A/N: Experienced a delay in my personal life that kept me from working on this story, but I'm back! Enjoy. :)

Chapter 2:

I returned to my desk to await Alec's arrival. Both my incoming email and hard mail baskets were bulging. My day was going to be packed.

Any girl's first year in a job is challenging enough, what with attempting to be sweet but diplomatic, curious but not nosy, friendly but not sycophantic, helpful but not pushy—and all while trying not to step on some important and sensitive toes. Combine that with serious marketing efforts of my employer, an aggressive, high-tech company, and I had a tough job.

The business was growing, so my life was full—and then some.

I worked hard to make the company look good. I handled their marketing campaigns, press releases, newspaper and magazine ads, and charitable events. I edited and published the quarterly newsletter, and I did anything and everything that involved dealing with the public or the press.

My title was marketing and public relations manager. Sometimes I felt life the janitor, because I was expected to clean up the public relations mess if someone from the company made a faux pas.

Whenever the proverbial crap hit the fan, I ran for my bucket and mop. There was never a dull moment. Nonetheless, I loved my job—most of it, anyway.

Tjinsaka designed and developed advanced software for many federal government agencies around the world including the United States Armed Forces and World Health Organization.

Working with the Feds, the military brass, and an assortment of other bureaucrats on secret projects was a complicated job, and one in a while Tjinsaka's top executives made the mistake of giving too little or too much information to the media, and the backlash had to be handled by Alec and me.

Although Alec, whose title was marketing director, was a nice guy, he was a bit on the laid-back side and tended to push things my way—especially the sticky, messy issues that he didn't want to soil his large fingers with.

That was precisely why he'd hired me, a woman with an MBA from Brown, two years experience working for a mid-sized Chicago newspaper, and two years working with a prestigious Manhattan firm—until they'd laid me off when a short-termed economic recession had hit. Then there was my brief volunteer stint working on Illinois's last governor's political campaign.

For my age I had a pretty impressive work history. My job with the gubernatorial campaign hadn't amounted to much more than placing poster in strategic locations and answering phones while I looked for a paying job. But it looked good on my resume.

I glanced at the digital clock on my desk. Alec still hadn't shown up. Our meeting was in fifteen minutes. I still didn't mind going to meetings without him, especially now that I'd become accustomed to this place and the various personalities. But I still disliked the thought of going to this particular meeting alone.

It would be unnerving to meet the CEO without Alec beside me. Although I was the one who did most of the routine work, Alec was the guy who had final authority to off on it. Plus he was an excellent talker—he made the simplest projects sound impressively complicated. That's why he was the director and I the underling.

If Alec was hopping trains, he would have called by now. A horrible thought struck me. Could he be involved in an accident, like Shane feared?

Alec walked in just as I was about to share my disturbing thoughts with Kimi. "Good morning, ladies," he greeted us absently in English, stopping at Kimi's desk.

Heaving a sigh of relief I raced to greet him. "Am I glad to see you! We were worried about you, Alec."

"Some idiot decided to mess with the cables at the station, so I had to wait for nearly an hour until they could bring a new car in," he grumbled. Most people would have been irate, but Alec was treating this like a minor inconvenience.

"Shane called," Pinky announced. "He's convinced you were in some accident of sorts—a statistic."

"I had a feeling he'd be upset." Said Alec as he strode toward his office, carrying the navy blue insulted bento lunch Shane had packed for him. "My cell phone had to die on me today of all days." You have a portable charger don't you?" I asked his retreating back.

"I've been meaning to buy one…but I haven't gotten around to it." He stuck his head back out the door. "Kimi, could you please call Shane and tell him I'm fine, but I can't call him back right now?"

"Sure thing." Kimi was already grabbing the phone.

I made a mental note to buy Alec a cell phone charger for when he was out as a Christmas gift. I'd have to find out the exact make and model of his phone.

A few minutes later, having gulped down a quick cup of coffee, Alec stood at my door, portfolio in hand. "Ready to go, Ginger?"

His wide body practically fit the entire doorway. The bald patch on top of his head gleamed under the fluorescent lights. What was left of his hair was combed neatly. His latest cologne, a gift from his partner no doubt, drifted up to meet my sensitive nostrils. Very pleasant.

"Ready as I'll ever be," I said, and grabbed my notes and pen.

CEO Tjinder, who generally divided his time between Geneva and Washington D.C.—either wooing customers internationally or at the home front, was going to address the managerial staff this morning. I'd never met him in the six month's that I'd been with the company.

I'd met his partner, Taro "Taa-chan" Sakamoto, several times. He was the chief financial officer. Ever since Tjinsaka had bought out Hartzen's, he'd made his home in the Tokyo base, so he was a familiar face around here.

Taa-chan was a decent guy—friendly, cheerful, entirely different from my image of the usual accountant type. Although a smart and disciplined man when it came to fiscal matters, he didn't seem obsessed with the bottom line like most CFOs I'd come across.

He didn't dress like an accountant either. A stout man nearing his late-thirties, he generally sported twill pants, loose cotton shirts, and no tie. Besides being an oddity among the hundreds of CFOs spread throughout Tokyo, he laughed and kidded a lot. Taa-chan was a likeable man.

And the company name—Tjinsaka. Couldn't they have picked a simpler name? But the two partners' names Tjinder plus Sakamoto, had turned it into Tjinsaka, Inc.—a very strange handle that I personally thought was bad for PR. Most people over here referred to it as Jin-baka. Which actually made little sense when translated, unless it was turned backwards. Still, it managed to get the meaning of "idiot person"across.

Who knows, maybe a weird name like that worked in highly technical circles, where guys wearing pocket protectors discussed computer codes and discovered ways to build the most hacker-resistant firewalls in the universe.

My job was simply to make Tjinsaka look good—outlandish name and all.

Although not nervous by nature, when I got tense, like I was at the moment, I needed to go the bathroom. "Alec, you go on ahead," I said. "I've got to run to the ladies' room."

Alec shifted away from the door. "No problem." He flicked his cuff back and looked at his watch. "We've got about…six minutes. I'll wait. You run along."

Alec had come to accept my pre-meeting trips to the ladies' room with his usual calm.

Inside the restroom, after getting the essentials out of the way, I stood for a moment in front of the mirror. The auburn highlights in my shoulder-length hair gleamed. My makeup looked fresh.

The suit looked pretty good too. It was a soft, copper-colored material with a skirt that showed about three inches of skin above the knees, creating the impression of longer legs. Every millimeter of leg was important when one barely stood five feet. The suit went well with my navy blouse and pearl earrings. I wanted to look my best for the meeting.

Irrespective of my Aunt's aspirations, and whatever Baljeet Tjinder would turn out to be, first impressions that I made with the executive board were vital.

Returning from the ladies' room I turned to Alec. "Let's go."

We got into the elevator and headed for the ninth floor—the penthouse. Tjinsaka occupied the top four floors of the building. The second through eighteenth were taken up by a number of small businesses, while the first floor housed various doctors' offices.

"Don't look so anxious," Alec said briefly, taking in my appearance. "You look fine, prettier than usual." His green eyes twinkled with teasing admiration.

"Thanks , Alec. You're good for my ego." If any other fifty-one year old man had given me that look, I'd have wondered about his intentions, but Alec was overtly gay. I lifted an eyebrow at him. "Do I really look that nervous?"

"A little."

I caught him peeking at his own appearance in the smooth chrome wall and patting his tie. I smiled to myself. I'd often wondered how a guy like Shane, with his classic good looks and impeccable taste in clothes, had fallen for a plain, rotund guy like Alec, but Alec had a sense of humor and integrity, so physique could be overlooked. Also, he handled Shane with infinite patience and tenderness.

That's probably what kept the fastidious Shane and Alec together—opposites attracting and all that. Kimi had informed me that the two men had been partner for some nineteen years—a match made in heaven. In some ways I envied their happy relationship.

The topic of looks reminded me of something. "Is the CEO really as tall as everyone says," I asked Alec.

Alec nodded. "Looks more like he should have been a basketball player than a computer geek."

Well, that was unfair. I can still remember more than fifteen years ago when I had towered over all my girlfriends, and now I was barely reaching their shoulders. Tjinder himself had not been a tall kid. Even in high school, while he lost all his baby fat on his body, he'd never really hit a significant growth spurt until senior year. And not even that made him much taller than Phineas Flynn. Must have been a late-bloomer.

But if Tjinder was really as tall as everyone was making him out to be, then my auntie's hopes about him and me were groundless. I was a
midget by any Asian standard. Besides anything other than a professional relationship with him would be a direct conflict of interest.

Oh well. I didn't care one way or the other. As long as Tjinder proved to be a good boss and I could keep my job forever and not get laid off like I did from my last one, I'd be okay. If he turned out to be half a decent guy as Taa-chan, then I had nothing to worry about.

As the elevator headed for the penthouse, the butterflies in my stomach fluttered more briskly. I'd heard a lot of gossip about Baljeet Tjinder from the employees.

Some of the younger women in the office seemed to get all starry-eyed when they talked about him. I wondered I he could be gay—like Alec. Heck, I even speculated whether or not he and Buford used to have something going on, but I suppose not since Buford started dating Milly in high school. And pardon me if I'm wrong, but wasn't an unmarried man at thirty three a bit unusual by cultural Indian standards?

A large corner office on the top floor was set aside for him, but as I was told when I first joined, he hadn't used it since he'd acquired Hartzen's. I'd seen some recent pictures of him from newspaper clippings and company newsletters, but it was hard to see whether or not he'd turned handsome or ugly or plain. He just looked taller than most of the men in group photos.

He was considered a whiz though. On that one point the verdict was unanimous. A double engineering degree followed by a master's in computer science, both with highest honors, and both from MIT, said a lot about the guy's intellect.

The entire office seems to be in awe of the man's brains. Of course, the staff had all received a raise after the procurement of the company, so getting a fair report on the man was a bit like asking oppressed people how they felt about their deliverer. And apparently he was even more generous. He and Taa-chan regularly rewarded their top salesmen with large bonuses.

But the few men who didn't care for him were unusually acerbic in their comments. That could simply be jealousy on the part of some guys in the same age group as Tjinder—men who had ended up working for him instead of competing against him.

And I didn't know a single businessman, or businesswoman, who hadn't made a few enemies along the path to success.

It was only natural for a woman like me, who weighted not an ounce over eighty-seven pounds in my heaviest wool suit to feel anxious about seeing a guy who was a lot bigger and much more powerful. But I was ready. In fact, I told myself, I was looking forward to the meeting.

The elevator doors opened. I forged ahead, my thoughts entirely occupied with what I was going to say in the meeting and how I would handle tough questions.

In the next instant I collided with something that only could have been the front end of a truck. Before I knew what hit me, my feet slid out from under me.