I smiled. “Did you see the spread in the Times?”
“You look good in blue.”
“He bought that for me.”
Lesley came around the barriers between our two cubicles and leaned against my desk. “How long have you been seeing him?”
“Since Wednesday.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
Lesley pulled her phone out of her pocket and handed it to me once she’d pulled up what she wanted.
“I suppose if I’d jumped out of a cake, he might have fallen right into bed with me, too.”
There was another picture of Jason and me, one of us leaving the party Friday night. I was staring up at him as he was helping me into the limo. I didn’t even realize there was a photographer nearby at that point. I guess I’d just gotten used to the flash of their cameras.
The headline said:
Jason Brooks Meets New Lover When She Jumps Out of Cake for Him!
The article basically stated that I was inside a cake someone had given Jason for his birthday and that we ended up in bed almost the moment I popped out. It implied that I was chosen because I was his type and he’d been too busy lately to find his own women. Like the person who paid for the cake and the birthday telegram was a pimp procuring sex for him.
I felt like I needed a shower after reading it.
“Is that really all it took to get him in bed?”
My face began to burn.
“It wasn’t like that, Lesley.”
“Yeah, well, you certainly aren’t the person I always assumed you were.”
She got up and went back to her own cubicle without saying another word.
Moments later, Mrs. Constantine did her regular check, making sure we were all at our desks as we were supposed to be. When she came to my cubicle, she paused. “I’d like to see you in my office, Ms. Forman.”
I immediately stood and followed her back down the hallway. The last time I’d gone to her office like this, I was hauled away by the police to answer questions. I had no idea what would be at the end of this particular walk.
She pushed open her door and motioned for me to go inside. Then she came around her desk, leaving the door open.
“I understand that you were helping with the investigation into some missing money?”
“The police just had a few questions.”
Mrs. Constantine pressed her fingers together, making a teepee of them, as many men do when they’re concentrating. I tried not to look as nervous as I felt.
“We’ve had multiple complaints about your behavior recently, Ms. Forman. And I have no idea who might have been involved in this theft and who wasn’t. So, I’m afraid, I must take certain actions to ensure that our department is sound.”
I inclined my head slightly. “I understand that Mr. Brooks—”
“Please don’t pretend you know something about the management of this company because you have a personal relationship with the CEO.”
I felt my face begin to burn. Mrs. Constantine seemed to take small consolation from that fact.
“You’re fired, Ms. Forman. Please collect your things and leave the premises.”
“You can’t fire me.”
“I can—and I just did.” She smiled softly. “You’re more than welcome to go upstairs and speak to upper management about this, but I believe Mr. Brooks is in a meeting with the DA at the moment.”
I just nodded. What more could I do.
I went back to my desk and grabbed a few personal photos that were sitting on the desk and a hole punch I brought from home. A year and that was pretty much the extent of my “things.”
I could feel people watching me as I walked toward the elevators. Even Lesley. Even though I knew I would never be able to work here again no matter what happened next—no one would trust me—I was sad. I’d liked working here.
And I liked the big paychecks.
Chapter 22
Jason
“Both parties have agreed to the plea deal.”
“Five years’ probation and retribution.”
The DA, a tall woman with thick, black hair, nodded. “We feel it’s a suitable punishment for the crime. One of the men never even saw any of the money.”
I nodded. “Works for me.”
“The only problem we see is that Mr. Thomas claims it will take time for him to be able to cut a check. We’ve given him a month. After that time, we will reevaluate the situation and see where we stand.”
“If he doesn’t return the money by then?”
“He will have gone back on the plea deal and we will proceed to court.”
Shelly and walked out of the office a few minutes later. She was looking at her phone, scrolling through God knew what. It seemed she was always on her phone, even more so than I was. I didn’t think much of it. In fact, I was a little busy thinking about Joanne. So, when she stopped and mumbled something quite unladylike under her voice, I looked sharply at her.
“You’re not going to like this,” she said.
“What?”
She turned her phone around so that I could see the screen. It was another of those blog posts. This one was about Joanne jumping out of a cake for me on my birthday.
“Shit,” I hissed under my breath.
I had my own phone out as I walked out of the building, my brother’s number dialed.
“Have you seen this gossip blog?” he asked me as he answered the phone.
“Who else knew about the cake besides you and Sara?”
“The company I hired. The girl and her bodyguard.”
“Who is talking?”
“I don’t know, brother,” Justin said. “But, is it really that big of a deal? It’s just a blog, for goodness sakes.”
“It’s a blog that millions of people read.”
“Millions of people who unlikely include Mom and Dad’s friends, so who cares?”
“I care. Joanne cares.”
“Is that what this is about? That girl? You can’t tell me that this isn’t more than a fling.”
I hung up rather than risk losing my temper. Then I called my lawyer.
I’d had enough of this crap.
We got back to the office, and there were a dozen applicants for the creative supervisor’s job waiting in the lobby. A few of them tried to stop me on the way to the elevator. I made note of those and had Shelly strike them from the list. I didn’t need someone who thought they were above the rest of the applicants.
Interviews were not my favorite thing. I normally left this sort of thing to the head of human resources. But with everything that had been going on lately, that no longer seemed like a good idea.
Half dozen interviews later and I was beginning to rethink my choices.
“This is ridiculous,” I said to Shelly. “None of these people seem to have a single idea what it is I’m trying to do here. And the rest seem to resent my desire to be involved in the changes in the department.”
“It’s not unusual to have to dig through crap to find a diamond.”
I just shook my head again, even if the image Shelly had conjured was quite amusing.
Another couple more interviews and I was ready to concentrate on something else.
“Why don’t you send up the supervisors from accounting? I should discuss the changes I want to make down there with them as soon as possible.”
“What about the other applicants?”
“Tell them to come back after lunch.”
I settled back behind my desk, wondering if Joanne would mind if I called downstairs and invited her up for lunch. She was worried about how the others would respond to our sort of public coming out on Friday. If I invited her upstairs, it could go two ways. Either people would finally understand and stop whispering about her behind her back, or it would just make the gossip worse. Either way, I didn’t really care. I wanted to see her.
I picked up the phone, but Shelly was back at
my door.
“One more applicant. She’s insisting that you see her now because she doesn’t have time to come back later.”
I groaned, but I told her to show the woman in. I guess I’d just have to call Joanne later.
And I was kind of glad I had decided to go ahead and see her. She was a graduate of Georgetown, and she had an extensive background in management. None of the other applicants knew half of what I was talking about when I asked questions, but this woman did. And some of her ideas were brilliant.
“The creative teams should have less access to the clients. A supervising team should deal with the clients, leaving the creative people more time to be creative. That’s the way it’s done in larger companies, a division between administrative work and creative work.”
“And what about the client’s needs. How does the creative team know exactly what the client wants if they don’t meet?”
“Oh, they’ll meet. But only after most of the administrative stuff is out of the way. It’s like going to the doctor. You deal almost exclusively with the office staff before you even see the doctor. That way all the business stuff is out of the way and the doctor only needs to deal with the health side of things.”
It wasn’t mind boggling, but it made a hell of a lot of sense.
We talked for quite a while, forcing the accounting staff to wait much longer than I intended for them to, but it only seemed fair. All this mess had taken me away from my own business for the better part of a week now. Make them wait.
I finally shook the applicant’s hand and walked her to the door.
“I will call you as soon as a decision is made, Ms. Walters.”
She smiled up at me. “You personally? Aren’t I a lucky girl?”
I smiled, not one to ignore a bit of good flirting. But my mind was already floating back to Joanne as I turned and focused on the three supervisors who were waiting for my attention.
Lunch. Food. Good company.
I was looking forward to it.
“Goodbye, Ms. Walters.”
Shelly moved up beside me as I turned back into my office.
“Mrs. Constantine was wondering if she could have a moment of your time before you speak to the others.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think it’ll make any difference. But show her in.”
I settled back into my office chair and flipped through the emails on my phone as I waited. There was a text, and I was about to click it when the door opened. A tall, dark woman with a severe expression on her face came into the room.
“Mr. Brooks,” she said, her tone just as severe as her face.
“How can I help you?”
“I wanted to make sure you understand why I took the action I did this morning. There has been a lot going on in our department these last few weeks, and I thought it would be best to get ahead of it now, before things could get any worse.”
“What things would that be?”
“I believe there have been thefts from our department using a flaw in the software. And, I believe, that you are aware of this.”
“I am.” I frowned as I studied her face, interested now in what she had to say. “How long have you been aware?”
She shook her head. “Just a few days. I spoke with Ms. Forman, and she informed me of what you’d asked her to look at here in your office last week. From that, I put two and two together.”
I nodded, remembering how easy it had seemed for Joanne, too. She explained it to me as if I should have understood, too, but I didn’t. All I knew was that there was a fault in our accounting software—and that was enough to allow Frank to take advantage of the lack of oversight in that department. That was going to change. That was why I’d asked this woman—what was her name again?—and her fellow supervisors up to my office.
“This morning’s actions were a proactive response to that information. I thought you’d want to reorganize things, remove potential threats.”
“Action? What action?”
“As acting head of accounting, I fired Ms. Forman.”
I sat back, shock taking the breath out of my lungs for a moment.
“I realize there is some sort of relationship between you and Ms. Forman,” she continued, as though I’d not reacted at all, “but I felt that the risk to the company was too great. She understood the flaw. She could have done something very similar to what Mr. Thomas had done.”
“Can I ask you something?”
The woman shrugged. “Of course.”
“Who made you acting head of accounting?”
She looked baffled for a moment. “Well, I am the assistant director. So, naturally, I just assumed…”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you should never assume anything?”
Before she could respond, I gestured toward the door as if I was chastising a bad pet.
“Get out.”
“But, Mr. Brooks, you told me you would—”
“If you really wanted to head off a theft, you should have stopped Frank Thomas from stealing thousands over the last six months.” I stood, nearly knocking over my chair as I did. “Get the hell out of my office.”
She was clearly flustered, her face beet red as she stared at me. But she did stand and start for the door.
“And tell the rest of those idiots out there that you’re all fired. Every damn one of you should have seen what was happening. Every one of you should have done something to stop it. So, you’re gone. I’m done with this incompetent bullshit!”
The color was completely gone from her face, as she hesitated at the door.
“But I—”
“Get out!”
Chapter 23
Joey
I walked into the apartment less than an hour after I left it and immediately began dragging ingredients out of the kitchen cupboards. Baking relaxes me. It helps me think through problems. And this was definitely a problem.
How was I going to pay off my debt if I didn’t have my job at JB Graphics? How was I going to pay my rent? My tips at Nico’s were good, but this apartment was a two-bedroom townhouse. The rent was twice what I took home in tips every Friday night. I’d have to move if I couldn’t find another accounting job.
And that was before I let myself think about what this meant with Jason.
Had he put Mrs. Constantine up to firing me? Nothing happened at JB Graphics without Jason’s knowledge. At least, that’s what everyone thought. Was that not true? I mean, there was that whole theft and everything. So maybe he didn’t know everything. But surely HR had known what Mrs. Constantine was up to? Wouldn’t they have informed him?
If he was going to fire me, why didn’t he give me a heads up?
I tossed some butter into a bowl and turned on the electric mixer. The sound drowned out my thoughts for a moment, but not for long. A few eggs, some vanilla. Then some cocoa. I tossed in a little cinnamon, too, for that kick all our customers seemed to like. In minutes, I had the start of a good cupcake batter. Maybe I’d call Rahul over, let him help eat these things before they all went to my hips.
I wanted to think that Jason didn’t know. I wanted to think this was all a mistake. But was it? Really?
Was I just some sort of fling for him? Were all those posts on that stupid blog true? Was he just slumming? Would he get bored and go looking for someone else sometime down the road?
I don’t know what worried me the most, that he knew that I was going to be fired and he was afraid to tell me, or that he was just using me and really didn’t care that I needed this job desperately.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked up, surprised to find Rosie standing in the middle of the living room in a bathrobe.
“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at Jackson’s?”
“We had a fight, so I came home a little after midnight.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“I would have let you know I was here, but when I went to your door, it sounded like you were busy.”
�
��Yeah, well, not anymore.”
Rosie tilted her head. “Why are you home?”
“I got fired.”
“But I thought you were sleeping with the boss.”
I turned away, shoving a couple of trays of cupcakes into the oven.
“Apparently that doesn’t give you job security.”
“I’m sorry, Joey.”
I shrugged. “I’ll find another job. But, until then, we might want to take in a few more cake orders.”
She came around the counter and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. I have some money in my savings account.”
“I don’t want your money, except for your half of the rent.”
“Joey, you have to let me help. I know you’re still working on those student loans—”
“I’m fine, Rosie. Don’t worry about it.”
I turned back to the mixer and started another batch. Rosie watched for a while, then she headed toward the stairs. “I better get into the shower and go to class, or I’ll stay here and help eat those cupcakes—and that won’t be good for any of us.”
I smiled, but the smile faded quickly as I turned back to the cupcakes.
There was a knock on the door a while later. I was so lost in baking that I didn’t hear it at first. But I figured it was probably Rahul—he was always stopping by to hang out with Rosie, even when they didn’t have a job—so I called for him to come in.
It was Jason.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, as I carefully scraped more batter into still more cupcake tins.
“I didn’t know,” he said simply, holding up his hands where I could see them. “I swear.”
I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure what to say. But then he came around the counter and ran his hand slowly down my back.
“Really, Joanne, I didn’t know.”
I pulled away. “It’s your company.”
“Yeah. So I fired that woman and everyone else in a supervisory role in your department.”
I glanced at him. “You fired Mrs. Constantine?”
“Of course. She thought she was shoe-in for the head of the department. That’s why she fired you, supposedly to prevent you from putting two and two together and stealing from the company yourself. It never occurred to her that I could have used the same excuse to fire her, if I hadn’t already been planning on doing it anyway.”
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