I gritted my teeth at more bullshit from the team of lawyers who were too highly paid to hurl that level of crap my way.
Maybe Mandelson saw my displeasure because his jaw tensed. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Mr. Astley. There simply isn’t enough proof right now. If we fire her, then we’re leaving ourselves wide open to a lawsuit.”
“I knew that already without having to waste forty minutes on this meeting,” I snapped. “I want you to find evidence.”
“Rhode covers her tracks too well.”
“How can she? She’s the least discreet person going. Two men have approached HR about her. Two. What are we supposed to do? Just turn a blind eye and let other people be attacked?” I shook my head. “Not on my watch.”
“If we’re not careful, we could trigger a #MeToo movement in the publishing industry,” my CFO, Lewis, grumbled.
“If it needs triggering,” Lizzie, my EA, muttered at my side, “then it needs triggering.”
“Can you imagine the scandal?” Lewis continued. “Either way, we need to figure out a way of keeping a lid on this.”
I wasn’t so bothered about the lid, more about the people she was targeting. Around this table, however, with my board of directors in place, I was well aware that meant less than our profit margins.
This matter was only not being swept under the carpet because of me. Rhode was too infamously famous, too big to try to take down. Everyone knew that, knew her brother was a tried-and-tested litigator who’d have her back no matter the fight, and he was just one of the Rhodes who worked in the family law firm.
I shot Lizzie a look, saw her temper was on the brink of exploding, and I arched a brow at her, warning her to keep a handle on her anger. She was the coolest, most rational member of my staff, but this was personal.
She’d helped get her brother a job at the company, and she blamed herself for what happened.
Like it was her fault Rhode was a sexual predator.
She was the only reason I even knew about any of this. Her brother had triggered a whole investigation and he wasn’t around to know that we were trying to stop someone else from being attacked.
Rubbing my eyes, I ground out, “Lewis, what you’re saying is that you’d like me to drop this because it might trigger a scandal? Isn’t it more of a scandal in the making if Astley Publishing knowingly protects a rapist? Only the fact that Lizzie knows I will see this through to the end has stopped her family from going to the press—”
“Her NDA prevents—” my CIO, Nuñez, started to grind out.
“Shut your mouth, Louellen,” I snapped back, aware that Lizzie was bristling at my side. I wouldn’t put it past her to hurl her coffee over the executive seated opposite. “Her family isn’t under any obligation to keep quiet about this. They can go to the press about what Robert went through at any time.”
Under the table, I reached over and grabbed Lizzie’s hand. Squeezing her fingers tightly, hoping to give her some strength, I watched as Nuñez sputtered, “Why would they want to bring shame on their family?”
“Shame?” My eyes widened at her. “Louellen, I’d watch your mouth if I were you. You’re an executive, and you worked hard to get here, but I’m more than capable of sending you off on a three-year-long course to become a human again.
“The only shame here is on Rhode. And then on us for not fucking finding a way to get her out of the company before she does it again.” I couldn’t help but think of Micah who was working under Rhode at that moment... Maybe that turned my tone gnarlier, nastier, because I snapped, “Mandelson, I don’t care how many detectives you have on this case. I want results. Now. Within the week minimum. I need something that will let us toss her out without leaving us open to a lawsuit.
“Lewis, you’re going to open the bank accounts to let Mandelson have the funds he needs to bankroll this, and none of you are going to bitch about it.”
The lawyer dipped his chin. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You won’t ‘see’ anything. You’ll act. I want that evidence.”
Killian, my COO who was the head of the HR department, said, “I’ve already opened the files up to your people, Mandelson. Surely there’s something in there. Two men have come forward but there have to be more.”
I cast him a scornful look. His earnestness was founded in his department being the one behind the major fuck up. “There must have been employees who left abruptly—”
“You do know Rhode, don’t you?” Lewis asked, snorting all the while like a hiccupping pig. “Everyone quits eventually.”
“Some more abruptly than others, surely?” I argued.
Mandelson murmured, “That’s actually one of the issues. It’s a large department, and the turnover of staff within it is quite high. Each abrupt resignation needs to be investigated.”
“Something’s not right in her department. You had better find out what.” I worked my jaw. “Now I’ve authorized you to spend more money on this, we need answers. Quickly.”
Shoving back from the table, I got to my feet and stormed off without another word.
Lizzie, the only assistant in attendance, scuttled after me as I strode toward my office. Sadie, quite smartly, kept her head down so as not to catch my attention even if I’d already spotted her.
There was nothing that irritated me more than dealing with a bunch of whining executives. My father would approve of them and their putting the company first, but that wasn’t how I wanted it to be here.
Maybe, just maybe, the personal connection to this made it harder on me than it would usually be. Yes, that made me a bastard, but Lizzie had worked with me for twelve years, and she’d been one of my most loyal members of staff. To think that her brother had killed himself over someone in my employ was something I was finding difficult to handle.
Somehow, she had kept her shit together. Somehow, she managed to deal with Rhode. I knew she was waiting on the day the bitch was fired, and that was when salt would be rubbed in the wound, but if I couldn’t give her that, she’d leave.
The fallout from that was something the board weren’t quite capable of calculating.
Dickheads.
Shoving a hand over my head, I rubbed the back of my neck as I aimed for the bank of windows where I’d fucked Micah. Because that broke my train of thought, I calmed down some—what memory of an epic orgasm wouldn’t be like a fast-acting Prozac?—but was still pissed enough to mutter, “Surely Robert had some texts or something. You’re sure you can’t get into his computer?”
“He locked it up tight. You know that,” she grumbled, plopping back and falling onto the sofa. Her head tilted against the cushions and she watched me stride back and forth in an attempt to burn off my irritation.
What pissed me off the most was that I’d hand-picked my executives. They were my selections. Before this situation, I’d have said they were damn good at their jobs. Now, I questioned my own humanity if they could so easily dismiss an employee’s suicide because of one of our VPs.
The thought had me turning to her and, abruptly, muttering, “I’m sorry, Lizzie. I’m so fucking sorry about all this.”
Her gaze softened on me as she started to turn her wedding ring, fiddling with it instead of wringing Rhode’s neck, I assumed. “You’re trying, Devlin. That’s all I could ask.”
“Is it fuck,” I grumbled. “I want answers, and I’ll get them. Not just for you, but for Robert. He deserves that goddamn much.”
“You paid for his funeral, his healthcare costs...” She shrugged. “My family couldn’t have afforded that. You’ve done plenty. This isn’t all on you, Devlin.”
Those costs had been a drop in the ocean, but it was blood money. Plain and simple.
I sliced a hand through the air. “By the end of the year, she’ll be out. I promise you that.”
Her lips twitched. “I’ll take comfort in that when I want to throat punch Nuñez.”
“Who the fuck could blame you? I felt like doing the same when she was
all po-faced and looking constipated in that damn boardroom. Spouting scandals at me. Those idiots are so near-sighted it’s a joke. If they didn’t learn from the recent past then they’re not as well suited for their positions as I thought they were when I promoted them.”
“I warned you about Lewis,” she chided, but she was getting to her feet once more, her phone back in hand as she peered at her messages.
When a frown creased her brow, I asked, “Everything okay?”
“James has got a fever. Michael’s had to pick him up from school.”
I grimaced. “Sorry, Lizzie. If you need to go, go,” I told her, well aware that the reason Michael had picked their son James up was because she’d had her phone switched off during that fucker of a meeting.
She shook her head. “He’s taking the afternoon off. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave earlier than usual, though?”
“Of course I don’t mind.” My lips twisted. “Give the little shit a gift from me, eh? Cheer him up? Does he still love that Japanese thing?”
She snorted. “You mean Pokémon?”
Eyes glinting, I told her, “That’s the one.”
“I dread to think of you with children, Devlin,” she said dryly.
“Me too!” was my heartfelt reply.
Her phone buzzed. “You have a meeting in ten minutes with Frida Henson,” she reminded me.
I pulled a face. “Do I really need to? For God’s sake, it’s a waste of time. She wants to use her own editors and that’s not in the contract.”
“Her last three books topped the New York Times bestseller list,” Lizzie said wryly. “I think it’s gone to her head.” She waggled her phone. “Just appease her. Tell her she can use whichever in-house editor she wants. It isn’t our fault she pisses them off by going so close to the wire we’re almost late for printing.
“Don’t threaten her though. You know what she’s like. Thinks she’s Frida Kahlo reincarnated. The last thing we need is her doing some kind of goddamn demonstration in front of Astley Tower.”
My lips twitched. “Painting the floor red with the lifeblood spilled from her art? That would almost be worth watching. Better than the crap she writes. How that shit does well is beyond me.”
“Your wallet appreciates it, so does mine,” was her rueful retort. “I have some meetings of my own. Do you need anything before I go?”
I wafted a hand, which had her nodding. She twisted on her heel, headed to the door, but before she left, I murmured, “Lizzie?”
“Yes, Devlin?” she asked, peering at me from over her shoulder.
“We’ll get Robert justice. I promise.”
Her smile was gentle. “I believe you.”
Then she left, and the guilt and the irritation and the shame morphed into one big lump of anger that had me hurling the dish that sat quite inoffensively on the console table at the back of the couch across the room.
The ensuing crash was quite satisfying, but not enough to drain away the feeling of impotence.
This was my company, and this was my roof. That a predator stalked its halls and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it, legally, pissed me the hell off.
The chipped remnants were as still as Robert had been when he’d been found at his desk here. I’d seen the pictures. Had known why he’d done it.
To make a stand, because nobody had listened to him.
He hadn’t taken Rhode’s attack to Lizzie, had gone to HR. They’d done fuck all—which was why Killian had spoken up today. He felt bad for the lack of action on his division’s part. As well as HR’s decision to refrain from mentioning any of this to me, so I’d had to find out by myself.
When Robert had been made to work with his rapist, when nothing had been done, he’d come to a decision of his own—had decided to take a stand.
Which was why, the same day as he’d heard back from HR, a few days after the police had told him he was too late to report the assault because his bloodwork showed no signs of his being drugged, he’d slashed his wrists, puddling his small cubicle with his lifeblood.
Mouth twisting with sorrow, I stared down at the destroyed plate and felt like doing the same with my phone when it buzzed in my pocket.
If it was one of my execs, I probably would have hurled it across the room too. Instead, it was Micah.
Micah: Are we still on for tonight?
That he wasn’t the one canceling came as a surprise. Last night had been a farce, on top of two other farces.
Apparently, I wasn’t good at dating.
Because my mood was so sour, I was tempted to cancel. When I was on my best behavior, I was terrible company. So in this frame of mind, I wouldn’t exactly be considered fun.
Yet... the prospect of going back to my empty apartment, of eating by myself, of drinking in my living room alone, of heading to a vacant bed, none of that sat well with me either.
Me: We’re still on.
I scraped a hand over my jaw as I wondered whether I should warn him. I didn’t want him to think he was to blame for my shit mood, a thought which had me shaking my head. What this young guy did to me, making me worry about stupid shit like that was almost enough to piss me off.
I didn’t like being reminded that I was human. I sat here in my lofty tower, drifting from this one to my home one, and in between, attending parties and events and galas with other people in their own glass houses. Untouchable. By choice.
This situation with Robert had first proved to me that I wasn’t a robot. Especially when I bitched about my board’s lack of empathy, which was the exact reason I’d hired them.
I’d known Lizzie was important to me—she helped run my life, after all. But I hadn’t realized how much I could feel her pain. Twelve years of loyal service and I’d never considered her a friend.
Until now.
And I’d never been so fucking scared of failing a friend, not just because I knew a lack of resolution with Rhode would prompt her to resign, but because I didn’t want to fail in this. I couldn’t fail.
Then there was Micah. Further reminding me I was human. With peculiar wants and needs. It was bloody irritating.
So, because of that, I added:
Me: I’ve had a shit day at work.
Micah: Maybe I can cheer you up?
I doubted it.
His text had me pulling a face.
I knew myself too well to think that he could.
Me: That you want to try is enough.
There, that wasn’t offensive, was it?
Micah: Challenge accepted. Maybe we can get you to relax tonight.
I crinkled my nose at his astuteness.
Me: If wine and brandy don’t do it, I’m not sure what will.
Micah: How about a ‘welcome home’ fuck?
My eyes drifted to half-mast as I read his message, while my dick drifted to full.
I’d been good the last couple days. Tried not to treat him like a piece of meat, even though I wanted nothing more than to be inside him every fucking minute I was with him.
See? Peculiar. Fucking peculiar.
I wanted to be in him, on him, under him.
All the goddamn time.
It was discomforting to be so horny when one was approaching forty. I felt like a teenager again, and combine that with these adolescent feelings of having a crush on a man who was sixteen years my junior, was it any wonder my world was so turbulent right now?
Me: If that’s on the cards, I won’t say no.
It wasn’t what I wanted to say, but it’d do.
Micah: I’ll look forward to cheering you up then.
Me: Me too.
I grunted, because I wanted to say more. So much fucking more. But at the risk of looking like a fool, I refrained.
Me: I’ll see you later. Gian will pick you up at eight.
Micah: Great. See you soon.
I was still pissed off—he wasn’t a miracle worker. My heart definitely felt lighter though. Which should probably have terrified me,
and to a certain extent it did, but I’d take what I could get after that fucker of a meeting. Better a lighter heart than a perforated ulcer.
Fourteen
Micah
The day had been a long one.
Cassandra had dumped more work than usual on my desk, and even though I could have complained, it wasn’t like she was seated behind her computer, filing her nails. She was frantic, working as hard as me if not more on Rhode’s workload. Plus, she had to deal with the bitch herself.
I was near enough to Cassandra’s desk to have heard Rhode’s cutting remarks on a report she’d completed last night, and I’d seen the EA struggle to hide her pinched cheeks and wet eyes before she fled for the ladies’ restroom.
The Marketing team was forty-strong, but it wasn’t enough to deal with the outpouring of work that came out of Rhode’s office. I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed at the powerhouse that was the VP or overwhelmed.
She’d been behind the ‘A Book A Day’ campaign, which, since 2015, had set Astley Publishing on a trend that saw nearly every single one of their new releases hitting a bestseller list. Because of that, we’d done so many case studies on her in college that it was an honor to work under her.
But emulating her? Becoming like her in the future? That wasn’t something I wanted.
Her success was another matter, but if success came at the cost of making everyone under her miserable, I wasn’t sure if it was worth it.
Maybe work was always miserable, and maybe I hadn’t been in a workplace environment for long enough, but I couldn’t believe that. It’d be too depressing for words.
This place was supposed to be a creative hive, where people came together and brainstormed ideas, crafted concepts that would take a product to the next level.
Where rough gems were polished and turned into fancy diamonds, then packaged in rings and necklaces with a price tag that was ten times the original value.
Here, we weren’t encouraged to be creative. Rhode got to do all that, and then she just sent her orders off for everyone else to see through.
Maybe that was normal, but it was disappointing if that was the case.
The Intern: An MM Office Romance Page 10