The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  “Okay, you four—” He pointed to them and they started. “You move on back to the back of the table there. Eilis, next group, please.” He looked at her then and the only emotion he could determine was a slight hesitance to bring the next flock of lambs to the slaughter.

  The bloodbath continued all day. He was going to dress her down but good when he was done. This was all part of being a CEO and she needed to man up. Not only did she not know people, she had a weak heart for firing and it was part and parcel of human resources.

  Contract after contract had been torn up and he was down to the next level of management. Manager after manager was escorted to the door. No severance. No unemployment. He’d made sure his lawyer was downstairs checking people off as they left and was ready to fight any and all claims. Some he’d lose, but that was okay.

  He’d saved millions of dollars today.

  It was 6:30 p.m. before Sebastian had finished cleaning out the top-heavy corporation. He still had more to go, but those were legally sensitive. They were people who got things done and were not in any way candidates for firing. However, they were unpleasant people to work for and/or with. Sebastian didn’t like morale killers any better than he liked superfluous people.

  By this time, the last few dozen who were questionable or definitely on the block had been sent home to await tomorrow. The remaining employees had been asked to go to the small theater on the second floor that was used for big presentations. He escorted Eilis down there to address them all. He’d just fired two thirds of her employees today and by tomorrow night, he’d have fired three quarters. He didn’t give a fat rat’s ass what Eilis thought about it, either.

  “Tomorrow,” Sebastian boomed to Eilis’s now skeleton crew because he hated microphones; way too officious, “we’re going to further winnow this operation until it’s as clean as can be. However, I need your honest opinions. You’re still here because you’ve proven your worth and I trust what you have to say. As of tonight, none of you have job titles or descriptions, except for Sheila, Michael, Karen, and Conrad—for now. Sheila, you’ll need to continue to serve the customers and keep the hubbub outside these walls to a minimum. Go put your phones on voice mail because you’ve got meetings all this week. Have a good evening.”

  It was 7:30 p.m. before the building was empty except for security.

  “So,” Sebastian said once he and Eilis were back in her office suite and he was putting his things in his backpack, “are you going to yell at me now or wait until you get home and change, then call me to kick my ass?”

  She was quiet, so he looked up to see her at the window staring down at the maze of empty cubicles.

  “Eilis?”

  “Thank you,” she said, so softly he almost thought he’d imagined it.

  He approached her hesitantly. “What’d you say?”

  She cleared her throat and looked over her shoulder, but down at the floor. “I said thank you. It was long overdue three years ago.”

  Color Sebastian shocked. “Well,” he said gruffly, “I would’ve fired you, too, if you weren’t the CEO.”

  “And I’d deserve it.”

  Sebastian wondered how hard to come down on her, since he’d already been down this road and he didn’t like repeating himself. But.

  “You specialize in HR services, Eilis. What kind of image do you present when you can’t manage your own human resources issues? This is your product. It needs to be a model operation. I would suggest you hire someone who can fire people if it makes you that squeamish.”

  She said nothing for a moment. “I didn’t know who to fire, where to start. It got so complex, so out of control. I was going through the trial and trying to keep HRP together at the same time. I couldn’t pay attention to it and I had to trust that they’d at least keep it steady. I didn’t have time to figure it out before Knox put me in receivership and he didn’t ask me if I had a plan before he did it.”

  Oh. Hmm. That explained a lot.

  “I’m curious,” he said softly. “What happened to the ruthless bitch who built this place?”

  Her body didn’t move; she didn’t betray anything. He waited for her to calmly query him as to why he’d been so vulgar. Again.

  “I had to change,” she finally said, still no passion in her voice. “I couldn’t make the deals I really needed to because my reputation preceded me, but I didn’t have enough leverage or power yet to get anything that way.”

  She stopped speaking and Sebastian continued to watch her carefully. “So now you’re a lady of excruciating propriety—very effective weapon, by the way—and somewhere along the line you bought your own act and stopped being a hard ass when you needed to be.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which do you like more?”

  She didn’t reply for a while, then she said, softly, “Some happy medium I can’t figure out how to get to.”

  Sebastian’s fertile mind filled with images of how that would manifest and he couldn’t help his arousal: a blonde bombshell in a little black dress being a completely brilliant businessbitch at the front of a conference room. Yummy.

  “The people you fired today are going to talk.”

  Oh, he supposed he’d let her change the subject. “I know and it’ll hurt HRP’s reputation here in town for a little while, but Wall Street will love it. This ship has to be tight and working like a well-oiled machine with good products before we can take it public.”

  “Please don’t do that to me,” she murmured.

  There went his arousal. “Eilis,” he said harshly, wrapping his hands around her arms and turning her to face him, “do you know why Knox asked me to take this receivership?”

  “I think so.”

  “Uh huh. Well, I’ll save you the embarrassment of being wrong and just tell you. He picked me because he likes you, which, by the way, is very rare so treasure it. I am the only man from Denver to Chicago who can do what he wanted done with this company and not take a piece of it or all of it. He knew this was a salvageable company. He thinks that you’re teachable and cooperative, and he knows how my Fix-or-Raid policy works. So now I want to ask you something: How would you have felt if Fen Hilliard had been appointed your trustee?”

  She stiffened slightly.

  “That’s what I thought. Lucky for you that Knox and I are at war with Fen, but don’t think Fen didn’t try to make an end run around Knox to get this receivership for himself. Knox asked me to do this because Fen won’t dare cross me.”

  Well, that and to give him first pick of the art.

  He had her complete attention and a very queer expression streaked across her face. Considering she never showed emotion when she was in costume and her face makeup hid most of whatever she did show, Sebastian’s gut started to churn, which only meant one thing: The CEO—any CEO—was hiding something from him.

  “Fen tried to get this receivership?” she asked slowly.

  “Yes, he did. He went to a lot of trouble to get it.”

  “And you and Fen aren’t secretly working together?” she asked even more carefully, pulling herself back into character.

  “No.” He released her, though he didn’t really want to. “To answer your question. The alliance that apparently nobody’s figured out is me and Knox.”

  “He really is your attorney?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nobody I know believes that.”

  He grunted. “I don’t know why. The press has made that very clear.”

  “Sebastian, the news changes hour to hour concerning you, Knox, Fen, and OKH. The fact that you don’t talk makes it all very confusing and it makes you look very bad.”

  “So I’ve been told,” he muttered wryly. “Why do you think Senator Oth got off my back?”

  “I assumed you got a publicist.”

  “Mmmm, sort of. That’s Knox’s good ol’ boy off-the-record schtick in action. OKH will be mine whether he fulfills the proviso or not because he’s not interested in it. He—we—just don’t wan
t Fen to have it beyond the date it was promised to Knox. I despise Fen Hilliard.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I always have and I would have taken him down long ago if I’d known Knox didn’t want it.”

  Her reply was immediate. “All right,” she said in a rush. “I’ll agree to the IPO.”

  Sebastian was stunned and very suspicious. As soon as he got to his car, he pulled out his Blackberry and texted Knox: FIND LINK-HRP&OKH

  * * * * *

  42: THEN VACUUM

  The next day was more of the same. He had his employment attorney on hand to tend to the firings of the morale killers, which was billed officially as layoffs for financial reasons; for these, Sebastian wouldn’t fight unemployment. They got severance and their unused vacation and sick pay. No muss, no fuss.

  All in all, he’d done a good job. Out of two hundred fifty employees, seventy-five were left to carry the weight that ninety people could carry around comfortably. The folks who thought fast on their feet and enjoyed doing it would take up the slack.

  Eilis stood at the front of the auditorium to outline Sebastian’s four-point plan, the first point of which Sebastian had done himself, so he sat in the audience with everyone else. The mood was lively and the beach ball someone had brought bounced gaily around the room. Sebastian almost smiled.

  “We have two products,” Eilis began and the shushing commenced, to be followed by the silence of scratching pens and paper. There were no handouts or fancy presentations today, no podiums, no microphones. Just the down and dirty work.

  “We have two products,” she began again, “that are ones we offer as add-ons to the customers who use our services either at their locations or ours: software and psychological screening tests. Both of these are far superior to what is out on the market right now, so we’re going to mass market them.”

  Sebastian was gratified when Karen jumped up, her fists in the air and shouted, “YES!” Everyone laughed and Eilis even smiled. It had been Karen’s idea to present these to the general business marketplace and Eilis had stonewalled her on that.

  “Next, I’m going to sell the art collection, so when you come to work next week and see the bare walls, don’t panic; we haven’t been robbed.”

  And Conrad Fessy, following Karen’s lead, did the same. The mood lightened even more. Sebastian had never seen such a happy bunch of people in his life.

  “Third, we’re taking the company public.”

  The room roared as people jumped up, and the beach ball went flying overhead. Eilis looked at Sebastian, because nobody was paying attention to either of them, and she smiled. Sebastian smiled back.

  “Okay!” Sebastian stood and boomed again after he thought a sufficient time for hilarity had gone by. “Party time later. Work time now.” He flipped the sheaf of papers in his hand and began passing them out, with pencils. It took a while for everyone to settle back down, but the settling went quick once the screening tests began to go down the rows.

  Eilis began again. “Today we’re going to do something we’ve never done before. We’re going to re-administer the screening test. I know that at least one of you has beaten this test—”

  Sebastian and Karen exchanged a glance and he winked at her because her paranoia was showing again.

  “—so that leads me to believe that a good percentage of you might have also. What I want you to do is answer honestly. You are here because you’re the cream of the crop, but if you don’t answer honestly, it will mean your job. I won’t be able to tell, but Sebastian assures me he will know who is faking and who is not—and at this point, I believe it.

  “I’ll tell you up front that what we’re looking for are the personality traits to best match your interests with the work that needs to be done, how much work it will take to keep you interested and engaged, and what your weaknesses might be. It’s in your best interest to answer as honestly as possible. We—Sebastian and I—want to make HRP a fun place to work.

  “We’ll score these this afternoon and assign job duties tomorrow. Right now, our most pressing need is to staff and service the clients we have. Sheila, you’ll be on point for that. Business as usual outside this building. And Sheila—” She looked straight at Sheila.

  Good for you, Eilis.

  “—you have a free hand and an open checkbook. You also have first pick of staff.”

  Sheila’s eyes grew big as saucers and Sebastian smirked.

  The IT department required no changes. The CIO ran it the way he saw fit because his way worked. Even Eilis could see that. She only had to tell him what she wanted when she wanted it and somehow it always happened. So she did.

  “Michael, the HRP Full Management System needs a small business version with a thirty-day free trial lockout. I want a beta in six months.”

  “Okay.” That was all he said. It was all he had to say.

  “With regard to the mass marketing of the screening tests outside our client base: I will be contracting with a psychologist to restructure the scoring, which I hope will happen some time in the next month. After that, we’ll begin the process of reprogramming our scoring software and then we’ll begin distributing it. Karen—”

  Sebastian could see that Karen, still paranoid, held her breath. Too bad Sebastian hadn’t been able shake that out of her.

  “Karen, I would like you to work on the marketing campaign or campaigns for both the test and the software while they are in development so that by the time they’re launched, we will have saturated the market. You may put any other marketing schemes into place as you see fit. And, like Sheila, you have a free hand, an open checkbook, and second pick of staff or, in the alternative, you may hire at will. You won’t need my approval for anything.”

  Karen gulped and even from across the room, Sebastian could see the tears.

  “Sebastian has given us one year to be in the black and pumping money through here like adrenaline before we start the IPO process. The rest of the week will be devoted to rearranging staff, applying new titles that mean something, and giving out raises across the board.”

  There was a collective gasp and the delighted murmurings began.

  “Monday, you’ll all start working like fiends to get the money flowing. Today, lunch is on me and you have the afternoon off.”

  * * * * *

  That done, Eilis, feeling very good about life in general, went to Sebastian with a smile. “Thank you,” she said and watched as his face softened and he smiled back at her.

  “You’re welcome, Eilis.”

  “Now, about that vacation . . . ”

  His face didn’t change at all, but his body tensed and his eyes took on the same definite chill she’d seen Monday when he was slicing and dicing. “After the auction,” he said tersely. “It’s set for February fifth. I’m sorry, Eilis, but you’re needed here and after Friday, I won’t be. I’ll come in every Friday at three to see how things are going, but I need to get back to my own projects.”

  Eilis felt like she’d just been sent to the principal’s office, though she wasn’t really sure why, and she swallowed. “Okay.”

  “I’ll go collect the tests and then put them through the scoring machine myself,” he said as he turned and strode up the aisle to pick up the papers. He was waylaid more than a few times by handshakes, thanks, and hugs. Eilis almost teared up when Karen gave him the biggest hug of all and he returned it, genuinely, honestly, and for a long time.

  Then he strode out of the theater without a backward glance at her, leaving her a lot unhappier than she had been just minutes before.

  * * * * *

  Vacation. So she could find Ford. So Ford could paint her. So Ford could fuck her—oh, ’scuse him—make love to her.

  Sebastian was getting very, very tired of Ford. He was getting the definite impression that there would be no competing with Ford at all.

  As usual.

  She had her little fantasy, fed by her ownership of Morning in Bed. She probably gazed at that damn
ed painting as she went to sleep and then saw it first thing when she woke up, and nothing was going to get in the way of the Ford she’d created in her mind.

  He wanted to tell her she couldn’t keep it. Letting her keep it had been the worst miscalculation of his career, he was quite sure, but he didn’t want her to know that he was jealous of a man who didn’t exist.

  He locked the door of the scoring room because he didn’t want to talk to her, see her, touch her and know that he had no chance with her.

  For the rest of the afternoon he fed the tests into the machine one by one and collated the results sheets. It was something mindless he could do that was productive and would still allow him to brood.

  * * * * *

  43: THE SHIT HITS THE FEN

  SEPTEMBER 2006

  “Well, your mother was rather accepting of it, all in all,” Bryce murmured.

  “I told you she’d love you. I noticed Hale was civil to Knox and thanks for inviting Kevin.”

  “Did you invite Ashworth and LaMontagne?”

  “Yes. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  “They couldn’t believe how sensible I was as to my choice of mate, so they wanted to come see for themselves and make sure I said ‘I do.’ I think Morgan would’ve had a gun in my back if I’d hesitated in the least.”

  Bryce chuckled and looked at the sheer numbers of people in his—and now Giselle’s—house. The “Dunham Tribe” had invited itself over for an impromptu party once it made it through the grapevine that Giselle would be getting married on Friday. Bryce didn’t know which fact had shocked them more: That she was getting married at all, that it wasn’t to Knox, or that she had “managed to find the sweetest-smelling rose in the flower shop.” Bryce still found Ashworth’s congratulatory spiel before the wedding hilarious.

  Even though he’d spent years hearing about Knox’s enormous yet close-knit family and Giselle had predicted that her family would know Bryce by name and reputation, that they would welcome him with open arms, he hadn’t believed it. He couldn’t imagine a family like the one they’d described, but then her prediction had come true. This sense of belonging, of family, of across-the-board approval—it had never occurred to him to fantasize about having that for himself, to wish for it. He had never had any hope of belonging to a family like this in his entire life. Lilly, Giselle’s mother, who seemed to understand Giselle a whole lot better than Giselle thought she did, had the potential to be every man’s dream mother-in-law.