Page 42 of Betting on her Best Friend
Epilogue II
Madison Aleksander
Another 3 months later, mid-September…
Madison Aleksander’s heels clicked on the marble floor in time with the pounding of her heart, both sounds echoing loudly in her ears as she crossed the massive lobby at a clipped pace. She took a deep breath and blinked back the torrent of emotions trying to blur her vision. She’d managed to remain poised and professional throughout the whole meeting; she’d be damned if she was going to present any differently until she was safely on the other side of the revolving glass door.
Easy, Maddie, you’re almost there. Do not start sprinting in your Louboutins.
The last thing she needed was a twisted ankle or broken stiletto. The ankle she could deal with. Busting one of her precious, red-soled babies? She’d be inconsolable. Normally Maddie wasn’t the type to get overly attached to her clothing. But she also wasn’t the type to drop a small fortune on a single pair of shoes. Yet that’s exactly what she’d done after a wine-infused conversation with her sister-in-law last week. Alyssa was a firm believer in manifesting one’s desires through extravagant wardrobe purchases and had the wedding gown to prove it. On the slim chance the universe really was listening, Maddie had ignored the imaginary sound of her American Express weeping and handed it over to the Neiman Marcus associate.
Alyssa’s theory may be totally bonkers—as Maddie’s twin and Aly’s husband was fond of saying—but it worked.
The corners of her mouth started to lift, beginning to crack her stoic expression, and then the gigantic revolving door was spitting her out onto the downtown Denver sidewalk. Punching her fists into the air and lifting her face to the sky, Maddie finally gave in to the sheer elation she’d held in since hearing that glorious phrase: Congratulations, Ms. Aleksander, you’ve been pre-approved for your loan.
“YES,” she shouted. “Thank you!”
“Yer welcome!” Looking over, she saw a burly man in a neon vest and yellow hardhat grinning at her. “Hows about you repay me with a date, sweetheart?”
His co-workers laughed and elbowed him in the ribs while tossing out suggestions for date “activities,” watching her expectantly for the typical insulting response. But Madison had grown up around guys like them her whole life. She and Dylan started working odd jobs on the weekends and during the summers at their family’s commercial construction business, Aleksander Construction Inc., by the time they were ten. It was like being raised by a pack of wolves whose first language was inappropriate jokes and cursing. There wasn’t anything these guys could say to rattle her delicate sensibilities, because thanks to her blue-collar pseudo uncles at ACI, she had none to speak of.
Plus, she was way too happy to take offense at a little good-natured crudeness.
“I would, hot stuff,” she tossed back, “but I don’t think little ole me could handle a big brute such as yourself. Better luck next time!”
Ignoring his attempts at convincing her otherwise, she waggled her fingers in a goodbye and headed in the opposite direction toward the building that housed ACI’s corporate offices. She had another appointment to get to. One that would be a lot less formal than the one with the lenders. She was also looking forward to it a lot less, but now that she knew she could get the loan, it was a necessary evil. Maddie hoped her Louboutins’ luck would hold out for another hour. But just to be safe, she picked up a little something extra at Puff’s Pastries, the upscale bakery on the ground level of their building.
Bribes procured, Maddie rode the elevator up to the 17th floor of the high rise her father’s company resided in and stepped into the lavish reception area. She offered a warm smile to Marilyn who glanced up from answering the phones long enough to wave her through to the back. Most of the space was taken up by a huge bullpen of cubicles filled with employees hard at work on their architectural design projects. A hallway branched off from the center of each of the three sides, leading to the managerial offices—sales to the left, operations straight ahead, and finance to the right.
George Aleksander, Maddie’s dad and the second-generation owner of ACI, had the huge office at the end of the operations hall. Now that he was getting up in years and his body was feeling the toll of working construction his whole life, he was in the office more than he was onsite. He’d passed that responsibility onto Dylan as lead foreman. Dylan had an office here in Denver, but it was almost never used since he worked out of the smaller remote branch in Longmont where he and Aly lived.
But it wasn’t her dad she’d come to meet with today. She knew she’d have to talk to him sooner or later, but she was opting for later. Much later. And she’d need to be armed with at least a dozen of Puff’s famous chocolate croissants for that conversation. Nothing softens the blow of hearing your daughter is abandoning her family legacy to strike out on her own like a box of decadent baked goods. But she couldn’t worry about that now. One uncomfortable thing at a time.
Turning right into the finance department, her stomach churned with every step. “Settle down, Maddie. You’re making a skyscraper out of a single-wide.” Whispering one of her father’s favorite sayings to herself didn’t ease the knots in her belly, but it squared her shoulders. It was a reminder that she was an Aleksander. Determined to make her dream into a reality. Not the one her father had paved for her and her brother, but hers. And there wasn’t anything or anyone she would let stand in the way of her achieving that dream.
Even if that meant going to the infuriating, aggravating, and annoyingly sexy CFO for help. It was going to seriously bruise her ego, but if he agreed to her terms, it would be worth it.
Pasting a wide smile on her face, Maddie approached the desk perched outside the lavish office at the end of the hall. “Good afternoon, Nadia, how are you this afternoon?”
The blonde executive assistant looked up from her computer screen, a friendly greeting ready on her lips until she caught sight of the white pastry box. Her green eyes lit up and she inhaled deeply. “Is that what I think it is?”
“If you think it’s fresh apple turnovers from downstairs, then yes. And they’re all yours,” Maddie said, placing the box in front of the eager woman.
Her eyes widened. “For me? They’re not for Mr. Patterson?”
She scoffed. “Hardly. No, this is my way of saying thank you. You know, for fudging the schedule a bit for me.”
“Well, who am I to ruin a nice surprise?” Nadia’s smile faltered and she paused for a beat. Like maybe she was rethinking her part as co-conspirator. “It is a nice surprise, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is,” Maddie said with a reassuring squeeze on the young woman’s shoulder. “Believe me when I tell you, your boss is always happy to see me.” That was the truth. “And this time will be no different.” That, however, remained to be seen. Semantics.
“Excellent. Just one moment, then.”
Nadia pressed a button on her phone. A deep voice resonated through the speaker. “Yes?”
“Mr. Patterson, your two o’clock appointment is here,” she said, giving Maddie a wink.
“Thank you, Nadia, send her in.”
