One Way to Succeed (Casas de Buen Dia Book 1) by Marjorie Pinkerton Miller Page B

masculine.
    Amy shook herself and focused on the computer screen. She entered the password Sandra had given her, and waited for the programs to boot up. This job—even if it was temporary—was only going to work out if she put her libido in her desk drawer when she came into work, and left it there until . . . well, until forever.
    She looked around for a desk drawer, and laughed at herself when she realized there wasn’t one.
    “Don’t take the metaphor too literally!” she warned herself aloud.
    “What?” Sandra called in from the front room.
    “Just talking to myself,” Amy called back. She was going to have to watch what she said out loud.
    ~
    By the time Rick came into the office, Amy had brought herself up to speed on a lot of things. She’d located the financial files and quickly perused them. The company was grossing something like $2 million a year, of which $1 million went right back out the door for materials. Half of the remainder went to salaries and benefits, another tenth to insurance, another tenth to business consultants, a tenth to marketing, a sliver to taxes, and most of the rest—about $200,000—represented earnings. That wasn’t a bad return, she guessed, although she wasn’t sure what the standards were for profitability of construction companies.
    A separate company, one that appeared to manage hotel properties, had a separate set of financials that indicated revenues of another $300,000 but much smaller profits—less than $20,000 a year. Amy wondered how Rick thought the distraction of another company was worth it. But then she noticed the balance sheet. The company didn’t just manage hotel properties, it also owned them—about $10 million worth! Wow, Amy thought. It seemed like a lot of capital to tie up for such a small return. Maybe his strategy was to wait for long-term gains as the properties appreciated.
    She paused in her digital tour of his businesses to wonder: how much of that $10 million came from Rick’s mommy and daddy? Had he, in fact, made a small fortune by starting with a big one? She had no reason to be cynical, other than her natural tendency to be so. “Give the guy a break,” she told herself, this time keeping her voice to a whisper so Sandra wouldn’t overhear. “It’s no more his fault that he was born rich than it is mine that I wasn’t.”
    She moved on from the finances to the personnel files. Besides Sandra and Rick, there was a chief financial officer named James; two construction foremen, Caleb and Gilberto; a part-time marketing guy named Guy; and a part-time maintenance man by the name of Joseph, who appeared to be in charge of keeping the company trucks and equipment in working order. The hotel property management company was run by Brian, who also had a maintenance man, an accounting clerk, and a secretary of his own. Apparently, the accounting functions were outsourced to those various consultants she’d seen on the income statement. That’s too bad, she thought. She could do it for a heck of a lot less money than that.
    What she couldn’t figure out from the files was what she was expected to do. If Sandra was handling the phones, the consultants were doing the bookkeeping, payroll and taxes, what was left for her? Surely it wasn’t old-fashioned dictation, buying plane tickets, and arranging his dinner dates, she hoped. She’d never been an admin before, and had never had one working for her.
    “Hey!” A huge bouquet of flowers at her door appeared to speak, which wasn’t as surprising as the fact that it also had legs.
    Rick stepped around the arrangement he held by both hands and grinned at her.
    “I thought maybe you’d like some foliage to warm up this sterile office of yours. I love what you’ve done with it, by the way,” he joked. 
    “Thanks.” She stood up to accept the big bouquet and set it on her desk. “I spent all morning on it. I’m glad you like it.” 
    “I just want to warn you. I won’t bring you