dive in. What can you tell me about London and Paris? Other than their parents must like those cities.”

Braylon laughed. “Something like that. They are twins. I think you’ll get along well with Paris. London is a bit intense. Not in a bad way, just more driven. A little impatient. She’ll benefit from your personality.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d been paired with clients for that reason. “I’m used to that.”

“We figured as much,” West said. “They should be set up and ready to go next week. Or their office will be. Braylon will give you the companies that they will work on first, the contracts to be signed, details to be gone over. You will be required to travel with them at first.”

“I knew that coming in,” he said. And didn’t have a problem with it. Most times he didn’t mind getting out of the city and seeing a little bit of the world.

“We’ll have you focusing on that for the next couple of weeks, along with a few other projects,” Braylon said.

“Sounds good.” He still wasn’t sure why West was in this meeting. It seemed pretty cut and dry to him.