Business, Not So Casual
One day, Pepper walked out of her office as Kagome almost rudely brushed off a junior executive, one who was commonly touted as a rising star in his division. That wasn't like her at all... "He asking for a date, Kagome?"
She shook her head. "No, he's just persistent. He lies about so much, and even after I told him I knew he was lying, he denied it. Now it seems like its a challenge to get me to believe him."
"He's considered to be very bright and is in line for a major promotion." Pepper squinted at his disappearing form, before going back to her office and motioning for Kagome to follow. After she'd closed the door, she asked, "Is he not as good as he seems?"
Thinking about it while watching Pepper's perpetual motion statuette, she finally said, "He might be great at his job for all I know," Looking up to the older woman, she shrugged. "Some people just can't be truthful, I guess."
Pepper had caught onto the fact that Kagome was excellent at reading people the first day she'd brought her to the office, and now trusted her observations completely. "Hmm. He's scheduled for a presentation later today, can you sit in?"
"Yes. I'll bring my tablet to do my homework on while I listen, if that's okay?" Kagome greatly enjoyed how her homework was all fed into her tablet, thanks to Tony's meddling. It made it so much easier when she didn't have to carry all her books, pencils, and paper around... they were all on the one, very light, purse-sized tablet. Plus she had translation software, dictionaries, reference books, and if all else failed, JARVIS, to help her understand the work.
"That's a good idea. It will either put him off his game, or encourage him to overreach himself." Pepper smiled at Kagome's questioning face. "Wait till you've had a couple of sociology and psychology classes, and you'll understand. Those are imperative classes for serious businessmen, since knowing how people react personally and in groups, and how to read and influence those reactions gives you an edge."
"I think I understand... it's like how I read Inuyasha's body language to know what he was really saying, since the two didn't match." She kept a strict stranglehold on her loneliness without him... and suddenly Pepper covered her face with her hands before looking up again.
"Er, Kagome? Let's not talk about him in the office. I'm so afraid someone is going to see you glowing-"
Kagome looked down, and, yes, she was glowing again. "I guess the excuse that it's because of a visit from a kami or Bodhisattva wouldn't work here."
"Businessmen are the least superstitious people in the world, except when it comes to articles of clothing, so no. Now, here's what we'll be covering..."
~oOo~
As the man in question went over his proposal, Kagome opened a chat with JARVIS. The A.I. hacked the business records of the company he was pushing Pepper to acquire and, on her suggestions, started checking his family records and comparing them to the other business's employee records. Got you, she thought, sending the information she'd found to Pepper and praising JARVIS.
Pepper read her email, and her manner switched to cool and not so personable. "Mr. Carter, this sounds like a wonderful acquisition..." her voice hardened, "but that's all it does. I've seen the current quarterly report and it doesn't match the one you provided. In fact, yours looks very much like one from a year ago."
"Really? My apologies, I must have given the wrong paper to the printers. I have here a copy of the correct report-"
"Can I trust that report," Pepper asked in her pleasant voice, the one she used right before delivering a zing to the idiot who didn't catch on to the falsity in it, "When it's obvious that this is a ploy to get your family out of debt and a failing business off their hands before they lose everything to bankruptcy?"
He paled, swallowing before trying to smooth everything over again. "I'll admit my family has stock-"
"Eighty-one percent of the stock, to be precise." Pepper's lips curved into a predatory smile. "Of which, seventy-seven is currently held by Erik Suna, a bookie to the horse set in Tennessee, until your father's gambling debts are paid. A bit hard for you, since you have your own troubles. JARVIS, please project the so-called evidence Mr. Carter turned over to security two weeks ago, claiming he was being blackmailed."
He really lost the color in his face then, clenching the pen in his hand till it cracked. Pepper put the final nail in his coffin by requesting a letter by his uncle be displayed next to it, the forge obvious. "Building security will be here in a moment to take you to a holding room until the NYPD has the time to come pick you up. Don't worry, we don't want to waste their time, so we'll tell them it isn't an emergency. They'll be here in a few hours, at most."
A shocked young man was conducted out of the room, and the other division heads looked to Pepper. Director of Finance, Harry Langford, asked, "How did you catch that? I've worked with him for weeks, and would have sworn it wasn't in his nature to do something like this."
"I didn't. It was Miss Stark who noticed that he lied too much for an honest up-and-comer, so I had her join us today. Every time she caught one of his tells, she investigated the circumstances he lied about. All the information I presented against him today was gathered by Miss Stark during the meeting."
~oOo~
"Tony, you would have loved seeing her today. She was the only one that caught onto Carter's lies, so today when he introduced plans to acquire a company that was supposedly in the process of manufacturing a paper substitute that would cut their logging needs by forty-two percent, she caught each lie and looked up the facts. Her digging showed a failing company, a non-existent patent, and the fact that Carter's family owned the business, but were losing most their stock to a bookie. The execs love her now."
Tony grinned, looking over to Kagome for a moment. "That's my girl. Maybe she can skip all this schooling and take the position of second-in-command." The glare he got from the both of them made him backtrack and start listing the ivy league universities Kagome might enjoy... two women in a household were definitely trouble for a man!
