Power Play by Tara Lynn

interned over at Oil division.
    Perhaps it was personal. After all, it did mean rejecting the sort girl she had once been.
    Either way, it didn’t bode well. My father might have given tradition and business equal weight, but all my mother cared about was the Stone name.
    Jesse finally looked up from the papers.
    “You want to build solar plants,” he said. “In the Middle East? The place with most of the world's cheap oil?”
    “The Abu Dhabi government wants to build it,” I said. “I just want to buy the company selling them the project.”
    “How exactly does that make us rich?” Jesse flipped back a couple pages and pointed at a number. “It’s a small project.”
    “Oh good, so you did read. Flip a page over then. This is a pilot project. If it works out, the entire damn region might be lining up to buy. We’re talking billions and billions of dollars.”
    “ If it works, then it might take off? I think you’re underestimating the risk.”
    Jesse shot me a steely blue gaze. Strange thing was, his eyes were the one part of him that didn’t reflect our father, so it let me relax. I had nothing I needed to prove to him.
    My brother was the Chief Sales Officer. Mostly, he kept our richest clients happy. An honest account of his resume would be a list of the old guys he’d gotten laid and the average bottle service bill he footed every night at “business meetings.” Still, it left him with a web of allies. I couldn’t outmaneuver him if his support outnumbered mine.
    The only choice I had was to grow the company hard while I was still in charge. Wealth might be a crass and distant topic of discussion in my mother’s social circles, but she'd notice if her rich friends started thinking of me as a visionary.
    Jesse might sweet talk them, but I could buy their respect. My mother would never make Jesse CEO if her friends liked me where I was.
    “It's a small fraction of our wealth,” I said. “We can take a hit.”
    I leaned in and ran through the numbers for Jesse till his eyes glazed over. My mother didn’t even pretend to listen, just scowled at her phone instead.
    “Alright fine,” Jesse said finally. “Let’s assume it works. Think about the bigger issues. It’ll undermine our oil division completely.”
    “No it won't,” I said. “We're not cutting them off.”
    “Yeah, but if we buy this company, it's sending message that oil isn't our only priority anymore. That will rub a lot of our partners the wrong way.”
    “Well, it’s your job to make them feel we still care. Or get them drunk enough that they forget about this.”
    Jesse sighed and flipped through the papers. He was reaching, I could tell, but he wasn't done.
    “What were you even doing in North Dakota, then?” he asked. “Seems like it was a complete waste of time compared to this.”
    My mother scoffed. “As if that wasn’t abundantly clear without all this mess.”
    Kerry’s glorious body dawned clear in my mind, pale and silky even over the bare sheets. I could whittle away a lifetime wrapped with her and not consider it a waste. Any anger left my mind.
    “You know me,” I said instead. “Can’t sit still. Always gotta find somewhere to roll around.”
    Jesse flipped through the sheets, still frowning, still shaking his head. But he was close to folding. And his was the only opinion that mattered. My mother always backed his choices.
    “Alright,” Jesse said. “You can start the talks if you want. I want you to do full diligence on site at the company. I’m not throwing in my support until I’m certain the numbers work out.”
    “Done deal.” I held out a hand.
    Jesse offered a firm grip back, but the doubt in his eyes only deepened. Apparently, this pissing contest wasn’t over.
    “Actually,” he said. “Consult an outside firm on this. I want to make sure we’re not biased.”
    I held in my laugh. He wanted someone more than Trey backing me up. As if it was my ego driving me and not my