“It’s not just that,” Simon said. “What happened to Dover was absolutely heartbreaking. It’s been tough on the staff to know that one of our own was trying to harm the company that we all worked so hard to build.”
“I’m guessing it’s been tough on you, too” Neil said.
Simon nodded, his gut twisting painfully. He had never thought of Everett Eastman as a friend, but he had at least believed that they were on the same side. Had the same goal of making Dover a better company with each passing year. Finding out that Everett had spied on the company, stolen his ideas, and tried to frame Heather on top of it all had been more devastating than he’d realized. The truth was he hadn’t fully come to terms with it, and this interview was forcing him to take a good hard look at what Everett had put them all through.
“It has been,” he conceded. “But it’s been tough on all of us. Dover really is a family. Even when some members of the staff move on to other companies, we make sure we stay in touch with them. We’re all still reeling from this, but as the CEO it’s my job to do what needs to be done to protect the staff. They’re my number one concern. Dover’s workers. They’ve worked too hard for me to give up on them.”
“I really appreciate your candor, Simon,” Neil said. “It’s something our readers are going to get a lot of inspiration from. A leader who genuinely cares about the human capital of their company is someone to be admired.”
With a curt nod of acknowledgement, Simon stepped away from the servers to continue with the tour. The photographer took scores of photos as he showed them the many unoccupied apartments in the luxury building while answering more of the reporter’s questions. Finally, they ended up at the heated underground swimming pool.
“How about you get your feet wet,” Heather suggested eagerly.
He raised an eyebrow at her, already dreading where this new idea was going. “What?”
“Why don’t you take your shoes off, roll up your jeans, and put your feet in the water,” she pressed.
“Yeah, how about it, Simon?” the photographer asked, holding up his camera.
Simon sighed. Might as well get this madness over with.
Before he started to take his shoes off, Heather leaned towards him to undo another one of his shirt buttons.
“Take my shirt off, why don’t you,” he said to her with a growl.
“Sure, let’s go for it,” the photographer said enthusiastically.
“That’s not going to happen,” Simon muttered as he took his shoes off.
Heather let out a trembling giggle, but she quickly composed herself as she watched him roll up his jeans.
He sank down to sit at the edge of the swimming pool, putting his feet in the water.
“You look great, Simon,” the photographer said, snapping photos. “You’re starting to look more relaxed. How about we undo one more button?”
For the rest of the tedious photo shoot, Simon forced himself to grit his teeth and bear the whole ridiculous exercise. If Heather hadn’t been around, he probably would have reverted to his old ways and tossed the reporter and the photographer out of the building.
But he didn’t, and by the time late afternoon rolled around he let the reporter and the photographer out and headed into the kitchen in his apartment with Heather.
“You did great,” she said.
“Really?” He grimaced at the memory of the poolside photos. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” she said. “Your answers about Everett were so real. I knew you could do it.”
“The photos weren’t over the top?” he asked.
“Not at all. I told you that you looked sexy,” she said with a grin. “The magazine says they’re going to release the photos they took in your apartment on their website with some choice quotes later this week. Social media is going to love that. The pool photos will make it to the print version of the magazine in a month or so. That way, we’ll be able to keep the buzz around you going. We’ll be keeping up all this momentum.”
He headed over to his freezer and dug out a frozen pizza. “How about some pizza before we head down to the law firm?”