My Icy Hot Rebound - Book 1 Boys of Winter series (Sample only)

Chapter 5

Thursday came quickly. Allie and Will exchanged a few texts but little more. His job was to say nothing, just let her lead the way. For nearly a week she'd plotted and come up with the perfect approach.

Allie watched the women file into the boardroom from a nook at the end of the hallway. The women, most clad in high heels with hair done and makeup perfected, gathered in the room. Kyle was standing behind Allie, peering over her shoulder.

"What are we looking for?"

"Nothing. I'm just waiting for Will Cavallo to show up."

"He's actually coming?"

"He said he would."

"How did you manage that?"

"I asked nicely," she said and winked at Kyle.

"You're good at this, Allie."

"Thank you."

Allie had already reminded Will not to be late and when he turned a corner, she smiled and grabbed Kyle's arm. "It's showtime."

Will saw her coming from the opposite direction and nodded. No need to let on anything else. He turned into the boardroom and seconds later so did Allie and Kyle. The women were all talking and didn't notice Will, Allie or Kyle. Allie surveyed and listened as they spoke about their children, summer holidays and the upcoming season. Allie took a seat next to Kyle while Will took one a few seats away.

The mindless conversation continued for a few more minutes until Allie cleared her throat. "Are we going to start the meeting? Who is chairing it?"

The women, most of whom had been standing, turned to look at Allie. A few scowled, but most were confused and one—who Allie presumed to be Tiffani—narrowed her eyes and focused her full attention on Allie.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Allie Stewart. And you are?"

"Tiffani Baker."

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I've been appointed to your committee as the team representative. Kyle and I will be sharing those duties. Tiffani, do you chair the meetings?"

"We don't really have a chair. Our meetings are pretty low key. We don't follow any set rules."

"Who takes minutes?"

"No one."

Allie turned to Kyle. "For the purpose of this meeting, do you mind taking minutes? I can help you with them later, unless someone else here would like to do them," Allie said, scanning the room for volunteers—not that she expected any. By the looks of all the doe-eyed expressions, Allie knew that not only had most of these women never served on a committee before, they wouldn't know where to begin with minutes. Allie suspected that neither did Kyle, but she'd revise them later.

"Seeing no one, Tiffani, I assume you'll chair? Informally, of course."

She sat at the head of the table, flung her mane of yellow-blonde hair over her shoulder and looked around the room. "Well, I guess we can start."

"Kyle's going to need the names of everyone for the minutes."

Her head snapped in Allie's direction. "He can get them later," Tiffani said, trying to keep from sneering.

Allie and Will exchanged looks, both desperately hiding smiles.

"Okay, so we should talk about what we want to do this year. I think we should continue with the gala and the carnival. People love those. For this year's gala, I thought we'd go with the black and white theme. Or old Hollywood. Doesn't that sound fun?"